Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c2.40

c2.40

If this conclusion be right, then the Hindus of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. must have had a nearly accurate knowledge of the length of the solar year, the amount of error being only one day in 76 years. It seems to me, therefore, not improbable that a fairly accurate adaptation of the cycle of Jupiter to the reckoning of the solar year may be as old as the time of the Indo-Scythians, who made use of the Macedonian calendar in their inscriptions. Of course this is not a proof that the reckoning of the Arya and Surya Siddhântas was in use at so early a period. But it is, in my opinion, a very strong argument that a nearly accurate reckoning must already have been adopted.