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Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c5: Ancient Indian Modes of Reckoning Time

Book of Indian Eras, with Tables for Calculating Indian Dates c5

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English

Ancient Indian Modes of Reckoning Time

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THE natural divisions of time—years, months, and days—have, in all ages, been determined by the motions of the sun and moon. In India the day was reckoned from sunrise to sunrise; the month, from one moon to another moon; and the year, from the beginning of one season until its return.

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The most ancient year probably consisted of 360 days, which approximated roughly to twelve revolutions of the moon and one of the sun. In one of the hymns of the Rig Veda the sun's annual course through the heavens is described as his *twelve-spoked wheel*.* The 360 days, with as many nights, are called his 720 children. In another part of the same hymn the sun's annual course is somewhat differently described: "The felloes are 12, the wheel is 1, 3 are the axles: within it are collected 360 spokes."† Here the spokes represent the number of days; the axles are the three seasons of Heat, Rain, and Cold; and the 12 felloes are the 12 months.

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† Wilson's Rig Veda, II, 143; and also II, 131.

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But the great difference of 11 days between 12 lunations and 1 revolution of the sun must soon have led to the establishment of the old cycle of 5 solar years and 62 lunations. Taking the solar year at 365¼ days, and the moon's revolution at 29½ days, the 5 solar years would have been 1826¼ days, while the 62 lunations would have been 1829 days. The difference of 2¾ days in the lustrum of 5 years would have made a yearly difference of upwards of half a day. The five years consisted of three ordinary years of 12 lunar months, and of two years, the 2nd and 5th, each with an intercalary, or thirteenth month.

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∗ So also in the Surya Siddhânta, xii, 19, Varâha Mihira speaks of the year as a ‘wheel.’

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This intercalary, or thirteenth month, is very plainly alluded to in the Rig Veda,* where Varuna is said to know the 12 months, "and that which is supplementarily engendered," or, as Dr. Max Müller has it: "He knews the 12 months with their offspring, and knows the month which is produced in addition."†

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Dr. Max Müller also notes that, "In the hymns of the Yajur Veda the 13th month is changed already into a deity. Oblations are offered (Vâjasan Sanhitâ, vii, 31) to each of the twelve months, and at the end one oblation is made to Anhasaspati, the deity of the intercalary month. In the Brâhmanas likewise the thirteenth month is mentioned, and in the Jyotisha the theory of intercalation is fully explained." It seems certain therefore that the intercalary month was well known as early as the Vedic Period.

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Each year of this five-year cycle, or lustrum, had a separate name. This important fact was first made known by Colebrooke from the White Yajur Veda. The same names are also given by Varâha Mihira, who says :‡ "The first year of each lustrum, called Samvatsara, is (ruled by) Agni; the second, Parivatsara, by the Sun; the third, Idâvatsara, by the Moon; the fourth, Anuvatsara, by the Creator; and the last, Udavatsara, by Rudra." But the passage in the Yajur Veda goes on to say: "May mornings appertain to Thee, may days and nights, and fortnights, and months, and seasons, belong to Thee." Here then we see that, as early as the time of the Yajur Veda, the whole system of lunar months, with their light and dark fortnights, and of intercalary months, to adapt the lunar months to solar reckoning, had already been established.§

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We have another testimony to the early use of the lunar fortnights in a passage of Quintus Curtius, whose information must have been obtained from some of the writers who accompanied Alexander the Great.‖ "Their months consist of fifteen days; but they keep the full year. They reckon time by the course of the moon; not as most people do, but by half-moons.”

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∗ Wilson's Rig Veda, I, 65. † History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 212. ‡ Dr. Kern's Translation of the Brihat Sanhita, C. viii, 24. § Yâjnavalkya also [C. ii, 6] says, that a petition made to the king should give the year, month, half-month, and day. ‖ Vita Alexandri, C. viii, 9: "Menses in quinos denos descripserunt dies: anni plena spatia servant. Lunæ cursu notant tempora, non, ut plerique, cum orbem sidus implevit, sed cum se curvare cœpit in cornua."

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We also learn the same thing from the inscriptions of Asoka, which are about eighty years later than Alexander. Thus in the separate edicts at Dhauli we find mention of the month of Tishya (Mási-cha Tise), of the lunar fortnight (athami pakhaye, or the 8th day of the paksha), and of the three seasons (tisu chatum-Másisu, or the three four-monthly periods). On three days the slaughter of animals also is forbidden, namely, on the day of ‘fullmoon,’ punnamási (called also pannadasam, or the 15th day), on the 14th day, and on the day after the conjunction.

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The old year was divided into three seasons of Heat, Rain, and Cold, called Grishma, Varsha, and Hemanta,—all of which names are found in the Indo-Scythian inscriptions. They are also commonly known as Dhúp-kál, Barkha-kál, Sít-kál.* So in Ceylon the rainy season, or Wasso, still consists of four months, and extends from July to November. In ancient times, however, Wasso or Varsha extended from June to October; but owing to the greater length of the Indian year the seasons fall back about one day and-a-half in every hundred years. At the present time the solar year begins on the 13th of April instead of on the 21st of March. In consequence of this difference the beginning of Varsha, or the rainy season, in the times of Alexander and Asoka, would have fallen just one month earlier than at present.

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In the Indo-Scythian inscriptions from Mathura, the fortnights are not designated as light and dark, or the waxing and the waning of the moons, but are numbered throughout each season as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, &c., fortnights of the hot, the rainy, or cold season. Thus one of Vasudeva’s inscriptions is dated in

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Sam. 83—Gr. 2—Di. 10

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that is, Samvatsara 83, Grishma 2 Paksha, Divasa 10; or, “on the 10th day of the 2nd fortnight of Grishma in the year 83.” But as the names of the Hindu months of Chaitra, Vaisâkha, Ashâdha, and Srâvana are found in the Indo-Scythian inscriptions from Gândhâra, along with the Macedonian names of Daisios, Apellaios, and Artemisios, during the reigns of Kanishka and Huvishka, it is difficult to say which of the two systems of naming the lunar fortnights may be the older. I have a suspicion, however, that the indigenous nomenclature may have been by numbering, and that the other method of waxing and waning fortnights may have been borrowed from the Greek μηνες ισταμενου and μηνoς φθινοντος.

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∗ Abul Fazl, Gladwin’s Translation of Ain-i-Akbari, I, 266, gives these three names, and significantly adds, “throughout Hindustan they do not reckon more than three seasons of the year.”

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The oldest eras described by the astronomers are the *Saptârshi-Kâl*, or cycle of the seven Rishis; the *Bârhaspatya-Mânas*, or sixty and twelve year cycles of Jupiter; and the *Kâli-Yuga*, or beginning of the *Kâli-Age*. Not one of these mounts up to the exaggerated periods of thousands of millions of years like the monstrous systems invented by the astronomers. The oldest of them, the *Saptârshi-Kâl*, ascends only to B.C. 4077, or perhaps to 6777 B.C., while the *Bârhaspatya-Mâna* and the *Kâli-Yuga* reach only a little beyond 3000 B.C. In Alexander's time the Hindus did not claim a greater antiquity than B.C. 6777. I have therefore a very strong suspicion that the present extravagant system of Yugas and Mahâyugas, Manwantaras, and Kalpas, was an invention of the astronomers, which they based on their newly-acquired knowledge of the precession. The problem was a simple one: Given the precession of 49·8 seconds, as determined by Hipparchus, the period of one revolution through the whole circle of 360° would be 26,024 16/166 years. To obtain a whole number of years the fraction was got rid of in the usual way by multiplying 26,024 by 166, and adding 16 to the product, a process which gives a period of exactly 4,320,000 years, or just one *Yuga*.

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It may be objected that the Hindu astronomers did not adopt the precession of Hipparchus. But this will not alter the case, as their own determinations of the precession give precisely the same result. The precession fixed by Parâsara is 46·5 seconds, and that of Aryabhata 46·2 seconds. Following the same process as before, we obtain for Parâsara 27,870 15/59 years as the period of one revolution, and 28,051 14/46 years for Aryabhata, both of which periods give the same whole number of 4,320,000 years. Exactly the same result is also obtainable from the European precession of 50·1 seconds, which gives a period of 25,868 44/167 years for one revolution, and a whole number of 4,320,000 years.

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But if this be the true origin of the Hindu *Yuga* and the monstrous system of *Mahâyugas*, *Manwantaras*, and *Kalpas*, it follows that some other mode of reckoning must have been in use before the Christian era. Now the only early eras used in Northern India, of which detailed accounts still remain, are the cycle of the seven Rishis, the two cycles of Jupiter, and the Kâli-Yuga. The Saptârshi-Kâl is unknown in Southern India; but the Kâli-Yuga and the 60-year cycle of Jupiter are well known, besides the two cycles of Parasurâma and Grahaparivrithi, which are peculiar to Southern India. The eras of Buddha and Mahâvira, both of which are prior to Vikramâditya, must have been used by the Buddhists and the Jains at an early period. The former was certainly current amongst the Buddhists in the time of Asoka; and the latter was probably in use about the same period. In the Mathura inscriptions of the Indo-Scythian kings, which are found upon the statues of both Jains and Buddhists, the dates are invariably expressed in an era which may have originated with Kanishka, but which was most probably only an Indian adoption of the Seleukidan era as suggested by Mr. Thomas.

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In dealing with Indian dates there is one fact that must never be forgotten, namely, that every year that is mentioned by number, that number refers to years actually elapsed, just as Europeans reckon their ages. When a man says that he is 50 years old, he means literally that 50 full years have passed since his birth, and that he is then in his 51st year. So when a Hindu records the year 80 of the Vikrama Samvat, or any other era, he means that 80 full years of that era have actually elapsed, and that the current year is the 81st.

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Only one inscription to my knowledge has yet been found dated in any of the intercalary months. This is no doubt due to the entire want of festivals in these months, and as grants of land are usually made on the festival days, there are of course few inscriptions recorded in the intercalary months.

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