Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c10.s3.t3: 5.4.3 Conversion and verification of inscriptional dates
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c10.s3.t3
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5.4.3 Conversion and verification of inscriptional dates
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H of an Indian year can be determined only if the nature of the year (current or expired) is known and the month is provided. Further complications arise in certain cases, for instance, in connection with eras such as the Kalacuri-Cedi or Lakṣmaṇasena (5.5.1.5 and 5.5.1.15), whose precise epochs are uncertain or variable.
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5.4.3.2 Conversion and verification of specific dates
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The determination of correspondences for specific dates involves complex calculations for which several methods are available, for example, those given by Jacobi in EI 1, 406–8 and by S. B. Dikshit in CII 3, intro., Appendix II, 145–59.⁵² But as a matter of convenience, the usual practice is to consult the tables provided in Swamikannu Pillai's *Indian Ephemeris*, providing equivalents in the European calendar for dates in the more common Indian eras which are adequate for general or preliminary purposes. But due to the complexities of Indian calendrical reckoning, they should not be treated as conclusive.⁵³
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⁵² These systems yield the corresponding "English" or "old-style" date, i.e., the date according to the Julian calendar which was current in England until September 2, 1752.
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⁵³ Mainly because Pillai's dates are based on mean beginnings of *tithis*, whereas the dates recorded in inscriptions were based on the real local beginnings of *tithis* (see the "Technical note on *tithis*," 5.4.3.3).
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It is therefore always desirable to verify an inscriptional date whenever sufficient data (at a minimum, year, month, *tithi*, and weekday) are provided; that is to say, the data should be checked and if necessary calculated to confirm (or deny) that the given weekday (or eclipse, *saṃkrānti*, etc.) did in fact fall on the specified date, thereby confirming (or denying) the tentative European equivalent for the date in question. The verification of a weekday and/or of other astronomical and calendrical specifications such as eclipses, *saṃkrānti*, *nakṣatra*, *yoga*, cyclical year of Jupiter (see 5.5.2.2 and 5.5.2.3), and so on involves complex calculations requiring specialized knowledge of astronomical systems, which are facilitated by the systems and tables provided by Jacobi (EI 1, 408–37) and the other sources listed at the beginning of section 5.4.3.⁵⁴ Such calculations, however, involve several variables and complicating factors which must be taken into consideration, and which are not always explicitly stated in the document itself. These include the era, which is often not specified; the nature of the years, whether expired or current, also frequently unspecified;⁵⁵ whether the year began in Caitra (*caitrādi*, the "northern" year) or Kārttika (*kārttikādi*, the "southern" year), or occasionally in some other month such as Āṣāḍha or Śrāvaṇa; and whether the months are counted as ending with the full moon (*pūrṇimānta*, the "northern" system) or the new moon (*amānta*, the "southern" system),⁵⁶ or whether they are solar rather than lunar months.⁵⁷ When any or all of this information is unknown or uncertain, multiple calculations must be made for each possibility before a final verdict is passed (Jacobi, 406).
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⁵⁴ For examples of the full procedure for calculation of the Western equivalents of Indian dates, see Jacobi, 408–12.
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⁵⁵ Or sometimes incorrectly specified; see Kielhorn, IA 25, 1896, 266 = *KS* II.727.
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⁵⁶ See Jacobi, EI 1, 406.
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⁵⁷ See n. 37. According to Venkatasubbiah (*Some Śaka Dates in Inscriptions*, 66–7), the names of the lunar months are sometimes applied to what are really solar months, and vice versa; such deviations can be determined only by calculation.
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*siddhānta*, *Ārya-siddhānta*, etc.) was used to calculate the *tithi*, due to their differing solar models and parameters for the movements of the heavenly bodies; the moment of the expiry of a *tithi*, which is critical to calculations of dates, may vary by as much as an hour or even more according to different *pakṣas* (Jacobi, EI I, 403). It is therefore necessary to check results by the different systems in any case where the result is in doubt, for example, where the weekday calculated by the general system falls one day before or after the one specified in the document, or where the end of the astronomical *tithi* falls within three hours of sunrise.⁶⁰ Moreover, in calculating the date for a given inscription adjustments must always be made for the conversion of mean Laṅkā time as given in the tables to true local time according to the latitude and longitude of the place of issue, insofar as this is known (Jacobi, 412; cf. n. 53). Here, too, the variations between mean time and local time may affect the moment of the end of the *tithi* and thus produce a different civil date.
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⁶⁰ Kielhorn, IA 19, 1890, 21 (= KS I.514) n. 1. Kielhorn (ibid., 354-7 = I.556-9) lists several cases in which recalculation according to different astronomical systems enabled him to verify a date which might otherwise have appeared incorrect, and thus to authenticate a record which might otherwise have wrongly been suspected to be spurious.
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By way of example of these and the other complications involved in the verification of inscriptional dates, we may cite the Cāndpur boar inscription (ASIR 10, 97; Kielhorn, IA 19, 354 = KS I.556), which is dated *sa[ṃ*]vat *1207 jyeṣṭha-vadi 11 ravau*, that is, Sunday, the eleventh day of the dark fortnight of Jyeṣṭha, [Vikrama] 1207. On the basis of the *Sūrya-siddhānta*,⁶¹ Kielhorn calculated the following possible equivalents of this date:
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⁶¹ From Jacobi's tables in IA 17, 1888, 145-81. These were superseded by his tables in EI 1, which were based on European systems rather than on any one Indian *pakṣa* (441).
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1. If the [Vikrama] year 1207 is taken as a northern (*caitrādi*) current year and the month as *pūrṇimānta*: Thursday, May 5, 1149 A.D.
2. Northern current year, *amānta* month: Friday, June 3, 1149
3. Northern expired year, *pūrṇimānta*: Tuesday, April 25, 1150
4. Northern expired year, *amānta*: Wednesday, May 24, 1150
5. Southern (*kārttikādi*) expired year, *pūrṇimānta*: Monday, May 14, 1151
6. Southern expired year, *amānta*: Tuesday, June 12, 1151
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None of these dates gives a satisfactory equivalent for the weekday of the inscription's date, namely, Sunday. However, when the fifth alternative (southern expired year, *pūrṇimānta*) is recalculated according to the *Brahma-siddhānta*, the civil day numbered by the eleventh *tithi* of the dark fortnight of Jyeṣṭha is the day *before* that arrived at by the *Sūrya-siddhānta*, namely, Sunday, May 13, 1151, and this is presumably the correct equivalent of the date of the inscription.
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Even when a date cannot be verified by the usual methods, further circumstances must be taken into consideration before dismissing it as "irregular." Kielhorn, for example,⁶² notes numerous instances in which the date of an inscription cannot be verified for the year given, but does work out for the preceding or following year, or sometimes for the preceding or following year but one. Such cases are so common that they probably do not indicate forged or erroneous dates but rather some kind of consistent calendrical irregularity or dislocation, perhaps resulting from confusion between expired and current reckonings (cf. Sewell, *Indian Calendar*, 40 n. 2). Such cases, and related problems of seemingly irregular dates, have been treated at length by Venkatasubbiah in *Some Śaka Dates in Inscriptions* (esp. 31–48 and 95–6), who suspects that they are connected with various complications involving the calculation by different systems of the year of the sixty-year cycle of Jupiter (2–19; 96). Venkatasubbiah shows that a given Indian date may theoretically have as many as twenty-eight possible Western equivalents (72), all of which must be duly considered and tested before a date is condemned as “irregular,” and he is highly critical of arbitrary emendations by scholars of dates which “seem to them to be irregular” (viii), warning that “one has to be very circumspect in pronouncing any given date to be irregular” (93).
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⁶² IA 19, 1890, 364-9; 24, 1895, 4-5 = KS I.566-71; II.682-3.
Linked texts (1)
- Sūryasiddhānta — Maya, Sanskrit