Indian Epigraphy c15.t1.7

c15.t1.7

A peculiarity of the dating of Indian records is the use of abbreviations. Indeed, the use of contractions is first noticed in the epigraphs in connection with dates. The words varṣa, vatsara, saṁvatsara, etc., meaning ‘the year’, was often contracted into va, saṁ, saṁva, saṁvat, etc. The word saṁvat and its numerous corrupt variants were later used in the sense of ‘an era’. A few early records suggest a similar contraction of the word kāla meaning ‘an era’ into kā.³ Of the seasons mentioned in early inscriptions, hemanta (i.e. winter) was often indicated by he or hema, varṣā (i.e. the rainy season) by va or vā (for Prakrit vāsa), and grīṣma as grī or gi (for Prakrit gimha). Likewise di or diva often stood for divasa and ti for tithi. In the commonly found expression śu-di or su-di, śu stands for śuddha (bright) and su seems to be its corrupt spelling. Similarly, in ba-di or va-di, ba stands for bahula (dark) and va is either a wrong spelling or stands for vadya. In the Kashmir region, śu-ti or su-ti and ba-ti or va-ti (i.e. śudha-tithi and bahula-tithi) are generally found for śu-di and ba-di. The names of the months were often abbreviated; e.g. Phā for Phālguna. Sometimes the expression rājya-saṁvatsara is contracted into rā-saṁ.⁴ In the medieval records of South India, very often the names of the week-days are likewise contracted; e.g. So standing for Soma-vāra, Ma for Maṅgala-vāra, etc.⁵