Indian Epigraphy c15.t5.28

c15.t5.28

Besides the use of an era, i.e. a continuous reckoning, there are some other interesting features in the dating of these records. We notice the month (māsa), but not yet the tithi, introduced into the date. It is sometimes seen in connection with the season exactly as the pakṣa or fortnight in some indigenous records. This no doubt proves the influence of the Indian system of dividing the year into seasons. It is not known if the introduction of the māsa in the date or at least its popularity was due to the foreigners; but the occasional use of the names of months of the Macedonian calendar possibly points to that direction. Many inscriptions of the early centuries of the Christian era, e.g., the Taxila inscription of the year 78, have a passage like etasyāṁ pūrvāyāṁ, i.e. ‘in the said pūrvā’, immediately after the quotation of the date, and we have already seen that the word pūrvā (literally ‘the above’) in the feminine gender refers to the tithi pertaining to the day mentioned in the date.²