Indian Epigraphy c6.s5.3

c6.s5.3

We have seen above how the use of popular eras in dating documents was unknown in ancient India, how even royal records were dated in the regnal reckoning of the rulers of the land, and how eras were introduced and popularised in the country by foreign rulers. But, even after the popularity of the eras had been well established in wide areas of the country, documents of many parts were not endowed with verifiable dates. Moreover, a large number of records of all ages and of all parts of the land are altogether undated. In many cases, the details of the dates quoted in dated records contain errors owing to mistakes in the calculation of astronomical data either by the persons responsible for the records or by the astronomers on whom they depended.¹ Although, therefore, dated inscriptions have solved many of the knotty problems of chronology in ancient and medieval Indian history, a number of problems still remain unsolved owing to the said defects of epigraphic records. In the absence of a date in a known era, an epigraph can only be approximately referred to a period, but not to a definite date.