History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.634

v6.c82.634

The use of eras in India for calendrical purposes is not much older than about two thousand years. Continuous era reckoning first began to be employed in the records of the Indo-Scythian kings that ruled over modern Afganistan and North Western India between about 100 B. C. and 100 A. D. This is not peculiar to India, most of the ancient civilizations such as those of Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome did not employ a continuously running era till late in their careers. In the Jyotirvidābharaṇa (which is a later fabrication, though it professes that it was finished in *gatakale* 3068 i. e. 33 years before the christian era) mentions the names of six persons as the founders of eras in Kaliyuga, viz Yudhiṣṭhira, Vikrama, Śālivāhana, Vijayābhinandana, Nāgārjuna, Kalkin⁹⁸⁹ and states that their eras respectively last for 3044, 135, 18000, 10000, 400000, 821 years. In ancient⁹⁹⁰ countries no continuous era was used, but only regnal years were employed In India also Aśoka employs only regnal years in his edicts (e. g the 4th pillar edict at Lauriya-nandana-garh and the 5th pillar edict at Rāmpurvā, C. I. I. vol. I pp. 147, 151, were engraved in the 26th year of his kingship). Kauṭilya⁹⁹¹ also, when setting forth the business of the collector of revenue specifies the times with which the collector would be concerned as 'the royal year, the month, the fortnight, the day &c.' This practice continued even under the Kuṣaṇas and Sātavāhanas; vide Luder's list in E. I. X, No. 22, 32 for Kaniṣka, No. 1024 (Kanheri cave Inscription of Gotamīputa-sāmī-Siriyaña Sātakaṇi), No. 1100 and 1122 (Karle and Nasik cave inscriptions of Vāsiṭhīputa Siri-Pulumāvi). The Kalinga king Khāravela (generally assigned to the 2nd century B. C.) uses only regnal years and no era (vide E. I. vol. 20 p. 71 at pp. 79-80).