Page:Sewell Dikshit The Indian Calendar (1896) proc.djvu/17

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THE INDIAN CALENDAR.

PART I.
The Hindu Calendar.

1. In articles 118 to 134 below are detailed the various uses to which this work may be applied. Briefly speaking our chief objects are three; firstly, to provide simple methods for converting any Indian date—luni-solar or solar—falling between the years A.D. 300 and 1900 into its equivalent date A.D., and vice versâ, and for finding the week-day corresponding to any such date; secondly, to enable a speedy calculation to be made for the determination of the remaining three of the five principal elements of an Indian pañchâṅga (calendar), viz., the nakshatra, yoga, and karaṇa, at any moment of any given date during the same period, whether that date be given in Indian or European style; and thirdly, to provide an easy process for the verification of Indian dates falling in the period of which we treat.

2. For securing these objects several Tables are given. Table I. is the principal Table, the others are auxiliary. They are described in Part III. below. Three separate methods are given for securing the first of the above objects, and these are detailed in Part IV.

All these three methods are simple and easy, the first two being remarkably so, and it is these which we have designed for the use of courts and offices in India. The first method (A) (Arts. 135, 136) is of the utmost simplicity, consisting solely in the use of an eye-table in conjunction with Table I., no calculation whatever being required. The second (B) is a method for obtaining approximate results by a very brief calculation (Arts. 137, 138) by the use of Tables I., III. and IX. The result by both these methods is often correct, and it is always within one or two days of the truth, the latter rarely. Standing by itself, that is, it can always, provided that the era and the original bases of calculation of the given date are known, be depended on as being within two days of the truth, and is often only one day out, while as often it is correct. When the week-day happens to be mentioned in the given date its equivalent, always under the above proviso, can be fixed correctly by either of these methods.[1] The third method (C)

  1. ↑ See Art. 126 below.
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