Page:Sewell Dikshit The Indian Calendar (1896) proc.djvu/48

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THE INDIAN CALENDAR.

moment,—such as mean sunrise, noon, sunset, or midnight, but generally the sunrise,—on or before Chaitra śukla pratipadâ, as their starting-point.[1] Sometimes the beginning of the mean Chaitra śukla pratipadâ is so taken.

When Chaitra is intercalary there seems to be a difference of opinion whether the year in that case is to begin with the intercalated (adhika) or natural (nija) Chaitra. For the purposes of our Table I. (cols. 19 to 25) we have taken the adhika Chaitra of the true system as the first month of the year.

But the year does not begin with Chaitra all over India. In Southern India and especially in Gujarât the years of the Vikrama era commence in the present day with Kârttika śukla pratipadâ. In some parts of Kâṭhiâvâḍ and Gujarât the Vikrama year commences with Âshâḍha śukla pratipadâ.[2] In a part of Ganjam and Orissa, the year begins on Bhâdrapada śukla 12th. (See under Oṅko reckoning, Art. 64.) The Amli year in Orissa begins on Bhâdrapada śukla 12th, the Vilâyatî year, also in general use in Orissa, begins with the Kanyâ saṅkrânti; and the Fasli year, which is luni-solar in Bengal, commences on pûrṇimânta Âśvina kṛi. 1st (viz., 4 days later than the Vilâyatî).

In the South Malayâḷam country (Travancore and Cochin), and in Tinnevelly, the solar year of the Kollam era, or Kollam âṇḍu, begins with the month Chiṅgam (Siṁha), and in the North Malayâḷam tract it begins with the month Kanni (Kanyâ). In parts of the Madras Presidency the Fasli year originally commenced on the 1st of the solar month Âḍî (Karka), but by Government order about A.D. 1800 it was made to begin on the 13th of July, and recently it was altered again, so that now it begins on 1st July. In parts of the Bombay Presidency the Fasli year begins when the sun enters the nakshatra Mṛigaśîrsha, which takes place at present about the 5th or 6th of June.

Alberuni mentions (A.D. 1030) a year commencing with Mârgaśîrsha as having been in use in Sindh, Multân, and Kanouj, as well as at Lahore and in that neighbourhood; also a year commencing with Bhâdrapada in the vicinity of Kashmir.[3] In the Mahâbhârata the names of the months are given in some places, commencing with Mârgaśîrsha. (Anuśâsana parva adhyâyas 106 and 109). In the Vedâṅga Jyotisha the year commences with Mâgha śukla pratipadâ.

53. The Sixty-year cycle of Jupiter.[4] In this reckoning the years are not known by numbers, but are named in succession from a list of 60 names, often known as the "Bṛihaspati samvatsara chakra,"[5] the wheel or cycle of the years of Jupiter. Each of these years is called a "samvatsara." The word "samvatsara" generally means a year, but in the case of this cycle the year is not equal to a solar year. It is regulated by Jupiter's mean motion; and a Jovian year is the period during which the planet Jupiter enters one sign of the zodiac and passes completely through it

  1. ↑ See Ind. Ant., XIX., p. 45, second paragraph of my article on the Original Sûrya-Siddhânta. [S. B. D.]
  2. ↑ I have myself seen a pañchâṅg which mentions this beginning of the year, and have also found some instances of the use of it in the present day. 1 am told that at Iḍar in Gujarât the Vikrama samvat begins on Âshâḍha kṛishṇa dvitîyâ. [S. B. D.]
  3. ↑ The passage, as translated by Sachau (Vol. II., p. 8 f), is as follows. "Those who use the Saka era, the astronomers, begin the year with the month Chaitra, whilst the inhabilunts of Kanîr, which is conterminous with Kashmîr, begin it with the month Bhâdrapada…All the people who inhabit the country between Bardarî and Mârîgala the year with the mouth Kârttika…The people living in the country of Nîrahara, behind Mârîgala, as far as the utmost frontiers of Tâkeshar and Lohâvar, begin the year with the month Mârgaśîrsha…The people of Lanbaga, i.e., Lamghân, follow their example. I have been told by the people of Multân that this system is peculiar to the people of Sindh and Kanoj, and that they used to begin the year with the new moon of Mârgaśîrsha, hut that the people of Multân only a few years ago had given up this system, and had adopted the system of the people of Kashmîr, and followed their example in beginning the year with the new moon of Chaitra."
  4. ↑ Articles 53 to 61 are applicable to Northern India only (See Art. 62).
  5. ↑ The term is one not recognized in Sanskrit works. [S. B. D.]
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