Page:Sewell Dikshit The Indian Calendar (1896) proc.djvu/60
It is thus luni-solar with respect to changing its numerical designation, but solar as regards the months and days. But it seems probable that it is really luni-solar also as regards its months and days.
The Kanyâ saṅkrânti can take place on any day from about 11 days previous to lunar Bhâdrapada śukla 12th to about 18 days after it. With the difference of so many days the epoch and numerical designation of the Amli and Vilâyatî years are the same.
The Fasali year.—This is the harvest year introduced, as some say, by Akbar, originally derived from the Muhammadan year, and bearing the same number, but beginning in July. It was, in most parts of India, a solar year, but the different customs of different parts of India caused a divergence of reckoning. Its epoch is apparently A. H. 963 (A. D. 1556), when its number coincided with that of the purely lunar Muhammadan year, and from that date its years have been solar or luni-solar. Thus (A. H.) 963 + 337 (solar years) = 1300, and (A. D.) 1556 + 337 = 1893 A.D., with a part of which year Fasali 1300 coincides, while the same year is A. H. 1310. The era being purely official, and not appealing to the feelings of the people of India, the reckoning is often found to be loose and unreliable. In Madras the Fasali year originally commenced with the 1st day of the solar month Âḍî (Karka), but about the year 1800 A.D. the British Government, finding that this date then coincided with July 13th, fixed July 13th as the permanent initial date; and in A.D. 1855 altered this for convenience to July 1st, the present reckoning. In parts of Bombay the Fasali begins when the sun enters the nakshatra Mṛigaśîrsha, viz., (at present) about the 5th or 6th June. The Bengâli year and the Vilâyatî year both bear the same number as the Fasali year.
The names of months, their periods of beginning, and the serial number of days are the same as in the Hijra year, but the year changes its numerical designation on a stated solar day. Thus the year is already a solar year, as it was evidently intended to be from its name. But at the present time it is luni-solar in Bengal, and, we believe, over all North-Western India, and this gives rise to a variety, to be now described.
The luni-solar Fasali year.—This reckoning, though taking its name from a Muhammadan source, is a purely Hindu year, being luni-solar, pûrṇimânta, and Âśvinâdi. Thus the luni-solar Fasali year in Bengal and N. W. India began (pûrṇimânta Âśvina kṛishṇa pratipadâ, Śaka 1815 current =) Sept. 7th, 1882. A peculiarity about the reckoning, however, is that the months are not divided into bright and dark fortnights, but that the whole runs without distinction of pakshas, and without addition or expunction of tithis from the 1st to the end of the mouth, beginning with the full moon. Its epoch is the same as that of the Vilâyatî year, only that it begins with the full moon next preceding or succeeding the Kanyâ saṅkrânti, instead of on the saṅkrânti day.
In Southern India the Fasali year 1302 began on June 5th, 1892, in Bombay, and on July 1st, 1892, in Madras. It will be seen, therefore, that it is about two years and a quarter in advance of Bengal.
To convert a luni-solar Bengali or N. W. Fasali date, approximately, into a date easily workable by our Tables, treat the year as an ordinary luni-solar pûrṇimânta year; count the days after the 15th of the month as if they were days in the śukla fortnight, 15 being deducted from the given figure; add 515 to make the year correspond with the Saka year, for dates between Âśvina 1st and Chaitra 15th (= amânta Bhâdrapada kṛishṇa 1st andamânta amanta Phâlguna kṛishṇa 30th)—and 516 between Chaitra 15th and Âśvina 1st. Thus, let Chaitra 25th 1290 be the given date. The 25th should be converted into śukla 10th; adding 516 to 1290 we have 1806, the equivalent Śaka year. The corresponding śukla date is therefore amânta Chaitra śukla 10th,