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4. The Hindū standard astronomical works with which the present volume is principally concerned are the First Ārya Siddhānta of Āryabhaṭa[1] (date about A.D. 499), and the Present Sūrya Siddhānta, which has been in use in large parts of India since about A.D. 1100. These are the works respectively meant in these pages whenever the terms "The Ārya Siddhānta" and "The Sūrya Siddhānta" are used. When allusion is made to the bīja or correction introduced into the latter from about A.D. 1500 the fact is always expressly stated. The Original Sūrya Siddhānta (in use before about A.D. 550), the Brāhma Siddhānta, the Second Ārya Siddhānta and others are always mentioned with their full titles.
Whenever the word "saṁvatsara" is used in these pages with no qualification the Jovian or Bṛihaspati saṁvatsara is meant, i.e., the average period during which Jupiter remains by his mean motion in a sign of the zodiac, or one-twelfth of the great circle on the plane of the ecliptic.
5. Table I. of the Indian Calendar contains (Cols. 8 to 12 and 8A to 12A) the figures which, by the a, b, c system, prove which lunar months were intercalated or suppressed by both the true and mean systems from K.Y. 3401 expired (A.D. 300), down to K.Y. 4201 (A.D. 1100); and thereafter, down to K.Y. 5001 expired (A.D. 1900), by the true system only; but as the opinion has been growing of late years that in many parts of India the use of the mean system may have been prolonged for a considerable time subsequent to A.D. 1100, it has become necessary to devise rules and tables by which a result, given or obtained, by the true system may be easily and accurately converted into a result by the mean system, and vice versa.
For similar reasons it is advisable to have at hand an easy method for converting the time of solar saṁkrāntis as found by either the Ārya or the Sūrya Siddhānta into the time according to the other. The present Tables and Rules supply this want.
5A. I may add that for a general sketch of the Hindu calendar, eras, and other reckonings, which is calculated to be of considerable use to students as a preliminary study before they attempt to apply to practical use the teaching of my two books on the subject, reference may be made to Dr. Fleet's article on "Hindū Chronology" in the recently published new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
6. Before proceeding further a few notes on the dates of early inscriptions may be found useful. These notes are based on the late Professor Kielhorn's Lists of the Inscriptions of Northern and Southern India, respectively published as Appendices to the Epigraphia Indica, Vols. V. and VII. (1898–99, 1902–3), and therefore refer only to such inscriptions as were known to him, or at least which had been examined and finally recorded by him. In these publications he has included 1806 inscriptions. Many thousands of others are known to exist, and therefore the remarks which follow must only be regarded as temporary and provisional. I omit all inscriptions regarding which a doubt exists, or which are not accepted as genuine by the best authorities.
7. The earliest genuine inscription-date in the Mālava-Vikrama era is contained in the engraved pillar-record of the Varika Rāja Vishņuvardhana at Bijayagaḍh in Rājputānā.[2] The stated year,
- ↑ I am indebted to Dr. Fleet for a suggestion that in future the First Ārya Siddhānta, as so called in the Indian Calendar and in this work, should be described by its "correct name "—the "Āryabhaṭīya," and that the Second Ārya Siddhānta should be known as the "Ārya Siddhānta." The suggestion comes too late for me to make any use of it; and for the reasons given in the note preceding Table XXXVII., I prefer to attempt no such alteration in the present volume. (See J. R. A. S. 1911, p. 114.)
- ↑ It was published by Dr. Fleet, Gupta Inscriptions (Corpus. Inser. Indic. III.), No. 59, p. 252. Kielhorn's Northern List, No. 1.