Page:Sewell Indian chronography.pdf/34
the calculation. It is not necessary for me to reproduce the whole process, which is elaborate and most carefully worked. The result is as I have tabulated above.
40. These Tables were constructed for the purpose of enabling the initial days of solar months according to the Ārya Siddhānta to be approximately found at a time when no reliable lists were available; but after the publication of Table I. of the Indian Calendar, which fixes the time of Mēsha saṁkrānti each year in hours and minutes, and of accurate Duration-Tables of months, both true and mean, such as are given in Table III. (Ind. Cal.) and Tables XVIII. and XIX. below, Professor Jacobi's Tables 1–4 are no longer wanted.
41. It is advisable, however, to point out for the benefit of anyone who may desire to use them that, as admitted by the author (Ind. Ant., XVII., p. 147a), they contain an inherent source of error. This error may amount to as much as 52 minutes. Thus in his Table I., taking the 576-year cycle from A.D. 373 to 949, his results differ from the actuals by 12 minutes during the first 116 years, by 22 minutes during the next, by 32 minutes during the next, by 42 minutes during the next, and by 52 minutes in the last 112-year period. Similar differences obtain in the use of the other three Tables.
42. I recommend therefore the abandonment of those Tables, and the adoption of the fixed Mēsha saṁkrānti times given in Table I. of the Indian Calendar. The Tables answered their purpose sufficiently well in the absence of definite information fixing the moment of beginning of each solar year, but now that we are in possession of that information we should do wisely to avoid them.
42A. The Kollam era, used on the West Coast of Southern India, from Mangalore to Cape Comorin, and in parts of the Tinnevelly district, began in K.Y. 3926 expired, A.D. 825–26. Its year is solar. Its twelve months are, in Malabar, named after the signs of the zodiac (but corrupted), while in Tinnevelly they have the names of the lunar months, "Chittirai" (for Chaitra), corresponding to the solar month Mēsha, and so on. In North Malabar the year begins with the sun's entry into the sign Kanyā, that is, with the solar month Āśvina; in South Malabar and Tinnevelly it begins with his entry into Siṁha, that is, with the solar month Bhādrapada. Consequently, in order to convert a given year of the Kollam era into an expired year of the Kaliyuga, we have to add to the figure of the former 3925 in North Malabar for the months Kanyā to Mīna inclusive, and 3926 for the remaining months, and in South Malabar and Tinnevelly 3925 for Siṁha to Mīna and 3926 for the remaining months. Very often, in this part of India, dates in inscriptions mention not only both the solar and lunar date, as for instance, "the sun being 21 days old in Vṛishabha, Wednesday, the fifth lunar day after new moon," but add the sign in which Jupiter then stood, e.g., "Jupiter entering Mēsha," "Jupiter in Dhanus," and the like. Rules are given below for testing all such details of a date.
43. A civil day in the Indian solar calendar begins at sunrise.[1] The first civil day of the solar month is found (a) from the moment of the initial saṁkrānti of the month, (b) from the application of
- ↑ True sunrise. But calculation must first be made for mean sunrise. The latter is 0 Laṅkā time, or, as usually considered, 6 a.m. The former depends on the latitude and longitude of the locality. Tables for calculating in true local time will be found in Epigraphia Indica, Vol. II., pp. 487 ff (Jacobi), and in my Eclipses of the Moon in India. It is only necessary for my present purpose to consider mean sunrise as the beginning of the solar day.