South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA

If the year is applied as expired, the date would fall in 654 A. C., but there was no solar eclipse on the pūrnimānta or amānta Āshādha of that year.

According to the other epoch of 247-48 A. C., the tithi should fall in 652 A. C. or 653 A. C., according as the year 404 was current or expired. In 652 A. C. there was no solar eclipse at all. In 653 A. C., of course, the eclipse did occur on the stated tithi as shown above and so the date may be said to be in an expired year according to that epoch. But if we have to explain all early dates according to a uniform process, this date will have to be regarded as recorded in a current year according to the epoch of 248-49 A. C. rather than in an expired year according to the epoch of 247-48 A. C.

5. Nasik plates of Dharāśraya-Jayasimha (No. 28, p. 127)-L. 19-Chaitra-māsa- śuddha-daśamyām Vishuē (Vishuvē), ‘on the tenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra, on the occasion of the vernal equinox.’ Line 28 gives the date Sam 436 Chai śu 10, i. e., the 10th tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra in the year 436. According to the epoch of 248-49 A.C., the corresponding Christian date for the current year 436 (i. e., the expired Śaka year 436+171=607) is the 21 st March 685 A. C. On that day the tenth tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra ended 12 h. 45 m. after mean sunrise. The Vishuva or Mēsha- sankrānti had occurred 5 h. 15 m. after mean sunrise on the previous day. The sankrānti did not thus take place during the 10th tithi, but as the punya-kāla of the Mēsha-sankrānti. extends to as many as 15 ghatikās before and after the sankrānti, the tithi seems to be coupled with the sankrānti.

If the year is applied as expired, the tithi would fall on the 10th March 686 A. C., but the Mēsha-sankrānti took place 10 days later, on the 20th March 686 A. C.

According to the other epoch of 247-48 A.C., the date would be expected to fall in 684 A. C. if the year 436 was current, and in 685 A. C. if it was expired. But in 684 A. C. the tithi fell on the 3rd March, while the Mēsha-sankrānti occurred 16 days later on the 19th March. In 685 A.C. the sankrānti occurred on the same day as the mentioned tithi, but in view of the other early dates for which the epoch of 247-48 A. C. appears wholly inapplicable, it seems better to take this date as recorded in a current year according to the epoch of 248-49 A. C

A careful examination of these five early dates of the Kalachuri era will show that- (I) All these dates can be shown to be regular according to the epoch of 248-49 A. C.; for, though the dates 4 and 5 can also be explained as dates in expired years according to the epoch of 247-48 A. C., that epoch will not at all suit the first three dates.

(2) Date 2 shows that the month of Āśvina stood at the close of the Kalachuri Year; i. e., the Kalachuri year commenced in some month latter than Āśvina, probably in Kārttika.

(3) Among the five dates there are only two (2 and 4) which fell in the dark fortnight. As shown above, one of them (2) shows that the month cited in it was amānta, and the other date (4) indicates that it was pūrnimānta. From this, one cannot, of course, draw any definite conclusion. But it is noteworthy that the months of the Śaka era, which was current in Maharashtra both before the rise and after the disappearance of the Kalachuri era, were almost invariably amānta.¹ Besides, the date 4 comes from Khandesh and belongs to the reign of the Sēndraka prince Allaśakti. Another date from Khandesh which occurs in a record of this same Allaśakti’s son Jayaśakti mentions that the Mīna-sankrānti in the Śaka year 602 (680-81 A. C.)
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¹ Among the 400 dates of the Śaka era which Prof. Kielhorn collected, there was only a single one which could confidently be said to be according to the pūrnimānta scheme. Ind. Ant., Vol. XXV, p. 272.