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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA refer. He thus suggested that the unspecified era used in the Kalachuri records might have commenced about 250 A. C. He had no doubt that the numbers did not refer either to the era of Śālivāhana or to that of Vikramāditya. But he left it an open question whether the era was that of Valabhī with some epoch other than 319 A. C., or some other era till then unknown. In 1878, Cunningham announced in the Introduction (p. vi) to his Reports of the Archœological Survey of India, Vol. VII, that he had found, among the inscriptions collected by his assistant Beglar in the eastern part of the Central Provinces in 1873-74, two1 which were actually dated in the Chēdi Samvatsara, and two others2 in the Kalachuri Samvat. He identified the two eras, as 'the princes of Chēdi were of the Kalachuri branch of the Haihaya tribe.â He further stated that he had examined some eight verifiable dates of the era and had found by calculation that the era began in 249 A. C., the year 250 A. C. being the year I of the Chēdi Samvat.
In his Reports of the Archœological Survey of India, Vol. IX (A tour in the Central Provinces in 1873-74 and 1874-75), pp. III ff., Cunningham reiterated his conclusion that 249 A. C. was the initial point of the Chēdi or Kalachuri Samvat, the year 250 being the Year I of the era, âthe Hindu reckoning being invariably recorded in complete or expired years, in thesame way as a personâs age is reckoned.â He then gave details of the aforementioned eight dates together with the corresponding week-days obtained by calculation in the following form3:-
Cunninghamâs calculations did not yield quite satisfactory results, as only in four
out of the above eight cases4 the dates were found to be regular. In three other cases,
the dates agreed within one day-an amount of deviation which, he thought, was not uncommon in Hindu dates. Cunninghamâs calculations are not, however, found to be correct
in all cases.5 Even with his epoch, the first date regularly corresponds to Monday, the
18th January, 1042 A. C., and the sixth, for intercalary Śrāvana, to Wednesday, the 2nd July,
1158 A. C.6 Secondly, in order to get the corresponding year of the Christian era, he added
1 These were Nos. 98 and 100. |
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