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JULY, 1888.]
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June, A.D. 904, corresponding to the new-moon Saka-Samvat 242 had expired, which brings as tithi of the Párnimanta northern Åsbadha of to the period A.D. 320-21. Suka-Samvat 827 ourrent; and on Saturday, the Albérant, in fact, expresses himself as being 10th November, A.D. 904, corresponding to the inclined to think that the number 242 indicates new-moon tithi of the Purnimunta northern Mar. the years which preceded the time when the gabiraba of the same Saka year. In respect of Hindus commenced to use the cycle of a hundred the first of them, Mr. Sh. B. Dikshit finds that it years, and that they adopted this cycle together was not visible anywhere in India; but only in with the Gupta era ; also that the number 606 the more northern parts of the earth. This, represents the completed cycles, vis. six, "each therefore, cannot be the eclipse intended. In res- of which they must reckon as 101 years;" and pect of the second of them, he finds that it that the number 99 gives the expired years of the was visible at Mörbi; over more than half the current cycle. He goes on to say that the role, northern part of Kathi wad; and, to the south, as found by him in the writings of Durlabha of along the coast, as far as Surat, one hundred and Multân, was, to write down 848, and add the seventy miles south-east of Morbi, and in the Lôkakala; the sum of which would give the Saka interior, a little further still. And, at Môrbi, the year. But, in proceeding to apply this rule to middle of the eclipse was at 11:54 A.M. of the Saka-Samvat 953 (expired), as corresponding to Mörbi mean civil time. At Ahmedabad, one the year 400 of the era of Yazdajird, which he hundred and twenty miles east by north from had already used as a "gauge-year," he points out Mörbi, one twelfth of the sun's disc was eclipeed; that, subetracting 848, there remained 105 for and, in the more northern parts of India, a con- the Lôkakala, while the destruction of Sômnathsiderably greater surface. But, at Môrbi itself, påtan would fall in the 98th year of the cycle. the magnitude of the eclipse was very small; There are subsidiary difflculties here, which extending there to only one twenty-fifth part of | cannot at present be fully cleared up. One of the disc. This eclipse, therefore, setting aside them is, the reference of the destruction of all other considerations, is not in any away as Sömnathpåtan to both the ninety-eighth and the satisfactory as that of the 7th May, A.D. 905. ninety.ninth years of a LôkakAla cycle; with the
J. F. FLEET.
addition, moreover, that the ninety-eighth year is indicated as current, and the ninety-ninth is
inferred to be expired. Another is, that, accordA NOTE ON THE LOKAKALA RECKONING.
ing to the only Lôkakala reckoning the nature In the course of his remarks on the Lokakala of which has been fully explained,' viz. that used or popular reckoning by cycles of a hundred in Kaśmir,- which, Albêrani tells us, had been years, in mentioning the "roundabout way" in
adopted by the people of Multân a few years which the Hindus computed the date (in January,
before his own time,-the event in question A.D. 1026) of the destruction of Somnathpåtan by would fall in the first current year of a cycle. Mahmod of Ghazni, which event took place "in Thus, Kalhana, in the Rajatararigini, i. 52 the year of the Hijra 416, or 947 Sakakala," (Calcutta edition, p. 3), makes a very explicit Alborant tells us that they first wrote down 242, statement regarding the equation between the then 606 under it, and then, again, 99; with the saka era and the Lôkakala of Kasmir. His result, by addition of the figures, of Saka-Samvat words are 947, which, as an expired year, brings us to the Laukikê=bdé chatur-vimse period A.D. 1025-26 current, inclusive of the Saka-kalasya sampratar month of January, A.D. 1026.
saptaty=&tyadhikari yatam This passage follows very closely after his sahasram parivatearah II account of the Gupta-Valabhi and other eras. "At this present moment, in the twenty-fourth And the first figures of this process, which is laukika (or popular) year, there have gone by one manifestly connected directly with the Gup- thousand years, increased by seventy, of the Saka ta-Valabhi reckoning, would seem, at first era." In this passage, he quotes the Saka year sight, to indicate that, in this calculation, the as expired, in accordance with the practice of epoch of the era was treated as being when astronomers; but the Lokakala year as current,
* Mr. Sh. B. Dikabit has not made aotaal calculations for the village of Ghôp. (see note 9 above), but is able to state that both the eclipses of the 7th May, A.D. 905, and of the 10th November, A.D. 904, were visible there, the circumstances of the former eclipse, in respect of visibility, being more favourable, and those of the latter being less so at Ghôp than at Morbi
This era dater from the accession of Yazdajird III., & Sassanian king of Persia, in A.D. 682, (see Prinsep's Essays, Vol. II. Useful Tables, p. 802 and note.) The "gauge-year, 400, selected by Alberoni for the comparison of dates, is equivalent to A.D. 1031-32, and is one year ahead of that in which he was writing.
By Gen. Sir A. Cunningham, in Indian Era, p. 6 ff.
