The festival year

The Surya Siddhanta and the astronomers count the Kali Yuga from midnight at Ujjain at the start of 18 February 3102 BCE, when, by their reckoning, the planets stood together at the start of Mesha; tradition marks it as the departure of Shri Krishna. Aryabhata wrote in the Aryabhatiya that he was twenty-three when 3,600 years of the Kali Yuga had passed, which gives 499 CE. The Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin II dates itself both 3,735 years after the Bharata war and Shaka 556, that is 634 CE. Panchangs still print the Kali year; 2026 CE runs into Kali 5127.

Kashmir counted years by the Saptarishi era, also called Laukika or Shastra Samvat, built on the belief that the seven rishis of the Great Bear stay a hundred years in each nakshatra. Its epoch is commonly placed in 3076 BCE, and in everyday use only the year within the current century was written, so a date reads Samvat 24 rather than 4224. Kalhana, writing the Rajatarangini, gives the year he began as Laukika 24, Shaka 1070, which is 1148–49 CE. Al-Biruni also noted the era in use in Kashmir.

The era most used for religious dates in North and West India, and the official calendar of Nepal, running 57 years ahead of the Common Era. Tradition ties it to King Vikramaditya of Ujjain and his victory over the Shakas. Early inscriptions of the same reckoning call it the Krita or Malava era; the name Vikrama appears on record from the ninth century, as in the Dholpur inscription of Chandamahasena dated Vikram 898 (842 CE). North India begins the year on Chaitra Shukla Pratipada; Gujarat begins it the day after Diwali, on Kartika Shukla Pratipada.

The Shaka era runs from 78 CE, 78 years behind the Common Era. It was the era of the Western Kshatrapa inscriptions, of Varahamihira and the astronomers, and of thousands of South Indian copper plates; tradition in the Deccan names it Shalivahana Shaka. On the advice of the Calendar Reform Committee chaired by Meghnad Saha, the Government of India adopted a reformed solar form of it as the national calendar from 1 Chaitra 1879 Shaka, 22 March 1957. Its year begins on 22 March, or 21 March in a leap year, and dates in the Gazette of India and on All India Radio are given in it beside the Gregorian.

The Bengali year runs about 593 years behind the Common Era and begins on Pohela Boishakh, the solar new year in mid-April. Two accounts of its origin are told. One credits Akbar’s revenue reform of the 1580s, which fitted a solar harvest year to the Hijri count; the other traces the epoch to Shashanka, king of Gauda in the early seventh century. Bengali Hindus use it for every festival date, and Bangladesh keeps a revised form with Pohela Boishakh fixed on 14 April.

The era of Kerala, counted from 825 CE and named for the port of Kollam. Its year is solar, beginning in the month of Chingam (Simha) in the south of Kerala and Kanni in the north, and its months are the solar months from Chingam to Karkidakam. Among the earliest dated records in it are the Mampalli copper plates of the Venad ruler Sri Vallabhan Kotha, of Kollam 149 (973–74 CE). Kerala’s temple festivals, Onam and Vishu are fixed in it, and Malayalam newspapers still print the Kollam date.

The lunar era of the Kathmandu valley, begun in 879 CE and used for centuries in the inscriptions, manuscripts and coins of the Licchavi successors and the Malla kings. Newar tradition holds that it was started by Shankhadhar Sakhwa, a merchant of Kantipur who paid off the debts of the people. Its year begins on Kachhala Thwa Pratipada, the day after Lakshmi Puja in the Tihar festival, which Newars keep as Mha Puja, the worship of one’s own body. The Government of Nepal recognised Nepal Sambat as a national era in 2008.