Chronologies and Calendars/Chapter 10
AT this point it will be convenient to consider the various chronologies which prevail in Hindustan, Ceylon, Burmah, and Further India. The ruling calendars to-day are the Bengali, Fusli, Moslem, Samvat, and Christian. Of the last, it will suffice to say that it is usually used in the postal, telegraph, and Government services. In regard to the Moslem, it is only necessary to refer the reader to section 59, and to add that there are fifty-seven millions of Mohammedans in India alone.[1] Of the other reckonings, a little history will help our enquiries.
98. In the district of Bhopal-Ujjain are the ruins of Vikramaditya. It marks in nomenculture a most important Hindoo era, the Samvat. The first year thereof corresponds to B.C. 57, and as the basis of this calendar was like the Julian year, one can always find the Samvat year by adding fifty-seven to the year of grace. Accordingly, 1896 A.D. = Samvat 1953. Now, in Samvat 1612 (i.e., 1555 A.D.), the Emperor Abkar signalized his reign by inventing the Fusli era, deriving the term from the Indian word 'fas,' which meant crops, so that a year in this era is sometimes also called the Harvest Year. Abkar resolved to make the then current Samvat year agree numerically with the Moslem year, which was then 963, and to accomplish this he deducted 649 from the Samvat year (that was from 1612), thus leaving 963.[2]
99. The Samvat having, however, still held the field along with the other two, the Indian chronology of that period stood as follows:—
| Samvat. | Moslem. | Fusli. | A.D. |
| 1612 | 963 | 963 | Not then introduced.[3] |
100. But as the Moslem year only averages 354 days against 365 days in each of the two others, its months gradually ceased to correspond to their months, so that in this (1896) year's calendars the chronological progression stands thus:—
| Samvat.[4] | Moslem. | Fusli. | A.D. |
| 1953 | 1313 | 1313 | 1896 |
101. The Bengali year[5] in use in Bengal is practically the same as the Fusli year, excepting some verbal differences. It is one year in arrear, however.
102. The Fiscal year in terms of statute[6] ends half yearly at 31st March or 30th September. This applies specially to the budget which is submitted to Parliament.
103. A traveller who recently visited India, and who recorded his observations in a series of Letters, remarks, 'They (the Calcutta natives) had their own holidays, but they appreciated the English Sunday as a day of rest, and they also made it their market day.'[7] This incidental observation clearly proves how very marked is the difference between the oriental and occidental in every domain of work, thought, and daily routine.
- ↑ 'In 1001 A.D. came the first wave of Mohammedanism, and soon all India fell under the Moslem domination, though the bulk of the people clung to the Hindoo religion.' Gazetteer, p. 356.
- ↑ Indian Diary, p. 37.
- ↑ It was about a century later hefore the Dutch, French, and other European nations got any footing in Hindustan.
- ↑ See detailed dates in section 146 infra.
- ↑ See detailed dates in section 147 infra.
- ↑ 42 and 43 Vict., Cap. 60.
- ↑ Leng, p. 36.