Dates

Most Kakatiya records count years in the Saka era. Some early records count years in the Chalukya-Vikrama era instead. F. Kielhorn equates year 42 of that era with Saka 1039 for the Padmakshi pillar of 1117.

A Saka year began in spring. Robert Sewell's examples place the start of the year in March. He also warns that a bare Saka number can cover parts of two CE years.

A Saka year without a month falls across two years of the Common Era. The Motupalli pillar gives only Saka 1166, the year Krodhin. E. Hultzsch wrote that this expired year corresponds to 1244-45.

To convert a Saka year, add 78 for a date between spring and December. Add 79 for a date in January, February or early March. The examples below show both cases.

Indian records count a year either as current or as expired. The two counts differ by one year. Sewell gives this warning, and Kielhorn marks the Padmakshi year as Saka 1039 expired.

Most records also name the year in a cycle of sixty years. Each year of the cycle has a name, such as Srimukha, Pingala, Chitrabhanu or Virodhi. The name repeats every sixty years.

The cycle name lets a reader test the Saka number. The Ramappa gift of Saka 1135 and the Kotagiri grant of Saka 1195 both fall in a Srimukha year, exactly sixty years apart.

Sewell and Dikshit give a rule for the southern cycle. Add 11 to the current Saka year and divide by 60. The remainder is the number of the year in the cycle, counting Prabhava as 1. The southern cycle has followed this rule since about Saka 828 to 831, 905 to 909 CE.

Burnell gives a quick check. In South India each cycle begins in a year of the Common Era that ends in 7, such as 907 or 967. C. P. Brown's tables of 1850 also give 967 CE, Saka 889, as Prabhava.

C. P. Brown warned in 1863 that writers took more care over the cycle name than over the number. He found the number often wrong, but seldom by more than three years. One example is Saka 1119, the year Pingala, which some inscriptions write as 1118.

The Thousand Pillar year, Saka 1084, is a Chitrabhanu year. Kielhorn notes that the expired Saka year 1144 was also Chitrabhanu, and 1144 lies exactly sixty years later.

Next the record gives the lunar month, such as Chaitra, Magha or Pushya. Each month has a bright fortnight, called sukla or suddha, and a dark fortnight, called bahula or krishna.

The tithi is the numbered lunar day within the fortnight. The Ramappa date falls on the eighth tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra. Barnett reports that this tithi ended about ten hours after sunrise on that Sunday.

A tithi is the time that the moon takes to gain 12 degrees on the sun. A tithi can therefore begin at any hour of the day or night, according to Sewell and Dikshit. The Ganapesvaram inscription of 1231 gives the tithi of Gauri in the bright fortnight of Vaisakha, Saka 1153, the year Khara.

The weekday comes last. Bhanuvara means Sunday in the Kotagiri plates. Guruvaramu means Thursday at Uparpalli. Vaddavara means Saturday in the Thousand Pillar inscription.

Some records add an event of the sky, such as a solar eclipse or the Uttarayana-samkranti. The Padmakshi pillar was set up on the day of Uttarayana-samkranti, which Kielhorn places on Monday, 24 December 1117.

Editors calculate the tithi and then test the weekday. Barnett reports that the Uparpalli tithi was current at sunrise on Thursday, 24 January 1236. Thursday is also the weekday in the record.

When the weekday fails, editors say so. The Meruru record of 1197 names a Monday, but its editors note that the date fell on a Wednesday.

This site uses the weekday to choose the date of the Chandupatla record. The record gives Saka 1211, Virodhi, the twelfth tithi of the bright fortnight of Margasira, and a Friday.

Parabrahma Sastry equates the Chandupatla date with Friday, 25 November 1289. A modern biography gives 27 November 1289 instead. A calendar check shows that 27 November 1289 was a Sunday, so the site keeps 25 November.

Worked example 1: the Thousand Pillar Temple inscription. The record gives the date as Saka 1084, Chitrabhanu, Magha, bright fortnight, thirteenth tithi, Vaddavara.

The Annual Report on Indian Epigraphy for 1957-58 and Inscriptions of Warangal District both equate this date with 19 January 1163. A calendar check confirms that 19 January 1163 was a Saturday.

Worked example 3 is shorter. The Ramappa pillar gives Saka 1135, Srimukha, Chaitra bright eighth, Sunday. Barnett fixes the day as Sunday, 31 March 1213. The date falls after the spring start of the Saka year, so 1135 plus 78 gives 1213.

The second Ramappa estampage on this page shows the date in lines 183 and 184.