South Indian Inscriptions

KALACHURI CHEDI - ERA

Īśvaradatta’s conquest will fall just about the same time as the foundation of the Traikūtaka or Kalachuri era. This agreement induces me to consider Īśvardatta as its founder. It seems further that the reign of the Traikūtakas did not last long, as Vīradāman’s son Rudrasēna appears to have regained power and to have driven his foe out of the country. The Traikūtakas then probably retired to the Central Provinces and there assumed the name Haihaya and Kalachuri. Afterwards the kings of this dynasty appear to have taken possession of their former capital Trikūta at the time of the final destruction of the Kshatrapa power. Dahrasēna must have ascended the throne just about this time which was the year 207+170 or 377 of the Śaka era.”¹

Till 1887, scholars were engaged in pointing out in a general way the epoch of the Chēdi or Traikūtaka era. A definite suggestion about the month and the tithi of its actual commencement was first made by Prof. Kielhorn,² who, in his letters published in the Academy of December 10 and 24, 1887, and January 14, 1888,³ announced that his calculations of numerous week-days of later Chēdi inscriptions showed that the Chēdi era began not in 249, but in 248 A. C. Later on, in an article published in the Nacbrichtem der Ges. d. Wissenschaften, Göttingen (1888), pp. 31-41 and another in the Indian Antiquary (Vol. XVII, pp. 215 ff.) of August 1888, Dr. Kielhorn showed, from an examination of twelve dates of the Kalachuris and their feudatories and two of the Gurjaras, that the only equation which yields correct week-days for those Chēdi inscriptions in which the week-day is mentioned is Chēdi Samvat 0=248-49 A. C. and Chēdi Samvat 1=249-50 A. C., and that, if we wish to work out the dates by a uniform process, we must take the Chēdi year to commence with the month Bhādrapada, and must, accordingly, start from July 28, 249 A. C.=Bhādrapada śu. di. 1 of the northern Vikrama year 307 current, as the first day of the first current year of the Chēdi era. In a note Kielhorn remarked that a year beginning with the month Āśvina would suit the dates examined by him as well as one beginning with Bhādrapada, and if the dates were to be worked out by a uniform process, the former would appear to be even more suitable than the latter. He preferred, however, the Bhādrapadādi year because ‘Albērūnī does mention a year beginning with Bhādrapada'.⁴ As regards the arrangement of the fortnights, Kielhorn showed from three dates that it was the purnimānta one in which the dark half of a month precedes the bright half.

Kielhorn’s calculations, made on the basis of the epoch of 248-49 A. C. showed that of the fourteen dates examined by him, in none of which the year is specified either as current or as expired, eleven were found recorded in current years, two in expired years and one in a year which may be taken as current if the Chēdi year was Āśvinādi, and expired if it was Bhādrapadādi.

This proportion of the current and expired years of the Chēdi era was, however, the reverse of what Kielhorn himself found in the case of other eras such as the Vikrama, Śaka and Nēwār eras. It was pointed out by Dr. Bhandarkar⁵ and others in connection
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¹ See P. V. O. C. (1886), p. 221-22.
² Sh. B. Dikshit had earlier come to the conclusion that nearly all of the ten Kalachuri or Chēdi dates, given by General Cunningham, would work out correctly with the epoch of 248-49 A.C., but his results were not published for the reasons stated by Fleet in the Introduction to C. I. I., Vol. III, p. 9 (published in 1888). The dates of the grants of the Uchchakalpa kings, which Fleet referred to the Kalachuri era (ibid., introuduction, pp. 8 ff.), are probably recorded in the Gupta era. See my article on the subject in Ep. Ind., Vol. XXIII, pp. 171 ff.
³ See Ind. Ant., Vol. XVII, p. 187, n. 14.
⁴ Ibid., Vol. XVII, p. 215, n. 5.
⁵ See his article ‘The Epoch of the Gupta Era’ (1889), pub. in the J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. XVII, Part II (1887-1889), pp. 80 ff.