Traditional
31-670: The Shaka era ( IAST : Śaka, Śāka ) is a historical Hindu calendar era (year numbering), the epoch (its year zero) of which corresponds to Julian year 78. The era has been widely used in different regions of the Indian subcontinent as well as in Southeast Asia . According to the Government of India , it is referred as the Shalivahana Era (IAST: Śālivāhana ). The origin of the Shaka era
62-568: A macron ). Vocalic (syllabic) consonants, retroflexes and ṣ ( / ʂ ~ ɕ ~ʃ/ ) have an underdot . One letter has an overdot: ṅ ( /ŋ/ ). One has an acute accent : ś ( /ʃ/ ). One letter has a line below: ḻ ( / ɭ / ) (Vedic). Unlike ASCII -only romanisations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto , the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalisation of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially ( Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ Ḹ ) are useful only when writing in all-caps and in Pāṇini contexts for which
93-502: A century of scholarly usage in books and journals on classical Indian studies. By contrast, the ISO 15919 standard for transliterating Indic scripts emerged in 2001 from the standards and library worlds. For the most part, ISO 15919 follows the IAST scheme, departing from it only in minor ways (e.g., ṃ/ṁ and ṛ/r̥)—see comparison below. The Indian National Library at Kolkata romanization , intended for
124-433: A font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs. Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap ( GNOME ) or kcharselect ( KDE ) – exist on most Linux desktop environments. Users of SCIM on Linux based platforms can also have
155-623: Is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the 19th century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan , William Jones , Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress , in September 1894. IAST makes it possible for
186-782: Is by setting up an alternative keyboard layout . This allows one to hold a modifier key to type letters with diacritical marks. For example, alt + a = ā. How this is set up varies by operating system. Linux/Unix and BSD desktop environments allow one to set up custom keyboard layouts and switch them by clicking a flag icon in the menu bar. macOS One can use the pre-installed US International keyboard, or install Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode keyboard layout. Microsoft Windows Windows also allows one to change keyboard layouts and set up additional custom keyboard mappings for IAST. This Pali keyboard installer made by Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) supports IAST (works on Microsoft Windows up to at least version 10, can use Alt button on
217-663: Is characterized by having an almost exactly equal amount of daylight and night across most latitudes on Earth. The Babylonian calendar began with the first new moon after the March equinox, the day after the return of the Sumerian goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar ) from the underworld, in the Akitu ceremony, with parades through the Ishtar Gate to the Eanna temple and the ritual re-enactment of
248-456: Is highly controversial. There are two Shaka era systems in scholarly use, one is called Old Shaka Era , whose epoch is uncertain, probably sometime in the 1st millennium BCE because ancient Buddhist and Jaina inscriptions and texts use it, but this is a subject of dispute among scholars. The other is called Saka Era of 78 CE , or simply Saka Era , a system that is common in epigraphic evidence from southern India. A parallel northern India system
279-555: Is the Vikrama Era , which is used by the Vikrami calendar linked to Vikramaditya. The beginning of the Shaka era is now widely equated to the ascension of Indo-Scythian king Chashtana in 78 CE. His inscriptions, dated to the years 11 and 52, have been found at Andhau in Kutch region. These years are interpreted as Shaka years 11 (89 CE) and 52 (130 CE). A previously more common view was that
310-695: Is the equinox on the Earth when the subsolar point appears to leave the Southern Hemisphere and cross the celestial equator , heading northward as seen from Earth. The March equinox is known as the vernal equinox (spring equinox) in the Northern Hemisphere and as the autumnal equinox (autumn equinox or fall equinox) in the Southern Hemisphere. On the Gregorian calendar at 0° longitude ,
341-760: The Balinese saka calendar . It was adopted as the era of the Indian national calendar (also known as "Śaka calendar") in 1957. The Shaka epoch is the vernal equinox of the year AD 78. The year of the official Shaka Calendar is tied to the Gregorian date of 22 March every year, except in Gregorian leap years when it starts on 21 March. The Lunisolar Shalivaahana Saka continues to be used widely in Southern and Western India for many religious and some secular purposes such as sowing and agriculture. <3 IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST )
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#1732859413359372-595: The precession of the equinoxes , this point is no longer in the constellation Aries , but rather in Pisces . By the year 2600 it will be in Aquarius . The Earth's axis causes the First Point of Aries to travel westwards across the sky at a rate of roughly one degree every 72 years. Based on the modern constellation boundaries , the northward equinox passed from Taurus into Aries in the year −1865 (1866 BC), passed into Pisces in
403-557: The Shaka era marks the day of this conquest. This legend has been mentioned in the writings of Brahmagupta (7th century CE), Al-Biruni (973–1048 CE), and others. However, it is an obvious fabrication. Over time, the word "Shaka" became generic, and came to be mean "an era"; the era thus came to be known as "Shalivahana Shaka". The earliest known users of the era are the Western Satraps , the Shaka ( Indo-Scythian ) rulers of Ujjain . From
434-569: The area of Sanskrit studies make use of free OpenType fonts such as FreeSerif or Gentium , both of which have complete support for the full repertoire of conjoined diacritics in the IAST character set. Released under the GNU FreeFont or SIL Open Font License , respectively, such fonts may be freely shared and do not require the person reading or editing a document to purchase proprietary software to make use of its associated fonts. March equinox The March equinox or northward equinox
465-474: The beginning of the Shaka era corresponds to the ascension of Kanishka I in 78 CE. However, the latest research by Henry Falk indicated that Kanishka ascended the throne in 127 CE. Moreover, Kanishka was not a Shaka, but a Kushana ruler. Other historical candidates have included rulers such as Vima Kadphises , Vonones , and Nahapana . According to historian Dineshchandra Sircar , the historically inaccurate notion of "Shalivahana era" appears to be based on
496-526: The consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap ). macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in
527-625: The convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters. For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919 that merges the retroflex (underdotted) liquids with the vocalic ones ( ringed below ) and the short close-mid vowels with the long ones. The following seven exceptions are from the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire of symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts , as used for languages other than Sanskrit. The most convenient method of inputting romanized Sanskrit
558-516: The end of astronomical summer in the Southern Hemisphere. In astronomy , the March equinox is the zero point of sidereal time and, consequently, the right ascension and ecliptic longitude . It also serves as a reference for calendars and celebrations in many cultures and religions. The point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator northwards is called the First Point of Aries . However, due to
589-469: The intercalary month with an intercalary day to be added every four years to February. It was based on a length for the year of 365 days and 6 hours (365.25 d), while the mean tropical year is about 11 minutes and 15 seconds less than that. This had the effect of adding about three quarters of an hour every four years. The effect accumulated from inception in 45 BC until the 16th century, when the northern vernal equinox fell on 10 or 11 March. The date in 1452
620-458: The marriage to Tammuz , or Sumerian Dummuzi . The Persian calendar begins each year at the northward equinox, observationally determined at Tehran . The Indian national calendar starts the year on the day next to the vernal equinox on 22 March (21 March in leap years) with a 30-day month (31 days in leap years), then has 5 months of 31 days followed by 6 months of 30 days. The Julian calendar reform lengthened seven months and replaced
651-400: The northward equinox can occur as early as 19 March (which happened most recently in 1796, and will happen next in 2044). And it can occur as late as 21 March (which happened most recently in 2007, and will happen next in 2102). For a common year the computed time slippage is about 5 hours 49 minutes later than the previous year, and for a leap year about 18 hours 11 minutes earlier than
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#1732859413359682-670: The opportunity to install and use the sa-itrans-iast input handler which provides complete support for the ISO 15919 standard for the romanization of Indic languages as part of the m17n library. Or user can use some Unicode characters in Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended Additional and Combining Diarcritical Marks block to write IAST. Only certain fonts support all the Latin Unicode characters essential for
713-462: The previous year. Balancing the increases of the common years against the losses of the leap years keeps the calendar date of the March equinox from drifting more than one day from 20 March each year. The March equinox may be taken to mark the beginning of astronomical spring and the end of astronomical winter in the Northern Hemisphere but marks the beginning of astronomical autumn and
744-590: The reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars. Scholars commonly use IAST in publications that cite textual material in Sanskrit, Pāḷi and other classical Indian languages. IAST is also used for major e-text repositories such as SARIT, Muktabodha, GRETIL, and sanskritdocuments.org. The IAST scheme represents more than
775-552: The reign of Rudrasimha I (178–197), they recorded the date of minting of their coins in the Shaka era, usually written on the obverse behind the king's head in Brahmi numerals . The use of the calendar era survived into the Gupta period and became part of Hindu tradition following the decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent . It was in widespread use by the 6th to 7th centuries, e.g. in
806-464: The right side of the keyboard instead of Ctrl+Alt combination). Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method . Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win + R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter ) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in
837-483: The romanisation of all Indic scripts , is an extension of IAST. The IAST letters are listed with their Devanagari equivalents and phonetic values in IPA , valid for Sanskrit , Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, but some phonological changes have occurred: * H is actually glottal , not velar . Some letters are modified with diacritics : Long vowels are marked with an overline (often called
868-483: The transliteration of Indic scripts according to the IAST and ISO 15919 standards. For example, the Arial , Tahoma and Times New Roman font packages that come with Microsoft Office 2007 and later versions also support precomposed Unicode characters like ī . Many other text fonts commonly used for book production may be lacking in support for one or more characters from this block. Accordingly, many academics working in
899-512: The victory of the Satavahana ruler Gautamiputra Satakarni over some Shaka ( Western Kshatrapa ) kings. Sircar also suggested that the association of the northern king Vikramaditya with Vikrama era might have led the southern scholars to fabricate a similar legend. Another similar account claims that the emperor Shalivahana , grandson of legendary emperor Vikramaditya defeated the Shakas in 78 CE, and
930-624: The works of Varāhamihira and Brahmagupta , and by the 7th century also appears in epigraphy in Hindu Southeast Asia . The calendar era remained in use in India and Southeast Asia throughout the medieval period, the main alternative era in traditional Hindu timekeeping being the Vikram Samvat era (56 BC). It was used by Javanese courts until 1633, when it was replaced by Anno Javanico , a hybrid Javanese-Islamic system. It continues to be used in
961-483: The year −67 (68 BC), will pass into Aquarius in the year 2597, and will pass into Capricornus in the year 4312. It passed by (but not into) a 'corner' of Cetus at 0°10′ distance in the year 1489. In its apparent motion on the day of an equinox, the Sun's disk crosses the Earth's horizon directly to the east at sunrise ; and again, some 12 hours later, directly to the west at sunset . The March equinox, like all equinoxes,