How many of you are aware that the Indian Princely States used a wide range of dating systems on their coins? Do you know how to convert them into the dates of the Christian calendar? I am sure that you British Commonwealth collectors do know. Off hand,I can think of 2 such calendar systems - the AH calendar,which you can convert using a converter like this one here; www.sizes.com/time/cal_islam.htm ,or by the cheat's way of looking at the AH conversion chart in the back of the Krause catalogues. The VS (Vikrama Samvat) dating system is another calendar that is commonly found on Indian Princely States' coins.To convert it,all you need to do is add 57 to the VS date to get the AD date. If you know of the other dating systems used,please tell us about them,plus how you convert them? Aidan.
hello Aidan, sorry about this late reply.. Some of the Travancore Princely State coins have the Malayalam era dating system. To convert this to Christian era, you just have to add 825 to the Malayalam date. That is because, this system was started by King Marthanda Varma in 825 AD.
Biju,is that what the 'ME' stands for in the date column in the Travancorean chapter.I always thought it stood for 'Malabar Era'. Aidan.
It is indeed Malayalam Era and not Malabar Era. Travancore is towards the south of Kerala State and Malabar is towards the north. And in Malabar, they more or less practice the Hijra calendar.
