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The '''Lakshmana Era''' (or the Lakshmana Sena Era) is [[Calendar era|year-numbering system]] that was established by [[Lakshmana Sena]], a ruler of eastern India from 1178 to 1206.<ref name="sen">{{Cite book|last=Sen|first=Sailendra|title=A Textbook of Medieval Indian History|publisher=Primus Books|year=2013|isbn=978-9-38060-734-4|pages=35–36}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=F.|first=Kielhorn|date=1890|title=The Epoch of the Lakshmanasena Era|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924079325605&view=1up&seq=13|journal=The Indian Antiquary, A Journal of Oriental Research|volume=XIX}}</ref> While there is some debate among historians about the start of the era, most currently agree that it is 1118-1119 AD.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Jha|first=Pankaj Kumar|date=2014|title=Beyond the local and the universal: Exclusionary strategies of expansive literary cultures in fifteenth century Mithila|url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464613515549|journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review|language=en|volume=51|issue=1|pages=1–40|doi=10.1177/0019464613515549|s2cid=145373596|issn=0019-4646}}</ref>

The start of the era is sixty years before the start of Lakshmana Sena's reign. Scholars do not agree on why that year was chosen; it is likely to have been Lakshmana Sena's birth year.<ref name=":1" />

Scholars have used [[Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak|Abul Fazl]]'s [[Akbarnama]], dates mentioned in [[Sanskrit]], [[Bengali language|Bengali]] and [[Maithili language|Maithili]] manuscripts, and copper-plate inscriptions to deduce the start of the era.<ref name=":0" /> In the [[Akbarnama]], Abul Fazl mentions that "in the country of Bang (Bengal) dates are calculated from the beginning of the reign of Lacchman Sen".<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Beveridge|first=H.|date=1888|title=The Era of Lacchman Sen|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101077790051&view=1up&seq=13|journal=Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal|volume=LVII Part 1}}</ref> He includes several other eras in use at the time, including the [[Shaka era|Salivahana]] and the [[Vikram Samvat|Vikramaditya]] eras, and correspondences between all of them while discussing Akbar's introduction of his new era in 1584, the ''Tarikh-e-Ilahi'' (Divine Era).<ref name=":1" /> (The ''Tarikh-e-Ilahi'' would later serve as the basis of the [[Bangladeshi calendar]].<ref name="Shrestha2002">{{cite book|author=Nanda R. Shrestha|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wMz0ZKWrQ8YC&pg=PT224|title=Nepal and Bangladesh: A Global Studies Handbook|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2002|isbn=978-1-57607-285-1|page=200}}</ref>) Maithili-speaking scholars have used [[Vidyapati]]'s work, where he states dates in both the Lakshmana Era and the [[Shaka era|Shaka Era]].<ref>{{Citation|last=Jha|first=Pankaj|title=Vidyapati and Mithila|date=2019-02-14|url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780199489558.001.0001/oso-9780199489558-chapter-1|work=A Political History of Literature|pages=3–36|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en|doi=10.1093/oso/9780199489558.003.0001|isbn=978-0-19-948955-8|access-date=2021-03-07}}</ref>

The era was used in many manuscripts produced in Bengal and Bihar for at least the next 400 years.<ref name=":0" /> Most events in medieval [[Mithila (region)|Mithila]] were dated using this era.<ref name=":2" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Calendar eras]]
[[Category:Time in India]]

Lakshmana Era - Revision history

imported>Citation bot at 12:28, 8 August 2021