FASLI ERA

(Persian fasli: harvest), chronological system devised by the Mughal emperor Akbar for land-revenue purposes in North India, for which the Muslim lunar calendar was inconvenient. The word comes from the Arabic term for division, which in India was applied to the seasons and hence the harvest. The era dated from Akbar's accession year, the Muslim year AH 963 (AD 155556). This was also the Hindu Samvat era year 1612. Akbar arbitrarily took 649 years from the Samvat year in order to make the Fasli year 963. Thereafter, the Fasli era proceeded according to the Samvat calendar. (To transpose Fasli into Gregorian, or New Style, calendar dates, add 592/593 years.) The system was introduced into the Deccan by Shah Jahan in the 1630s and was adopted two years later than in the north.