An illustrated Hindu calendar-almanac (pancanga), in scroll form, in cylindrical painted wood case

Western India, probably Gujarat, dated VS 1917/AD 1860-61

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Footnotes

Provenance
Private UK collection: acquired in the 1860s or 1870s by either Major-General Henry Willoughby Trevelyan (1803-1876), great-great-grandfather of the current owners; or Sir Ernest John Trevelyan (1850-1924), great-grandfather of the current owners; and thence by descent.

The scroll was examined and commented on by the British Library (Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books), according to a letter dated 18th September 1975, accompanying the lot.

Sir Ernest John Trevelyan (1850-1924), great-grandfather of the current owners, was a lawyer and academic, who wrote several books and treatises on Hindu law under the British empire. He was a judge at the High Court in Calcutta, from 1885-1898, and then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University from 1897-1898.
Retiring early to England to be with his young family, he became Reader in Indian Law at Oxford University from 1900 to 1923, and Vice-Warden of All Souls (where there is a memorial plaque to him in the chapel).

His father (great-great-grandfather of the current owners) was Major-General Henry Willoughby Trevelyan (1803-1876), an army officer who fought in the Anglo-Persian Wars, and later became Resident, or Political Agent in Bhuj, in Kutch, in present day Gujarat (and perhaps elsewhere).

In the accompanying letter dated 18th September 1975, G. W. Shaw (Research Assistant, North Indian Languages) writes: 'At the very beginning there is mention of a king: Maharaja Ranachoda (?chora) ji during whose reign it was perhaps prepared. It then states in the usual manner that the sata (= satya), treta and dvapara yugas or ages of the world have passed and we find ourselves in the fourth and most degenerate, the kali-yuga, which began in 3102 BC. Of this age 4962 years have already elapsed i.e. the year is 1860 AD' [...] 'Details of the positions of the planets in the sky are given and the constellations through which they pass for each of the twelve Hindu months from Caitra to Phalguna. There is a name mentioned: Damodhara, son of Pandya Liladhara, but as this line has apparently been added as an afterthought (though probably by the same hand) it is not clear whether this is the person for whom the calendar was prepared, or the scribe, or whoever'.