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Question - 26
Did Yudhishthira Shaka start from the time Yudhishthira started ruling?
Answer:
No. Yudhishthira Shaka started only with the beginning of kali Yuga.
Yudhishthira ruled in Dwapara Yuga. He ruled for 35 years. On the 36th year Krishna left his mortal coils. On coming to know that Krishna left the world, the Pandava-s lost interest in living. Yudhishthira stepped down from the throne and appointed Parikshit as the king. All the Pandavas along with Draupadi became ascetics and started wandering till death.
But by then Yudhishthira established the rules of law to be the followed by all kings starting from Pariskhit. That is why the period starting from Pariskhit is known as Yudhishthira Shaka.
In fact, the rishi-s of that time codified the entire Kali Yuga into 6 sub-periods called Shaka. They even assigned a specific term for each period and a king as the Shaka-karta for each sub period. The classification is shown in the table below: It shows that the total span of 4,32,000 years of Kali Yuga would be possible only if the 3044 years of the Yudhishthira Shaka is also added. Without knowing it many people including institutions count the Yudhishthira Shaka from the time of Yudhishthira's coronation after the war and fail to get the dates right.
