Hello everyone, We Indians are celebrating the start of a new year from today.
Confused? Let me explain!
The Hindu calendar unlike Gregorian Calendar is based on both lunar and solar cycles. A lunar cycle is ~ 30 days. 12 lunar cycles makeup 354 days and to match with the Solar cycles an extra month is added every 3 years plus some days adjusted here and there.
It is one of the most complex types of calendar used but has its advantages. Throughout most of history, people have used only calendars based on the lunar cycle and they were a mess to work with.
Say, you want to celebrate a festive around the same time of the year and it comes in Spring, but if you use the lunar calender after a few years that holiday might come in Winter and that was not good for a calendar.
Hence came the solution of using the combination of solar and lunar cycles. And adding an extra month to the same year to celebrate your holidays or harvest periods at the same time in the coming years.
Source , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fabric Hindu calendar/almanac corresponding to Western years 1871-1872. From Rajasthan in India.
The left column shows the ten avatars of Vishnu, the center-right column shows the twelve signs of the Hindu zodiac.
The top middle panel shows Ganesha with two consorts. The second panel shows Krishna with two consorts. [source]
How to read the date
Chaitra, Vaisakha, Jyeshtha, Ashadha, Shravana, Bhadra, Ashvin, Kartik, Agahana, Pausha, Magha and Phalguna are the 12 months respectively.
Also, each month is further divided into 2 halves, the waning moon (called Krishna Period) and other for waxing moon (called Shukla Paksha).
Today is Prathma, Shukla Paksha, Chaitra Mas, Vikram Samvat 2079
Prathma, literally translates to First
Shukla Paksa, waxing moon period
Vikram Samvat 2079, is the year 2079 of Vikram Era.
Hence, the 1st of the waxing moon half of month Chaitra, the year 2079 of the Vikram era.
As you already know that the famous Gregorian Calendar used the birth of Jesus as its starting year, in India with the change in Dynasty, the emperor would reset the calendar year and start their calendar making it more confusing. And many more little things are there that even I can't wrap my head around after trying to understand many times. 😅
The two most commonly used calendars were the Vikram Samvat starting date was 57 BC and the Saka Samvat starting in 78 AD. Vikram Samvat is the major calendar used for calculating the dates of Hindu festivals.[source]
p.s. I have a Hindu Calendar app on my smartphone so that I don't have to calculate all this.
Losing Significance
Indians were using the Hindu calendar until the British rule and they changed it to the Gregorian Calendar which we are all familiar with. It helped in keeping up with the world but now people don't even know the names of Months. Even I used to seek my Grandmother's help who doesn't even know how to read or write. She knows the calendar much more than I ever did. I blame our education system for that. A calendar that is still used to determine dates in some other East Asian countries and heavily influenced many calendars is almost getting eradicated from people's minds.
I had to write this post to make some people aware of this beautiful and complex ancient Indian Calendar which utilizes both sun and moon for calculating dates and keeping time.
Happy Hindu New Year 🙏
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