Hindu Calender's legacy to Western calender.

Today Western Calender is quite popular and is de-facto civil calender. Many of us know that western calender is changed many times in history. But only few are aware that the present day calender also is borrowed from Hindu Calender system and still have legacy of it.
Untill 1752 the new year used to begin in March. Which conform with Hindu Calender, Hindu New year usually begin in March/April (based on planetary movements).

Look at below table , four of the Western months are still linked to Hindu Calender system.
Month Number
(Hindu
Calender)
Months – (Hindu Calendar)
Month – (Western Calendar)
Sanskrit translation to Western Months
Meaning
1
Chaitra
March


2
Vaisakha
April


3
Jyestha
May


4
Asadha
June


5
Shravan
July


6
Bhadrapad
August


7
Ashwin
September
7th monthly change in sky.
8
Kartik
October
8th monthly change in sky.
9
Margshirsha
November
9th monthly change in sky.
10
Pausha
December
10th monthly change in sky.
11
Magha
January


12
Phalguna
February




There is an excellent research done on comparison of Hindu calender v/s Roman calender
Read excerpts (p183) from the paper "Indian vis-a-vis Roman calender" , on concept of Year.

In Sanskrit the most popular word for year is Varsa meaning "that which rains, that is , rainy season".Therefore it seems that originally one rainy season to another counted one year.
Thus, a Hindu year is related to the cycle of seasons while the Christian or even Mohammedan year has not such relation.




The paper "The Calendars of India" have detailed study on Calenders originated in India.
Read "British Calendar Act of 1751" when new year changed from March to January form 1752.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

भारत रत्न महामना मदनमोहन मालवीय

विरक्त सन्त : स्वामी रामसुखदास जी

For a peaceful future, Pakistan should accept its Hindu, Buddhist history as its own

Hindi Poem on Valor of Rani Padmini