Unravelling the Threads of Time
None of the major civilizations of the world ever celebrated New Year at a time that coincided with the first January of Gregorian calendar. The Mesopotamians, The Egyptian, the Chinese, the Persians, none of these older civilizations ushered in the new year on January the first. And it was certainly never an Indian tradition.
And yet the first January across the world is regarded as the beginning of a new year. But for Julius Caesar, most of the world would be celebrating the new Year around Vernal Equinox- the time around March every year. Even the Roman New Year also originally corresponded with the vernal equinox, but years of tampering with the solar calendar and the decisiveness of Julius Caesar set the world on a course to celebrate new year on January 1. The calendar that we follow today, however, is named after Pope Gregory III, who gave it the present shape in the year 1582.
Evolution and Shortcomings of the Gregorian Calendar
Notwithstanding the prevalence of Gregorian calendar, its antiquity does not precede many other calendric systems. For the record, the oldest extant calendar in India is the 5098 years old Saptarishi calendar of Kashmir, which is still issued every year by Kashmiri Pandits.
The history of the Gregorian Calendar traces back to ancient Rome, where Romulus introduced a 304-day, 10-month calendar in 700 BCE. Numa Pompilius later added January and February, making the Roman calendar 355 days long..
In 40 BCE, Julius Caesar, with astronomer Sosigenes, defined a 365.25-day year, introducing leap years every four years. He renamed months, immortalizing himself by renaming Quintilis to July and adjusting days. His nephew Augustus continued this tradition by naming another month as August after him. Adjustments were settled in February with odd/even days. Thus, a Julian calendar ruled the so-called civilised world for over a thousand years, till it was eventually succeeded by the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar faced issues, mainly as it lagged behind the seasons by about ten days due to its leap year miscalculations. Realizing this, Pope Gregory III ratified a change, omitting ten days in 1582, leading to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
Global Adoption and India’s Compulsion:
It took two hundred years for England, then at its Zenith, to adopt the Gregorian calendar in 1752, while other countries of Europe took varying time to embrace it. But for India, it was a given as she was under a colonial rule. Despite global adoption, the Gregorian calendar has notable flaws. Firstly, the names of the month lack any logic, let alone any astronomical logic, often serving monarchical whims. Months like October, November, and December underwent name shifts, defying their original order. There are inconsistencies in the number of days in a month without any scientific explanation. The start of the year is simply arbitrary and no month aligns with any astronomical event.
The Evolution of the National Calendar of India
In the aftermath of Independence, moved perhaps by a new found urge of self-respect, dignity, and confidence, and following the decision to have a National Flag and National Anthem, the need for a unified calendar system, that could be called truly Indian, was evident. Thus, a Calendar Reform Committee in 1952 was set up under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with eminent Astro-Physicist professor Meghnad Saha as its chairman. This expert committee, including esteemed individuals like Prof AC Banarjee, Dr. KL Dafftari, JS Karandikar, Prof RV Vaidya, Prof Gorakh Prasad, and Prof NC Lahiri, undertook the monumental task of consolidating over 30 disparate calendrical systems in vogue in various parts of the country.
The committee’s mandate was comprehensive, involving the definition of the start of the year, month durations, month names, the commencement of the day, the reference point for time measurement, and the specification of Tithis and Nakshatras for the festival calendar.
The Calendar Committee addressed flaws in the Gregorian calendar and proposed a scientific foundation. Key considerations included: significance of cardinal points (vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, winter solstice), correlation between Earth’s revolution speed and month lengths, naming of months based on Indian astrometry, emphasizing cultural and astronomical relevance.
The four-year-long efforts resulted in the development of the National Calendar of India with the following key features. The proposed National Calendar was named Saka calendar. Based on a luni-solar reckoning of time, it has, like the Gregorian calendar, 12 months and 30/31 days each month. The months in this calendar follow the tropical Zodiac signs rather than the sidereal signs normally used with the Hindu calendar.
The new calendar had like Gregorian calendar 12 months; Chhaitra (March 21 – April 20), Vaishakha (April 21-May 21), Jyeshtha (May 22-June 21), Ashadha (June 22- July 22), Shravana (July 23-August 22), Bhaadra (August 22-September 22), Ashwin (September 23-October 22), Kartika (October 23-November 21), Agrahayana (November 22-December 21), Pausha (December 22-January 20), Magha (January 21- February 19) and Phalguna (February 20-March 20/21). According to the Saka calendar, 22 March marks the new year, with the onset of the month of Chaitra, which usually has 30 days, except for a leap year, when it’s 31 days and begins on 21 March. The first six months of the Saka calendar usually have 31 days, done by taking into account the ellipticity of earth’s orbit around the sun. The rest six months last for 30 days each.
(To Be Continued……)
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