C
Calendar
One of the most fundamental Hindu
religious beliefs is that different times
carry different qualities. Whereas some
times are considered more auspicious
and propitious, others are more inauspi-
cious and dangerous. These judgments
may either describe the general qualities
of specific times or determine the prop-
er time for carrying out particular activ-
ities. Thus Hindus have given
considerable attention to organizing
time and predicting auspicious
moments. Many modern Hindus simul-
taneously use several different calen-
dars, although they may use them for
different purposes. To begin with, every-
day timekeeping is done with the
Gregorian calendar of the common era,
which may reflect the influence of the
British empire or, more simply, the influ-
ence of modern commerce and commu-
nications. It is notable that the only
holidays celebrated according to this
calendar are national holidays such as
Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti,
and Republic Day—all of which are
fixed on particular days. Beyond this
there are many other methods of mea-
suring time, some of which overlap with
each other and some of which are found
only in certain regions of the country.
Several of these systems are based on
the movement of the sun. The most
basic unit, of course, is the solar day,
which traditionally begins and ends not
by the clock but by the rising of the sun.
The weekcontains seven solar days. The
movement of the sun divides the year
into halves, with the uttarayanaperiod
occurring when the sun is moving
northward and the dakshinayanaperiod
taking place when the sun is moving
southward. There are also two separate
versions of the solar year, each of which
has twelve solar months. In northern
India these months correspond to the
twelve signs of the zodiacand mark the
sun’s passage through them. In southern
India one finds an identical calendar,
the Tamil solar year, in which the names
of the months are drawn from the
names of certain nakshatras, or signs of
the lunar zodiac.
Whereas the solar calendar is usually
used for astrological purposes, the lunar
calendar is important for religious life.
The lunar calendar is used to measure
the two eras still used for dating history:
the Vikram era (fifty-six or fifty-seven
years later than the common era) and
the Shaka era (seventy-eight years earlier
than the common era). The lunar year is
made up of twelve lunar months, each
of which has thirty lunar days. Since the
cycle of the moonis only about twenty-
eight solar days, a lunar day is slightly
shorter than a solar day. The lunar
month is divided into two halves of fif-
teen days each: the “dark” (krishna pak-
sha) half, when the moon is waning and
that ends with the new moon; and the
“light” (shukla paksha) half when the
moon is waxing and that culminates in
the full moon. In northern India the
lunar month begins with the moon’s
dark half, and ends on the full moon,
whereas in the south the reverse is often
true. Since the solar year has about 365
days and the lunar year about 354, if left
uncorrected each lunar year would
begin eleven solar days earlier than the
previous one. To correct this discrepancy,
an intercalary monthis added about
every two and a half years. This helps to
keep the lunar months falling at around
the same time every year, although the
celebration of a particular festival can
vary by several weeks from one year to
the next.
Almost all Hindu festivals are
celebrated according to the lunar
calendar. Some festivals’ celebrations
are associated with certain lunar days
and thus occur twenty-four times in a
twelve-month lunar year: The eleventh