Calendar

Calendar

Judaism

The Jewish calendar is fixed according to the number of years since the creation of the world (traditionally 3761 BCE. Thus the year 5000 began on 1 Sept. 1239 CE. When using the secular calendar, Jews use the terms BCE (before common era) and CE (common era) rather than BC and AD. The year follows a 354 day year of twelve lunar months. To harmonize this with the solar year of 365 1/4 days, an extra month, Adar II, is added into seven of every nineteen years. The months received Babylonian names during the Exile: Tishri (Sept./Oct.), Heshvan (Oct./Nov.), Kislev (Nov./Dec.), Tevet (Dec./Jan.), Shevat (Jan./Feb.), Adar (Feb./Mar.), Adar II (see above), Nisan (Mar./Apr.), Iyyar (Apr./May), Sivan (May/June), Tammuz (June/July), Av (July/Aug.), Elul (Aug./Sept.). The year begins with 1 Tishri, Rosh ha-Shanah.

A day begins and ends at sunset. Rosh ha-Shanah (the new year) is kept on 1 Tishri. It is followed by the days of repentance and Yom Kippur on 10 Tishri. The season of Sukkot (tabernacles) begins on 15 Tishri and concludes with Shemini Azeret (the Closing Festival) and Simḥat Torah (the rejoicing in the law) on 22/23 Tishri. Ḥanukkah (Lights) begins on 25 Kislev and ends on 2 Tevet. 10 Tevet is a fast day and 15 Shevat is the new year for trees. Purim (Lots, the Feast of Esther) is celebrated on 14 Adar. It is preceded by the Fast of Esther (13 Adar) and succeeded by Shushan Purim (15 Adar). Pesaḥ (Passover) begins on 15 Nisan and ends on 21/22 Nisan. 27 Nisan is Yom ha-Shoʾah (Day of the Holocaust) and 5 Iyyar is Israel Independence Day. Lag ba-Omer (the thirty-third day of the counting of the omer) is celebrated on 18 Iyyar and Shavuot (Pentecost) takes place on 6/7 Sivan. There are fast days on 17 Tammuz and 9 Av, and 15 Av is a minor holiday.

Christianity

The Julian calendar was reformed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 when it was realized that the Christian calendar was ten days in advance of the solar year. The reformed calendar is known as the Gregorian (or New) Style, the unreformed as the Julian (or Old) Style. The difference between the two calendars is now thirteen days, so that some Orthodox observe Christmas, 25 Dec. (Old Style), on 7 Jan. The Christian calendar follows each year the preparation for the coming of Christ, his life, death, and resurrection, and the being of God (see FESTIVALS AND FASTS). Thus, it begins with Advent, which has four Sundays, and then either one or two Sundays after Christmas bridge the gap to the Epiphany (6 Jan.). Thereafter ‘Sundays after Epiphany’ are reckoned until what used to be known as Septuagisma, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima (Sundays before Lent); Ash Wednesday introduces the forty days of Lent, with its six Sundays; and five Sundays after Easter lead up to Ascension day with its following Sunday and Pentecost (Whitsunday). The remaining Sundays until Advent are numbered ‘after Trinity’ or ‘after Pentecost’. The Sundays of the Orthodox year fall into three segments: triodion (the ten weeks before Easter), pentecostarion (the paschal season), and octoechos (the rest of the year). See also FESTIVALS AND FASTS.

The system of dating years AD (Lat., Anno Domini, ‘in the year of the Lord’) goes back to Dionysius Exiguus (‘the Small’; c.500–50). The abbreviations CE (Common Era) and BCE to replace AD and BC began with Jewish historians in the 19th cent., in order to avoid a religious confession within the words abbreviated.

Islam

The Muslim calendar is lunar, with twelve months of twenty-nine or thirty days. Because this is not adjusted to the solar calendar (contrast the Jewish system), the religious festivals and holidays advance around the seasons: thus the month of fasting, Ramaḍān, moves around the entire solar year, occurring sometimes in summer and sometimes in winter (intercalation is forbidden in the Qurān 9. 37). The months are: Muḥarram; Ṣafr, Rabīʿ al-Awwal, Rabī al-Thāni, Jumādā al-Ūlā, Jumādā al-Thāniyya, Rajab, Shaʿbān, Ramadhān, Shawwal, Dhū al-Qadah, Dhū al-Ḥijjah. The years are numbered from the Hijra, the move of the Prophet Muḥammad from Mecca to Madīna in 622 CE. 1 Muḥarram of that year was 16 July 622, which begins the first year of the Muslim era. The years are referred to as AH, i.e. ‘after the Hijra’.

Hinduism

The Hindu religious calendar is lunar, with the months divided into a bright (śulapakṣa) and a dark (kṛṣṇapakṣa) half, with fifteen tithis (days) in each. The correlation of human activity with the whole cosmic process (made evident in the movement of heavenly bodies) is of paramount importance. The religious calendar is then a proliferation of special observances, for some of which see FESTIVALS AND FASTS. There are six seasons (ṛtu): (i) Vasanta (spring); (ii) Grīṣma (hot season); (iii) Varṣa (rainy season); (iv) Śarad (autumn); (v) Hemanta (winter); (vi) Śiśira (cold). To each of these is allocated two months (Caitra, Vaiśākha; Jyaiṣtha, Aṣāḍha; Śrāvana, Bhādarapada; Aśvinā, Āśvayuja; Mārgaśīrṣa, Pauṣa; Māgha, Phālguna. Every two or three years a thirteenth month was added to adjust the lunar year to the solar year.

Buddhism

The spread of Buddhism did not take with it a calendar which it then imposed on other countries; rather, it adapted to local calendars, and worked its own festivals into the local scene. Buddhist calendars thus vary from culture to culture.

Sikhism

The Sikhs' religious calendar is a modified form of the Bikramī calendar. The year is solar (23 minutes 44 seconds shorter than the Christian year) and the months are lunar. Lunar month dates, varying within fifteen days, are used for gurpurbs. So in 1984 Gurū Gobind Siṅgh's birthday fell on both 10 Jan. and 29 Dec. Solar months, based on the twelve zodiac signs, are also used, e.g. for saṅgrānds, Baisākhī, and Lohṛī. The anniversaries of the battle of Chamkaur, martyrdom of the younger sāhibzāde, and battle of Muktsar are solar dates. Because of the discrepancy between the Bikramī and Christian solar year these dates advance one day in sixty-seven years.

Chinese

The Chinese have traditionally followed both a solar and a lunar calendar. These run concurrently and coincide every nineteen years. The solar calendar divides the year into twenty-four periods, named (mainly) according to the weather expected in that period in the N. China plain. The only festival fixed by the solar calendar is at the beginning of the fifth period, Chʾing Ming. The lunar calendar is used to record public and private events. The New Year begins with the second new moon after the winter solstice, between 21 Jan. and 20 Feb. The months have no names and are known by numbers; but they are associated with the five elements of the cosmos, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water; and also with animals; hence each year is known as ‘the year of’. Thus 2000 is the year of the dragon; 2001 the snake; 2002 the horse; 2003 the sheep; 2004 the monkey; 2005 the chicken; 2006 the dog; 2007 the pig; 2008 the rat; 2009 the ox; 2010 the tiger. The traditional starting-point for chronological reckoning is the year in which the minister of the emperor, Huang-ti, worked out the sixty-year cycle, i.e. 2637 BCE.

Zoroastrian

See FESTIVALS AND FASTS.