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saidevo
26 December 2006, 09:29 PM
Today's date is 2006-27-12 CE (27th Dec 2006) as per the Christian Era (now known as the Common Era). You have any idea what is today's date in the Hindu Calendar of the Kali Era?

2006 CE is 5107 KE (Kali Era). The month now is the 9th month of the Hindu Calendar, namely MArgashIrsha. And the day of the month is 12th. Thus, as per the Hindu Calendar, today's date is 5007-09-12 KE (12th MArg 5007) in the Kali Era.

The names of the month do look different vernacularly, so we can have the number of the month, instead. The name of the current year is Vyaya (called Viya in Tamil), which is the 20th in the cycle of 60 Hindu years.

We need not remember or display the Tithi-Vaasara-Nakshatra details ordinarily, but let us at least consciously remember and display the Hindu calendar date (may be in the format yyyy-mm-dd KE to be universal) besides the date of the Common Era (CE). This could serve in a small way to be conscious of the world's oldest culture and tradition, which is ours.

The Hindu Calendar is actually the Indian Official Calendar, but is only naam ke vaste. As Indian citizens, we must be conscious of the running of our own calendar, irrespective of our religious affiliations.

For a discussion on the Hindu Calendar check:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_calendar

PS: Satay, is there a way you can program the Hindu Calendar for a date display in the Forum?

Agnideva
26 December 2006, 10:51 PM
Namaste Saidevoji,

We need not remember or display the Tithi-Vaasara-Nakshatra details ordinarily, but let us at least consciously remember and display the Hindu calendar date (may be in the format yyyy-mm-dd KE to be universal) besides the date of the Common Era (CE). This could serve in a small way to be conscious of the world's oldest culture and tradition, which is ours.
The “problem” is that even though the Hindu calendrical theory it the same everywhere, there are several permutations of both the lunar and solar aspects of the Hindu calendar (which are actually interlinked) used by different ethno-linguistic groups. So, the question becomes, which one do we use? :)


2006 CE is 5107 KE (Kali Era).
Currently it is also 1928 according to Shaka Era, 2063 according to Vikram Era and Bāngla Era 1413. The Kali era, at least, is universal, although some begin it at the solar new year (baisākhi/puthāndu pirappu), others at lunar new year (nav samvat/yugādi).


The month now is the 9th month of the Hindu Calendar, namely MArgashIrsha. And the day of the month is 12th. Thus, as per the Hindu Calendar, today's date is 5007-09-12 KE (12th MArg 5007) in the Kali Era. This is true in the Tamil permutation, where the names of the solar months are staggered in relation to the other systems. The present solar month is called Pausha (or Dhanur Māsa) in northern India and elsewhere, so the solar month of Mārgashirsha is over in these systems! In Punjab, for example, today (27 Dec 2006) is 12 Pausha, 2063 Vikram Era. Also, in the lunar aspect (both purnimānta and amānta varieties), the current lunar month is Pausha.

OM Shanti,
A.

saidevo
27 December 2006, 12:44 AM
Namaste Agnideva ji.

I understand the pertinent points you have raised. The whole point of remembering our calendar is to know that we are in the 5107th year KE, not the 2000-and-odd of the CE!

When the year is agreed as 5107 KE throughout the nation (why even throughout the world), it does not matter what month or day we are in. So leaving aside the Shaka, Vikrama and Bangla Eras, let us agree on the year (to start with) and say in one voice that this is the year 5107 of the Kali Era! Our mantras predominantly refer to the Kali Yuga as our age, so 5107 KE is the most appropriate year to remember.

Our children and youth should know and use this year, besides the year of the Common Era, to internalize the ancientness of our culture and tradition! We might as well say that the civilization of humanity is 5107 years old today.

Let us celebrate our New Year Days in accordance with the custom of our region, but let us use the year of the Kali Era, besides the year of the Common Era, as a minimum remembrance of our hoary tradition.

Agnideva
27 December 2006, 08:00 AM
When the year is agreed as 5107 KE throughout the nation (why even throughout the world), it does not matter what month or day we are in. [...] and say in one voice that this is the year 5107 of the Kali Era! Our mantras predominantly refer to the Kali Yuga as our age, so 5107 KE is the most appropriate year to remember.

Our children and youth should know and use this year, besides the year of the Common Era, to internalize the ancientness of our culture and tradition! We might as well say that the civilization of humanity is 5107 years old today.

Definitely Saidevo. Everyone should be at least aware that we are currently in Hindu year 5107 KE, and that it began in 3102 BCE. This is the only religious era, the rest are reignal in nature. I believe according to modern calculations, Kaliyuga era started at 00:00 (midnight) 18 February 3102 BCE. For simplicity, we can start by reminding ourselves every 18 Feb, that Kaliyuga began on that day, and it is XXXX number of years since.

Regards,
A.

saidevo
27 December 2006, 08:32 AM
Thanks for the common consent, Agnideva. Yes, we must remember that the current year is 5107 KE and that Kaliyuga started on 18th Feb 3102 BCE. Once internalized, it is easy to remember these facts.

All's well that ends well.

satay
27 December 2006, 09:25 AM
namaste saidevo,

Thanks for the idea. Like Agnideva, I also agree with you. However, I have not been able to find a good hindu calendar resource on the net to verify any of this information e.g. the kali yuga start date etc. Most importantly, I need to understand how the calendar works and what in fact is today's date etc.

I can not change the calendar year on this forum because the software does not allow it, it only allows the Time Zone change. The time and date is picked up from the server it is running on. We can custom program and calculate the hindu calendar date based on the current CE date and then display it on the forum. But for this to happen, I need to understand the date and year calculations of the hindu calendar and how one arrives at the current hindu date based on the CE date.

Could you guys point me to a good resource on the net?

saidevo
27 December 2006, 10:58 AM
Namaste Satay,

Hindu and Indian National calendars seem to be too complex for easy understanding. I searched for useful links and found these that might be useful to you:



Hindu Calendar Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_calendar - good explanation with cross references

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/panchangam/ - has a downloadable pdf file on Vedic Calendar

http://hinduism.iskcon.com/practice/402.htm - a short article with graphic charts

http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Astronomy/HinduCalendar.html - the Hindu Almanac

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2000/07/04/stories/0404210t.htm - Linking Hindu almanac to Western calendar

http://members.tripod.com/~jennifer_polan/astrology/hinducalendar.html - Hindu and Western calendar differences

http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-indian.html - Indian national calendar

http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/projects/dc-urops.pdf - Comparing The Surya Siddhanta And The Astronomical Ephemeris

http://www.calendarzone.com/Historic/ - more calendar links

http://emr.cs.iit.edu/~reingold/hindu-paper.pdf - Indian Calendrical Calculations

http://emr.cs.iit.edu/~reingold/calendar2.ps - Calendrical Calculations II

http://www.horologysource.com/DevelopmentOfTime.htm - Development of Time and Time Systems

The "calendar conversion" search in Google throws up over 89,000 links!

Calendar Conversion:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/ - online converter
http://www.kashmirstamps.ca/Samvat.html - calendar coversion utility


I haven't gone through the links in deep. The Wikipedia link gives a comprehensive article. For custom conversion between calendars, you might ask a techie about programmable Java applets or such other software that can display dates in two or more chosen calendar systems.

While we are at it, these links are about dating the Mahabharata war:
http://www.jyotishashastra.org/57932.html
http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/colloquium/colloquium01.htm

Agnideva
27 December 2006, 09:46 PM
Namaste Satay,

If you've visited any of the great sites Saidevo has posted, you'll realize that the Hindu calendar is a complex beast ;). I don't know anything about programming, but I do know that there's a book out there called Calendrical Calculations (http://emr.cs.uiuc.edu/home/reingold/calendar-book/index.shtml) by Reingold and Dershowitz that says how to program Hindu calendars. Based on their program, there are several date conversion Java Applets on the internet. You can find two of them here (http://web.meson.org/calendars/) and here (http://emr.cs.iit.edu/home/reingold/calendar-book/Calendrica.html). I don't know if this is possible to do this here or not, but if it is, then what Saidevo and I were speaking about is the Hindu Solar calendar (new one, not the old one) using the old calendar (Kaliyuga) era.

Regards,
A.