Calendars in India

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Context (IE | TH): New Year’s Day (January 1) is the first day of the Gregorian calendar and is now a secular holiday in many parts of the world.

History of Calendar

Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. It is based on the solar dating system and reformed the Julian calendar, established by Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 45 BC.
The early Roman calendar was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the 8^th century BCE. Numa Pompilius added the months of Januarius and Februarius, making it a 12-month year.
Omar Khayyam, an Iranian poet and philosopher, was also an astrologer & devised rules for leap year.

The Gregorian Calendar was introduced to India in 1752, the same year it was adopted in Great Britain.
Indian calendars, called Panchangas, continued to be widely used even after the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar.
By the time of India’s independence, the Gregorian Calendar was used by the government and for many public purposes, but different regional calendars continued to be used.
Countries like India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Israel use traditional calendars alongside the Gregorian one.

Calendar	Type	Origin	Started By	Current Significance
Vikram Samvat	Lunisolar	57 BCE	Named after King Vikramaditya, who is believed to have started it	Used in Nepal and some parts of India for celebrating festivals and traditional events.
Saka Samvat	Solar	78 CE	Emperor Shalivahana	The official national calendar of India, used for official purposes and traditional practices in some regions.
Gregorian Calendar	Solar	1582 CE	Pope Gregory XIII, to address inaccuracies in the Julian calendar	International standard calendar, used globally for civil and business purposes.
Vikram Samvat was introduced in *57 B.C.*; hence, if 57 is deducted from the year of Vikram Samvat, we get *Christian year*. e.g. V.S. 2054 – 57 = A.D. 1997. The Saka Samvat or Era commenced in *B.C.* 78 during *Saka Kshatrap Nahpan’s* time. By *adding* 78 to the Saka year, we get the Christian year. e.g. Saka 1752 + 78 = A.D. 1830.

Vikram Samvat and Saka Samvat are two main calendars in India. They are used to calculate dates of all Hindu festivals, such as Diwali & Holi.
The Saka Era is believed to have been founded by Kushan king Kanishka. Under the Saka era national calendar, the New Year is on March 22 for an ordinary year and March 23 for a leap year. Year 0 for this calendar was the vernal equinox (when day and night are equal) in 78 CE.

In 1952, India decided to reform its calendar and sought assistance from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The CSIR appointed a Calendar Reform Committee in November 1952, chaired by Prof. Meghnad Saha, with leading mathematicians and astrophysicists as members.
After three years of study, the committee proposed a unified Indian Calendar based on a scientific approach. The committee’s report was submitted to CSIR in 1955, and GOI accepted the recommendations.
The unified National Calendar is based on the Saka Era, with Chaitra as its first month and a normal year of 365 days. It was adopted on 22 March 1957, along with the Gregorian calendar, for the following official purposes:
- Gazette of India.
- News broadcast by All India Radio.
- Calendars issued by the Government of India.
- Government communications addressed to the public.
As per India’s National Calendar, March 22 (or March 21 in a leap year) is the first day of the year.