Hindu Calendar System

Yugas
According to Hindu beliefs each Yuga marks the beginning of something new 'epoch' or 'era' within a cycle of four ages. These are the Krita Yuga, the Treta Yuga, the Dvapara Yuga, and finally the Kali Yuga. According to Hindu cosmology, life in the universe is created, destroyed once every 4.1 to 8.2 billion years, which is one full day (day and night) for Brahma. The lifetime of a Brahma himself may be 311 trillion and 40 Billion years. The cycles are said to repeat like the seasons, waxing and waning within a greater time-cycle of the creation and destruction of the universe. Like summer, spring, winter and autumn, each Yuga involves stages or gradual changes which the earth and the consciousness of mankind go through as a whole. A complete Yuga cycle from a high Golden Age of enlightenment to a Dark Age and back again is said to be caused by the solar system's motion around another star.

The Hindu calendar system arithmetic calendar is one that is based on a strict set of rules. Such a calendar is also referred to as a rule-based calendar. The advantage of such a calendar is the ease of calculating when a particular date occurs. The disadvantage is imperfect accuracy. Furthermore, even if the calendar is very accurate, its accuracy diminishes slowly over time, owing to changes in Earth's rotation. This limits the lifetime of an accurate arithmetic calendar to a few thousand years. After then, the rules would need to be modified from observations made since the invention of the calendar. Hindu calendar system is expected to be revised after 4000 years afters its establishment, which will be in 2975 AD as per the Georgian calendar.

The Hindu calendar system is based on this belief and the current system had passed through 2 Yugas so far. The beginning of the current neya Yuga is marked with the establishment of the Hindu Empire of Bharat. Under Ashoka Bindusara Maurya the Great reign all the 25 ancient kingdoms that were within the current border of Bharat were united to form a new empire which was christened as Bharat Samrajya. To mark the birth of this new empire a neya Yuga NY (new age) was declared and the years before this unification were documented as purani Yuga PY (old age). And accordingly on 1st Mesh 1 NY (15 April 1024 BCE) Ashoka Bindusara Maurya became the first emperor of this new empire.

This calendar system is the oldest in this world. Georgian calendar which was established 2606 years after the Hindu calendar have a lot of common feature with the Hindu calendar. Hindu calendar and the Georgian calendar are the only two form of calendar system currently in general administration and commercial use through out the world of Mother Earth.

Days of the week
Hindu calendar system has 7 days in a week. Each of the days in the week is named after a celestial body of the solar system. The table below gives the names of the day and also the celestial body it represents. For commercial purpose the calendar considers Ravi, Soma, Mangala, Budha and Guru vaar as weekdays or working days. Shukra and Shani vaar are considered as weekends. Ravi vaar is the first day of the week because of the significance of the celestial body, Sun the day represents.

Months
Hindu calendar system has 12 months. Among the Hindu population of this world the months of each year is called as Saur Maas or commonly as Maas. The table below list the names of the Hindu calendar months along with its season and the Georgian calendar months.

Each year begins with the first day of the month Mesh. It is celebrated as the New Year day by people who follow the Hindu Calendar system. The month of Kumbha has 29 every four years instead of the usual 28 days. This additional day was added in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting an additional day into the year, the drift can be corrected.