Kāla-Gaṇanā: Measuring Time
Explore the sophisticated Indian calendar system that harmonizes solar and lunar cycles through the Pañcāṅga, the five-limbed calendar still calculated daily and used by millions across India for religious observances and daily life.
Lessons in this chapter
- Kāla: The Indian Conception of Time — A time both beginningless and precisely measured, spanning the blink of an eye to billions of years
- Tithi: The Lunar Day System — A 'day' measured not by the Sun but by the Moon's dance with it, a unit that can be skipped or doubled
- Vāra-Horā: Week and Hour Systems — The hidden astronomical rule that sets the order of the days of the week
- Māsa: Lunar, Solar, and Luni-Solar Months — Why the same festival can fall in two different 'months', and the three kinds of month behind it
- Adhika-Māsa: The Intercalary Month — Why the Hindu calendar adds a whole month every few years, and once in a long while loses one
- Pañcāṅga: The Five-Limbed Calendar — Tithi, vāra, nakṣatra, yoga and karaṇa: why Diwali moves every year, and why two almanacs can disagree
- Saṃvatsara: Year Cycles and Era Systems — Sixty named years from Jupiter, eras that only count up, and why a date carved in stone can be a riddle