Time cycles in India[edit]

The time cycles in India are:

  • 60-year cycle
  • Year
  • 6 seasons of a year
  • about 60 days (2 months) in a season
  • Month (lunar)
  • 2 pakshas in a month, shukla (waxing) and krishna (waning)
  • 15 tithis in a paksha (1-14, 15th is purnima or amavasya)
  • 60 ghatikas (or 30 muhurtas or 8 praharas) in a 24-hour period (ahoratra).
  • 30 Kala (approx) in 1 muhurta
  • 30 Kastha in 1 kala
  • 15 Nimisha in 1 kastha

Years are synchronized with the solar sidereal year by adding a month every three years. The extra month is termed as "Adhik Mass" (extra month). This extra month is called Mala Masa (impure month) in Eastern India.


The Kali "Samvat"[edit]

The Kali Era is not called a "Samvat" in common Indian usage, but since it Is also an era, it might be useful to mention it here too. The Hindu calendar article has more information on the Kali Era. The conversion is given here:

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  • Add 3101 or 3100 (using the same guidelines as above) to the Gregorian year to get the number of elapsed Kali years.
  • Add 3102 or 3101 to get the current Kali yuga number.
  • Remember that the former (of the above two) is the standard, as explained at the Hindu calendar article.
  • This era also corresponds with Yudhisthira Samvat in which we have present year as 5115 (April 2013 AD)

Correspondence between calendars[edit]

As an indicator of this variation, Whitaker's Almanac reports that the Gregorian year 2000 CE corresponds, respectively with:

  1. Year 5101 in the Kaliyuga calendar;
  2. Year 2544 in the Buddha Nirvana calendar;
  3. Year 2543 in the Buddhist Era (BE) of the Thai solar calendar
  4. Year 2057 in the Bikram Samvat calendar;
  5. Year 1922 in the Saka calendar;
  6. Year 1921 (shown in terms of 5-yearly cycles) of the Vedanga Jyotisa calendar;
  7. Year 1407 in the Bengali calendar;
  8. Year 1362 in the Burmese Calendar;
  9. Year 514 in the Gaurabda Gaudiya calendar;
  10. Year 1176 in the Malayalam calendar or Kolla Varsham calendar.



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