FEATURE: Nepalese cope with a clash of calendars

0 Comments | Asian Political News, July 22, 2002

KATHMANDU, July 17 Kyodo

The late King Birendra of Nepal used to celebrate his birthday on Dec. 29, by the Gregorian calendar. He also celebrated it on another day, by the lunar calendar.

The Kingdom of Nepal functions on two separate kinds of calendars -- solar and lunar. The two kinds are either printed separately for daily use, or, in some cases, a single print accommodates them both.

The lunar calendar is used for all religious purposes in this country of 23 million people whose dominant religious tradition has sometimes been described as a ''Hindu-Buddhist continuum.''

And the religious purposes are manifold.

Stereotyped justly in tourist brochures as a land of temples and religious festivals associated with one deity or other, hardly a week goes by in Nepal when some festival is not being either prepared for, celebrated with zeal, or wound down, before going on to the next one.

Each year designated astrologers determine the dates of these festivals with precision.

But the task becomes difficult when different days of a protracted festival such as the Hindu Dasain, which unfolds over almost two weeks around October, have to be determined on an individual basis, or sometimes by slotting two different days of festival into one day.

This happens when adjustments have to be made to the lunar calendar to keep it in tandem with the solar, and Nepalese astrologers have had differences in the past over the finer points of astrological interpretation.

Unlike the kings, Nepalese commoners celebrate their birthdays on one day only -- and they use the lunar calendar to determine it.

The lunar is also used for setting dates of weddings and other rites of passage.

Wedding dates especially tend to get bunched together in one or two particular parts of the yearly calendar around winter. Then wedding processions in the streets rend the evening air with loud brass bands.

The official calendar in use is the Vikram, which is of Indian origin but long discontinued in India itself.

Understandably, it has drawn growing resentment and has also become a political issue in the last few years.

The Newar community, which has traditionally inhabited the capital Kathmandu, has its own Nepalsambat, or Nepal Era calendar, which is lunar in character and dates back 1,122 years.

For the past 22 years the community has been campaigning for its recognition as the official calendar of the country, reasoning that it is native to Nepal, unlike either the Vikram or Gregorian.

Other communities in Nepal, which are ethnically close to Tibetan, have their own Lhosar calendar.

Lhosar in Tibetan simply means new year and this calendar is close to the Chinese. It runs through a 12-year cycle, each year of which is named after a particular animal, including the tiger, dog, horse and monkey, in a fixed sequence.

Also perplexing for those trying to determine dates in Nepal is the fact that Lhosar (New Year) starts on different days in the year for some of these communities.

Lhosar for the Sherpas of Mt. Everest climbing fame starts at a different date than for the Gurungs who have earned renown of their own as fierce mercenaries in the service of Imperial Britain.

In the midst of all this confusion, the Gregorian calendar with its clear-cut logic and unvarying pattern, except in leap years, stands out as a neat counterfoil.

It makes no bones about its foreign origin, but it is also indispensable for the many dealings the Nepalese have with foreigners.

So the average Nepalese now ends up having to plan his days according to at least two different calendars, and sometimes as many as four.