WSN re­vis­its this primer of the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar writ­ten by the ar­chi­tect of the cal­en­dar nearly a decade back. 

Recog­nis­ing the work of Pal Singh Pure­wal and in con­so­nance with the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, the new av­tar of The World Sikh News has been launched on the first day of the Nanakshahi New Year 549.

Nearly two decades of painstak­ing re­search re­sulted in the con­cep­tion and cre­ation of the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, which pre­sented a flaw­less al­manac to the be­lea­guered Sikh com­mu­nity in search of its sui-generis sta­tus. Since its im­ple­men­ta­tion in 2003, with the ap­proval of the Khalsa Panth, en­dorse­ment by the SGPC and un­der the seal of Akal Takht Sahib, as its im­ple­men­ta­tion was or­dered at the Akal Takht Sahib, it has be­come part of the daily per­sonal, re­li­gious and pro­fes­sional af­fairs of nearly 95 per­cent of the Sikh na­tion. The state gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab and the gov­ern­ment of In­dia have adopted Sikh hol­i­days as per this cal­en­dar.

Sadly, in 2010, falling a vic­tim to po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring by some pseudo-saints and po­lit­i­cal pow­ers that be, the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar was de­bunked and its char­ac­ter was de­stroyed. It has been re­placed by ear­lier anom­aly-rid­den Hindu mythol­ogy based Bikrami cal­en­dar, which is to­tally in­im­i­cal to Sikh tra­di­tions and be­liefs.  

We be­lieve that truth and facts can dis­pel the ca­nards of forces  who have de­stroyed the in­sti­tu­tion of the cal­en­dar, dear to the Sikhs. The World Sikh News pre­sents a set of FAQs about the cal­en­dar which will en­lighten read­ers into the back­ground and con­tents of the his­toric cal­en­dar, pre­pared by none other than the sep­tu­a­ge­nar­ian au­thor of the cal­en­dar, Pal Singh Pure­wal.

Do you know that even Baba Banda Singh Ba­hadur struck coins in the name of Nanakshahi? Do you know that Nanakshahi mo­hars were minted dur­ing the reign of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh? Do you know that some old build­ings still have bricks called Nanakshahi bricks? Do you know that Dr Ganda Singh com­piled Mukhtasir Nanakshahi Jantri (Urdu) pub­lished in 1949CE by the Sikh His­tory So­ci­ety, Am­rit­sar? Do you know that the of­fice of Sri Akal Takht Sahib has al­ready started giv­ing the Nanakshahi date with the cor­re­spond­ing date of the Com­mon Era in its cor­re­spon­dence and in Hukam­na­mas? Do you know that most Sikh web­sites cite both the Nanakshahi dates and the Com­mon Era dates on their home­pages? Do you know that the Sikh Panth is more united on the is­sue of Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar than on any other is­sue?

Now is the time to be bet­ter in­formed and to join hands to con­test any move to un­der­mine the cal­en­dar in any small or big way.

Ques­tion: What is the re­la­tion­ship of Gur­bani with the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar?

An­swer: When Guru Sahiban re­vealed Barahmaha and Ruti Sloka Ba­nis, they had the sea­sons in Pun­jab and not the ones in Aus­tralia, in their mind, just like Guru Sahiban used the In­dian units rati, tola, masa, ser, maan etc., and not the British units ounces, pounds, stone, nor the in­ter­na­tional units grams, and kilo­grams etc. It is true that Guru Sahiban’s mes­sage is uni­ver­sal, but there are cer­tain thoughts ex­pressed in Gur­bani which are re­gion-spe­cific.

Barahma­ha’s spir­i­tual mes­sage is uni­ver­sal, but the sea­sons and their oc­cur­rence in par­tic­u­lar months is re­gion spe­cific.

In Barahmaha Tukhari in the month of Asarh the fol­low­ing line oc­curs

This refers to the date when the day is longest in the year, and usu­ally the hottest, when the north­ern dec­li­na­tion of the sun is max­i­mum, when the sun changes its course from northerly to southerly di­rec­tion (see Farid­koti Teeka, Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha- Ma­han Kosh, or Sam­par­daee Teeka of Sant Kir­pal Singh). This phe­nom­e­non oc­curred on the Sawan San­grand at the time of be­gin­ning of Sid­dhan­tic as­tron­omy. Be­cause of the shift of the San­grands due to the pre­ces­sion of the equinoxes, it oc­curred about 15th Asarh at the time of Guru Nanak Sahib, and around 13th Asarh in the first decade of the 18th Cen­tury, and oc­curs around 9th Asarh dur­ing the pre­sent times. This will shift to the close of Jeth in an­other 600 years. Here it does not mat­ter whether it is Aus­tralia or In­dia, it will oc­cur in Jeth, con­trary to its men­tion in the month of Asarh. Un­like Bikrami cal­en­dar, Nanakshahi cal­en­dar is based on the trop­i­cal length of the year, there­fore no fur­ther shift will oc­cur and it will al­ways oc­cur in the month of Asarh.

In 6500 years, Asarh will move into mid-Sep­tem­ber. In Sep­tem­ber, it is au­tumn in the North­ern hemi­sphere and spring in the south­ern hemi­sphere.

The names of the month of the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar are the same as given in Barahma­has, ex­cept that their pop­u­lar vari­ants are used. We read Gur­bani, and we want our chil­dren to read and un­der­stand Gur­bani. We have to tell them about cal­en­dars as well, when ex­plain­ing Gur­bani Barahma­has.

On the be­gin­ning month of the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, I just want to re­it­er­ate that in the cal­en­dar we can­not have Chet as the twelfth month, when it is the first month in both the Barahma­has and Ruti Slok Ba­nis.

Ques­tion: Why was it nec­es­sary to give up the Bikrami cal­en­dar?

An­swer: We gave up the Bikrami cal­en­dar for the fol­low­ing three pri­mary rea­sons:

1. The months men­tioned in the Bikrami cal­en­dar do not have a per­ma­nent re­la­tion­ship with the sea­sons as men­tioned in Gur­bani.
2. The lu­nar-date sys­tem is not very prac­ti­cal. For cel­e­bra­tions of im­por­tant days we should use a cal­en­dar based on the so­lar trop­i­cal year. The Bikrami cal­en­dar is luni-so­lar based on the side­real year.
3. A cal­en­dar is a part of the iden­tity of a Na­tion and the Sikh na­tion should have its own cal­en­dar.  

Ques­tion: All Guru Sahiban used the Bikrami cal­en­dar be­cause that cal­en­dar was in com­mon use. Guru Sahiban also used other units of time, weight and mea­sure, which have been dis­carded and re­placed. You are not us­ing ghati, pal, ratti, tola, masa, ser, mann, and gaz, etc. Do we cite Gur­bani con­cern­ing these units and try to con­vince peo­ple to go back to them?

An­swer: Do you know that the Bikrami cal­en­dar used in Pun­jab these days is not the same as was in use dur­ing the Guru pe­riod? If you re­ally be­lieve that you should ad­here to the Bikrami cal­en­dar be­cause of men­tion of its dates in Gur­bani, then you should dis­card all Jantris pub­lished in Pun­jab, and use those based on Surya Sid­dhanta which was used dur­ing Guru pe­riod to cal­cu­late Bikrami cal­en­dar. Do you know what Surya Sid­dhanta is? There are still some Jantris cal­cu­lated ac­cord­ing to Surya Sid­dhanta and pub­lished from Varanasi.

Re­gard­ing past dates I would like to men­tion that there have been changes in cal­en­dars the world over. The change is ap­plic­a­ble from the im­ple­men­ta­tion time and not retroac­tively. Old dates are al­ways in­ter­preted in the then preva­lent cal­en­dar.

I would also like to add, to clear the air that Guru Ji did not cre­ate the Bikrami cal­en­dar. It was there be­fore their time.

Ques­tion: Is there men­tion of rasi and sankranti in Guru Granth Sahib?

An­swer: There is no men­tion of any rasi in Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The Hin­dus have de­fined the ‘sankran­ti’. (By the way the sun does not en­ter a new zo­diac belt, it en­ters the next rasi in the same belt.) When in 1998CE Nanakshahi Jantri (Cal­en­dar) was first pub­lished we called the day 1 of the months of Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar Mah Aramb­hta, which it re­ally is.

We are not sun wor­ship­pers. We are wor­ship­pers of Akalpurkh. At all Gur­d­waras Gi­ani Jis and the lay wor­ship­pers too, men­tion in the Ar­daas ‘com­mence­ment of the new mon­th’ and seek Akalpurkhs bless­ings for the new month, and not Rasi Pravesh of the sun. Next time when any of you go to the Gur­d­wara on a ’San­grand’ day, talk to the mem­bers of the San­gat, and find out how many know from which rasi the sun has moved to which rasi.

Ques­tion: What is se­ri­ously wrong with the Bikarami cal­en­dar?

An­swer: The Bikrami Cal­en­dar is al­ready out of tune from the sea­sons by about 24 days. How many know what ayanamsa is?

In the Pan­changa Di­vakar (Hindi) or Mar­tand Pan­chaga (Hindi) for 2060BK or 2061BK, the value of Ayanamsa for the first of every month is given. I leave this as an ex­er­cise for the in­quis­i­tive reader to find out what it means. It is very rel­e­vant to why the Bikrami cal­en­dar months are shift­ing in sea­sons. Even the Hindu Pun­dits agree that months of the Bikrami cal­en­dar are drift­ing in sea­sons, since its year is not based on the length of the trop­i­cal year, on which most other so­lar cal­en­dars of the world are based.

By Guru Nanak Sahib’s time, the Bikrami cal­en­dar was out by about 16 days. There has been a fur­ther drift of about 8 days since then. Bikrami month of Chet will shift to about mid­dle of June in 6500 years. Sim­i­lar shift of other months in­clud­ing Vaisakh shall oc­cur. The rate of shift is roughly 1 week in 500 years. These are ba­sic as­tro­nom­i­cal facts.

In the Ganesh Aapa Pan­changa (Hindi) for the same year (2060BK or 2061 BK), com­pare the dates of sankran­tis given in each. Which ones you would cel­e­brate – the ones from Ku­rali Pun­dits or the one from Varanasi Pun­dit? Com­pare the dates and times of tithis given in each. It will be a rev­e­la­tion.

Ques­tion: Dur­ing the Guru pe­riod, mainly Bikrami luni-so­lar, Saka, and the Hi­jri cal­en­dars were in use in In­dia, while the cal­en­dar used in Eng­land was the Ju­lian cal­en­dar?

An­swer: The Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar, now com­monly known as Com­mon Era, which is in use through­out the world along with in­dige­nous cal­en­dars, is not the same as the Ju­lian cal­en­dar. The dates of the Ju­lian cal­en­dar are not the same as those of the Gre­go­rian. If we have to use the dates of the Ju­lian cal­en­dar then we shall have to fol­low the method the Greek Or­tho­dox Church and the Ukrain­ian Or­tho­dox Church use. They cel­e­brate Christ­mas on 25th De­cem­ber of the Ju­lian cal­en­dar and not on the 25th of the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar. Now a days, the 25th of De­cem­ber (Ju­lian) falls on 7th Jan­u­ary of the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar,. There­fore, they cel­e­brate Christ­mas on 7th Jan­u­ary Gre­go­rian.

The orig­i­nal date of Sha­heedi of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Sahib is 11 Maghar, 1732 Bikrami/​11 No­vem­ber, 1675 (Ju­lian). We have con­verted 11 Maghar in the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar to 24th No­vem­ber (Gre­go­rian). This date, i.e. 11 Maghar, will al­ways fall on 24th No­vem­ber. Co­in­ci­den­tally, if we con­vert 11 No­vem­ber Ju­lian to Gre­go­rian it is also 24th No­vem­ber in this cen­tury. The birth­day of Guru Gob­ind Singh Sahib was on 23 Poh 1723 Bikrami/​22 De­cem­ber 1666 Ju­lian. Now a days, the 22nd of De­cem­ber (Ju­lian) oc­curs on 4th Jan­u­ary (Gre­go­rian), and in the next cen­tury it will fall on 5th Jan­u­ary. We have taken 23 Poh as the orig­i­nal date, and ac­cord­ing to Nanakshahi cal­en­dar it will al­ways fall on 5th Jan­u­ary. The Ju­lian dates as well as the dates of the Bikrami cal­en­dar will con­tinue shift­ing in the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar. The shift of months in sea­sons is even greater in the Bikrami cal­en­dar than it is in the Ju­lian cal­en­dar.

I am of the opin­ion that we should nei­ther use the Ju­lian dates of the Guru pe­riod in the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar, nor con­vert the Ju­lian dates into Gre­go­rian and then use them. The orig­i­nal dates are in ei­ther lu­nar dates or the so­lar dates of the Bikrami cal­en­dar. The Ju­lian cal­en­dar was un­known in Pun­jab at that time. We should cel­e­brate the Gur­purbs on the orig­i­nal so­lar dates. For the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar we have taken those orig­i­nal so­lar dates. These orig­i­nal so­lar dates, as given in Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar, will al­ways oc­cur on the fixed dates of the Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar. Don’t we cel­e­brate the Sha­heedi purbs of Sahibzadas on 8 and 13 Poh, which are so­lar dates?

Ques­tion: What is Surya Sid­dhanta and what is its rel­e­vance? Did the Guru Sahibs have any­thing do with it?

An­swer: Surya Sid­dhanta used in Guru Sahiban’s time has al­ready been dis­carded in most of In­dia. Very few al­manac com­pil­ers use it these days. In 1960s they switched over to the cal­cu­la­tion of tithis, sankran­tis, etc. ac­cord­ing to mod­ern as­tro­nom­i­cal meth­ods. Surya Sid­dhan­tic meth­ods have been proven by the pun­dits to be er­ro­neous for cal­cu­lat­ing the po­si­tions of sun, moon, plan­ets, and eclipses.

Guru Sahiban’s mis­sion did not in­clude the cor­rec­tion of Surya Sid­dhanta for­mu­las. It was left for the sci­en­tists.

Ques­tion: Are the Sikh dates in the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar as per Sudis and Vadis? What about Amavasyas, Pooran­ma­sis, and Pan­chamis

An­swer: In the Nanakshahi Jantri, I have kept only Guru Nanak Sahib’s Gur­purb cel­e­bra­tion,and Bandi Chhor Di­vas (Di­vali) ac­cord­ing to the Pooran­masi and Amavasya re­spec­tively. That too,on­ly­for the time be­ing. How­ever, yield­ing to the pres­sure from the ‘Sants’, Hola Muhalla date was also made an ex­cep­tion. Even this did not ap­pease the ‘Sants’. They do not want to give up the Bikrami Cal­en­dar. We have in­cluded the fes­ti­vals of other na­tions in the Nanakshahi Jantri for in­for­ma­tion. We de­cided to keep most of the fes­ti­vals from pre­vi­ous pub­li­ca­tion of the SGPC, but put them in the cat­e­gory of ‘Other Fes­ti­vals’. Gur­purabs and Sikh fes­ti­vals have been shown sep­a­rately.

The Cal­en­dar Re­form Com­mit­tee de­cided that dates for Amavasyas and Pooran­ma­sis should be given in the Jantri, even though we do not be­lieve in their ob­ser­vance. We have to ed­u­cate the Sikh masses first. Thou­sands of Sikh pil­grims go to the Gur­d­waras on these oc­ca­sions.Pan­chamis are reg­u­larly ob­served in Gur­d­wara Dukh Ni­varan Sahib in Pa­tiala. If we do not give the dates of these tithis, peo­ple would sim­ply take them from Hindu Pan­changs. The best ap­proach is to ex­plain the real mean­ings of Gur­bani to the San­gat on all these oc­ca­sions, and per­suade them not to fol­low these rit­ual-based fes­ti­vals. This ap­plies toSan­grands as well. We have men­tioned in the Nanakshahi Jantri, that, this (San­grand) be­ing the first day of the Nanakshahi months have noth­ing to do with the sun’s en­try into the ra­sisas is the pre­sent prac­tice. That is why San­grands of some months of Nanakshahi cal­en­dar dif­fer from those of the Bikrami cal­en­dar. Even­tu­ally all will dif­fer, since the BikramiSan­grands will go on shift­ing while Nanakshahi San­grands re­main fixed in re­la­tion to the Com­mon Era cal­en­dar, since the pre­ces­sion of equinoxes has been taken into con­sid­er­a­tion.

Ques­tion: What is the prob­lem with dates given by ear­lier well-known Sikh schol­ars and writ­ers?

An­swer: There are two types of prob­lems with the dates. First, we might not be 100% sure of the cor­rect­ness of the orig­i­nal date, usu­ally given in Bikrami so­lar/​lu­nar or Hi­jri for­mat. Sec­ond, its con­ver­sion to the CE date may not be cor­rect, even if the orig­i­nal date is cor­rectly known. Dr Ganda Singh, Dr Hari Ram Gupta, Prof. Sahib Singh, Prin­ci­pal Sat­bir Singh and oth­ers have erred in con­vert­ing the dates. Most of the cal­cu­la­tions and con­ver­sions by S. Karam Singh His­to­rian are cor­rect, but in a very few in­stances his con­ver­sion is out by 1 day. But, per­haps he did not check his man­u­script thor­oughly. This caused a very wrongly con­verted date to make its way into his­tory books, and also in the Ma­han Kosh.

This is what hap­pened: S. Karam Singh takes 21 Harh, 1652 Bikrami as the birth date of Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib He con­verts this to Harh Vadi 6 ( this is wrong by 1 day, con­ver­sion should re­sult in Harh Vadi 7) Then he con­verts Harh Vadi 6 to 18 June, 1595 Ju­lian and gives this as the CE birth­day of Guru Sahib.

In the sum­mary of the chap­ter he makes a mis­take (per­haps a typo er­ror or tran­scrip­tion er­ror) and writes 14 June, 1595 (cor­rect con­ver­sion of 21 Harh 1652 BK is 19 June, 1595Ju­lian).

He did all the cal­cu­la­tions us­ing In­dian Cal­en­dars by Sewell and Dixit. These cal­cu­la­tions are given in his book Gur­purab Nir­nay -gur­purb in­rxX.This wrong date can be seen in:

Can we say then, that, since so many au­thors have given this date of 14 June, there­fore it must be cor­rect? Not at all. All these au­thors have one source – S. Karam Singh’s Gur­purb Nir­naya (sum­mary at the end of the chap­ter on Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib).

It was Harh Vadi 7 on 19 June, 1595 Ju­lian. There­fore, ei­ther Harh Vadi 1 is in­cor­rect or 19 June. On 21 Harh it was not Harh Vadi 1. There­fore, ei­ther Harh Vadi 1 is cor­rect or 21 Harh, but not both.

If you com­pile the date of birth of Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib from var­i­ous sources, which I have done, you will dis­cover the chaos.

Prof. Sahib Singh’s books con­tain many er­rors, so far as dates are con­cerned – here is a mon­stros­ity:

But, there was no so­lar eclipse on the date men­tioned. There­fore the date is wrong.

Ques­tion: What is the Sha­heedi date of El­der Sahibzadas?

An­swer: Many au­thors have given the date as 22 De­cem­ber 1704, but this is wrong. Even Dr Gupta and so many oth­ers have given this date as 22 De­cem­ber. Most au­thors agree that the bat­tle of Chamkaur took place on 8 th Poh. It was 7th De­cem­ber on 8th Poh, the Sha­heedi day of the El­der Sahibzadas. It was 13th Poh when the Younger Sahibzadas achieved Sha­heedi, and the cor­re­spond­ing date was 12th De­cem­ber, Ju­lian. Many his­to­ri­ans have just given the pre­sent day Gre­go­rian date equiv­a­lent to 8th Poh, and 13th Poh.

If 8th Poh which was on 7th De­cem­ber can be cel­e­brated on 22nd De­cem­ber now a days, why can­not Vaisakhi which was on 29th March 1699 Ju­lian, be cel­e­brated on 14th April? It is the same logic. The im­por­tant thing here to note is that the Sha­heedi day cel­e­bra­tions are fixed on 8th Poh and 13 Poh – and not on 22 De­cem­ber and 27 De­cem­ber. These Bikrami dates will go on shift­ing in CE cal­en­dar, but since 8 Poh in Nanakshahi cal­en­dar is on 21st De­cem­ber for all times to come, these dates will not shift in re­la­tion to the CE cal­en­dar. By the same process 23 Poh, birth­day of Guru Gob­ind Singh Sahib con­verts to 5th Jan­u­ary, in Nanakshahi cal­en­dar.

Ques­tion: What about Vaisakhi? All au­thors in the past have it to be on 30th March 1699, then why to go on stick­ing to Vaisakhi Day on 13/​14th April?

An­swer: You must have seen from the above dis­cus­sion that if most au­thors have given 30 March, 1699 as the Baisakhi date of the ‘Cre­ation of the Khal­sa’, it does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that they have all done the cal­cu­la­tions. In fact, Dr. Ganda Singh’s source was In­dian Ephemeris – Swamikannu Pil­lai. In it Pil­lai gives Sankranti date as 29 March, but gives Vaisakh 1 against 30 March. The date of 30 March ap­plies to Tamil Nadu, be­cause the rule there is – if the time of Sankranti is af­ter sun­set (the Sankranti time on 29th March was 9:06 p.m.), then the Day 1 of the month is on the fol­low­ing day af­ter Sankranti. The rule in Pun­jab is that it does not mat­ter what time the Sankranti is, day one will be on the day of Sankranti (sun­rise to sun­rise rule). Ob­vi­ously, Dr Ganda Singh was not aware of this rule. Per­haps, he did not read the in­tro­duc­tion; oth­er­wise he would have taken March 29 given on the same page. In­dian Cal­en­dars- Sewell and Dixit also give 29th March 1699 Ju­lian as the date of Sankranti. Of course, in my Jantri 500 Years, I have given 29 March 1699 Ju­lian. Most his­to­ri­ans have ei­ther fol­lowed Dr Ganda Singh, or made the same mis­take us­ing IE of Pil­lai. How­ever, Dr San­gat Singh in his book Sikhs in His­tory cor­rectly gives this date as 29th March, 1699 Ju­lian.

Dr Ganda Singh was an his­to­rian par ex­cel­lence, but he was not an ex­pert on cal­en­dars. Most his­to­ri­ans have made many blun­ders do­ing con­ver­sion of dates. This was the rea­son, I pro­duced my Jantri 500 Years so that dates could be eas­ily, cor­rectly, and quickly con­verted with­out cal­cu­la­tion. I have great re­gard for Dr Ganda Singh as an his­to­rian. But, where he is wrong I have not minced words. How­ever, the fol­low­ing is the ded­i­ca­tion I wrote in my book:

“This book is ded­i­cated to the mem­ory of late Dr Ganda Singh who spent his life to dis­cover the truth and sift fact from fic­tion.”

I have al­ready said that I do not sub­scribe to the view that Ju­lian dates should be ob­served in Gre­go­rian cal­en­dar. In Nanakshahi cal­en­dar we have fixed 14th April as the day of Vaisakhi for ever.

Ques­tion: Is the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar a Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar?

An­swer: Any­body’s call to adopt a mix­ture of Ju­lian and Gre­go­rian dates would be wrong. Some crit­ics are al­ready say­ing that Nanakshahi cal­en­dar is a Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar, which it is not. The only thing com­mon with the Chris­t­ian Cal­en­dar is, that Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar is also based on the length of the trop­i­cal year, so that months do not shift in sea­sons.

Ques­tion: In prac­ti­cal life, how does one main­tain sen­si­bil­ity be­tween the Com­mon Era Cal­en­dar us­age and the Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar?

An­swer: The whole world is us­ing Com­mon Era cal­en­dar for civil pur­poses and not for cel­e­brat­ing re­li­gious fes­ti­vals (ex­cept Chris­tians) –

The Jews use the Jew­ish cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar for civil use. The Mus­lims use Hi­jri Cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar for civil use. The Hin­dus use Bikrami cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar for civil use. The Ba­haiis use the Ba­haii cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar for civil use. The Sikhs, to all in­tents and pur­poses, have been us­ing Bikrami cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar (af­ter Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh’s time) for civil use. Of course, the Chris­tians use the CE cal­en­dar for both civil and re­li­gious pur­poses. The Sikh na­tion should con­tinue to use the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar for re­li­gious pur­poses and CE cal­en­dar for civil use.

Ques­tion: Sikhs do not have a coun­try of their own? Why should they have their own cal­en­dar?

An­swer: The Ba­hai faith is the newest faith, be­ing about 200 years old. Its fol­low­ers gave up on the Hi­jri cal­en­dar and have their own cal­en­dar which is based on trop­i­cal year length and has per­ma­nent cor­re­spon­dence with the Com­mon Era cal­en­dar. All ma­jor re­li­gions of the world have their own cal­en­dar. Why should we not have ours?

Richards, E.G. in the ‘Map­ping Time’ says it all: “To­day each of the ma­jor re­li­gions has its own cal­en­dar which is used to pro­gramme its re­li­gious cer­e­monies, and it is al­most as true to say that each cal­en­dar has its re­li­gion. The Chris­tians, the Moslems, the Jews, the Bud­dhists, the Jains, the Hin­dus, the Zoroas­tri­ans, and, more re­cently, the ad­her­ents of Ba­hai, all have their cal­en­dars.”

Even if the Sikhs do not have their coun­try, the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar reaf­firms the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikh peo­ple and the Sikh na­tion.

Pal Singh Pure­wal lives in Ed­mon­ton, Canada. 

2 De­cem­ber 2009