Tamil New Year

A new Tamil year fast approaching, I would like to revisit some hilarious moments, entertainer none other than the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr.Karunanidhi who proposed a bill to change the day of the new year. The very next instant after hearing the news on Sun TV, I was rolling on the floor with laughter. I couldn’t control the stupidity and self assumed assurance of politicians, that they are kings, law makers, well in this case, Mathematicians challenging ancient Vedas, Vedic calculations and the mathematical mechanics of the planetary movements which were found out by our ancestors . Ancient scholars and mathematicians have arrived at this date.

Karunanidhi claimed that he had consulted various Tamil scholars and cultural experts before moving the ‘Tamil Nadu Tamil New Year (Declaration) Bill 2008′. Can I please meet those scholars and cultural experts?

One should remember not to base the English(Gregorian) Calendar and super impose other calendars and arrive at a conclusion. In other sense, Tamil year calculations or any other calendar calculations aren’t tracing paper to be used for tracing. We say April 13th or 14th, according to the calculations, as the beginning of a new year. That actually means the first day of a year, like January 1st. Getting it? People always tend to relate it with respect to the English(Gregorian) Calendar. Just like the English calendar having 28, 29 , 30 or 31 days according to the moments of the planetary rotation, revolution etc, there is a huge amount of calculation behind such calendars.
In other words, according to the English Calendar we are in 2008 A.D, the present year in Tamil is known as “Sarvajith” coming year is known as “Sarvardaari”, just like how the Chinese have it as the year of Rat. The Tamils have names for 60 years, and once this cycle is completed, the cycle repeats.

A very crude way of explaining the Tamil Calendar -The Tamil Calendar is based on the sidereal year (i.e. the time taken for one revolution of the Earth around the sun, or the mean time taken by the sun to return to the same position relative to the background of the fixed stars in the sky). It is derived from the old Hindu Solar Calendar. According to this Tamil Calendar, there are various festivals celebrated in Tamil Nadu. Most of the fairs and festivals of Tamil Nadu are related to religion and temples. Most of these festivals are now according to the Panchangam. A panchangam (Sanskrit pañcāṅgam ) is a Hindu astrological almanac (or calendar), which follows traditional Indian cosmology, and presents important astronomical data in tabulated form. It is sometimes spelled Pancanga or Panchanga. It is pronounced Panchanga.

The dessert -

“I suspect that those who endorsed the government’s renaming quest must all be DMK supporters. If this government can do this, it can also announce new names for all the 12 months after Periyar, Anna, Stalin, Azhagiri, Kanimozhi and so on,” – political commentator Cho S. Ramaswamy.