The Start of Spring as the renewal of nature has always been a milestone for cultural celebrations around the world. Long before Western culture dominated the world and the Gregorian calendar became widely used, a majority of countries had the renewal of nature as the start of their new year.
Spring Equinox
Spring as the rebirth of nature has always been seen as a new start for ancient cultures and civilisations long before religions took control of people’s lives. At the same time, while the sun was seen as one of the unknown out-of-reach sources of life, the Moon was seen as a powerful source controlling our world and nature.
Considering these facts and later the advancement of astronomy which introduced the Spring Equinox, it is quite natural for so many ancient civilisations to consider the rebirth and renewal of nature as the start of their new year.
Spring Celebrations Around The World
The spring equinox occurs when the Sun shines directly above the Earth’s equator, causing day and night to be equal lengths of time. The start of Spring and Spring Equinox is the start of so many celebrations happening in the world even today:
Holi in India,
Songkran in Thailand,
Sham el Nessim in Egyptian,
Spring Equinox at the Teotihuacan Pyramid in Mexico,
Cimburijada in Bosnia,
Chinese Lunar New Year in so many Asian countries,
And Nowruz is celebrated by Iranians/Persians and many other countries throughout Central Asia.
Ancient Civilizations & Ancient Calendars
From Archaeological finds in the Near East, Middle East, Asia and Africa, it is quite clear that Sumerians and Babylonians had the most advanced knowledge in Astronomy. These ancient civilisations alongside the Egyptians and Persians have contributed extensively to the current calendars in use.
Most of the Ancient calendars were a lunisolar calendar which is a calendar incorporating lunar calendars and solar calendars while the ancient Persian/Iranian Calendar is solar meaning that its time reckoning is based on the Earth’s movements around the Sun.
History of Calendars
The earliest forms of Iranian time reckoning date back as far as the second millennium BCE was lunisolar, like that of the Babylonians, with twelve months of thirty days each; the days were numbered but not named (with the exception of the last day of the month, Jiyamna). There are Aramaic documents issued by the Persian administration (almost all found at the Elephantine in Egypt) indicating that Persians later used a solar calendar with a 365-day year.
To this day, the sun is one of the most admirable sources of life in Iran, Egypt and other ancient civilisations. This becomes most apparent upon analysis of the Sun & Lion symbol on the original Iran Flag. Iran Flag History
In 1852, the Gregorian Calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII to Europeans who were using the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Since the Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons. This concerned Gregory because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year. Both the Julian and Gregorian Calendars are solar.
Many countries, Christian or not, all over the world have adopted the Gregorian Calendar as their civil calendar despite its strong association with the Catholic Church. There are, however, countries that have their own calendars. These countries rely completely on a thoroughly different calendar, either alongside the Gregorian one or in its entirety.
The Persian/Iranian calendar is the official calendar in Iran and Afghanistan. It is widely used for various purposes, including official documents, holidays, and cultural events. They do not use the Gregorian calendar at all. This is the same case with Nepal and Ethiopia which exclusively use the Vikram Samvat calendar and the Ethiopian calendar respectively.
Why does the Persian/Iranian calendar start in 622 CE?
A Zoroastrian user named Zartusht Ashavan who I follow on Quora explained it very clearly and accurately;
The current civil calendar of Iran which is known as the Persian/Iranian Calendar, Solar Hijri Calendar or Jalaali Calendar’s radix starts with the year which corresponds to 622 CE because it is the year when Muhammad presumably left Mecca for the city of Yathrib, nowadays known as Medina, i. e. the year of the Muslim Hijrah (“Departure” in Arabic). It has an exclusively Islamic significance, there is no other reason for that year that would come from the Persian culture itself.
The Pre-Islamic Persian Calendar
The pre-Islamic Persian calendar system did not use that calendar’s radix. In reality, the pre-Islamic Persian imperial tradition even identified years according to a completely different system of successive regnal eras, each era starting with the year when a new Mazdaic monarch ascended the Iranian throne.
It means that, for example, the year when Shahanshah Bahram V ascended the throne was the 1st year of Bahram V’s era, then the 2nd year of Bahram V’s era followed and so on until Bahram V died and the throne was ascended by his son Yazdegerd II which closed the Bahram V’s era since the year of his coronation became the 1st year of Yazdegerd II’s era, etc.
(Book of Kings), c. 1330-40, Iran
(Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum)
The historical accounts in the pre-Islamic Persia therefore could be formulated in a way like “Hear what happened during the 5th year of the reign of Bahram V…”. Essentially a very comparable calendar system of successive regnal eras is used by the Japanese civil calendar (which is currently the 2nd year of the Reiwa Era which started when the current emperor Naruhito ascended the throne in 2019 CE after the abdication of his father Akihito which ended the previous Heisei Era) even today.
In contrast to Japan, the advent of Islam largely displaced the pre-Islamic Persian (specifically Sassanid) calendar system, though not completely and the Mazdaic minorities even continued to fully use varieties of the old calendar until this day. But the peculiarity of the current post-Islamic Zoroastrian year counting is that we kind of became frozen in the Yazdegerd III’s era. Yazdegerd III was the last Mazdaic monarch who ascended the Iranian throne before the Islamic invasion and the Zoroastrian people historically never subjectively recognized any of the later Muslim leaders and governments as legitimate successors, so Yazdegerd III is officially still seen as the last legitimate ruler of Iran with the throne so far being vacant ever since (so we have currently the year 1392 of Yazdegerd’s Era) according to the Zoroastrian calendar Fasli.
However, some modern Zoroastrians are not fond of this year counting anymore because the outsiders do not understand that the current year number represents just the years from the coronation of the last Mazdaic monarch, which are preceded by the years of the eras of previous monarchs, and not the years from the beginning of our history, so it makes a wrong impression like if our history was quite short.
Zoroastrian calendar
Zoroastrian calendar (or rather calendars as there are three different versions nowadays, originally due to historical differences in (non)implementation of intercalary periods after the post-Islamic dispersion of Zoroastrian communities) also still preserves, apart from the traditional names of the months which were incorporated even into the civil calendar of Iran, also the old Persian day naming system with 30 regular days each of a different name, plus the intercalary days at the end of the year, which corresponds to the fact that the Zoroastrian calendar still does not use the week system of successive cycles of just seven repeating days.
Similarly like in the case of the names of the months, also the days are named after deities and animistically perceived aspects of the world in the Zoroastrian tradition, and the names of the more important holy forces after whom the 12 months are named have also counterparts in the names of the days.
When the name of the day meets the name of the respective month, there is traditionally a religious festivity dedicated to the holy being after which the day and the month were named, i. e. for example on the day of Mehr (archaically Mithra) of the month Mehr, there is the festivity of Mehragan (archaically Mithrakana) dedicated to divine Mehr (Mithra).
By the way, here is an online converter that enables for example to convert Gregorian dates into the dates of the Zoroastrian calendar Fasli: Zoroastrian Calendar
The Shenshai Calendar:
In the Shenshai calendar, a year consists of 12 months or Mahs, and each month has 30 days. Each of these days is known as a Roj, and each roj has a distinct name. However, the 12th month is followed by five additional Gatha or Gah days. A major revival of the Zoroastrian religion took place in 226 CE when the Sassanian King Ardashir I came to the Persian throne. He changed the old 360-day Calendar to 365 days by adding five extra days, which were piously dedicated to the five Gathas of Zarathushtra. The Zoroastrian calendar uses the Y.Z. suffix (Yazdegerdi Era) for its calendar era, indicating the number of years since the coronation in 632 CE of Yezdegerd III, the last monarch of the Sassanian dynasty.
The Kadmi Calendar:
The Zoroastrians in India intercalated an extra month to the calendar around 1129 CE, Meanwhile, the Zoroastrians who remained in Iran never once intercalated a thirteenth month. Around 1720 CE, an Irani-Zoroastrian priest named Jamasp Peshotan Velati traveled from Iran to India. Upon his arrival, he discovered that there was a difference of a month between the Parsi calendar and his own calendar. Around 1740 CE, some influential priests argued that since their visitor had been from the ancient ‘homeland’, his version of the calendar must be correct, and their own must be wrong.
On June 6th, 1745, a number of Parsis in and around Surat adjusted their calendars according to the recommendation of their priests, believing it to be more authentic. This calendar became known as the Kadimi calendar in both India and Iran, which in due course became contracted to Kadmi or Quadmi (which means old).
The Fasli Calendar:
In 1906, Khurshedji Cama, a Bombay Parsi, founded the “Zarthosti Fasili Sal Mandal”, or Zoroastrian Seasonal-Year Society. The Fasili or Fasli calendar, as it became known, was based on an older model, introduced in 1079 CE. This calendar had two salient points. It was in harmony with the seasons and New Year’s Day coincided with the vernal equinox. Similar to Shenshai and Kadmi calendars, it followed the model (12 months of 30 days each plus 5 extra days), but also had an auto-regulatory leap day every four years – the leap day, called Avardad-sal-Gah (Pahlavi: Ruzevahizak), followed the five existing Gah days at the end of the year. The Fasli society also claimed that their calendar was an accurate religious calendar, as opposed to the other two calendars, which they asserted were only political.
The new calendar received little support from the Indian Zoroastrian community since it was considered to contradict the injunctions expressed in the Dinkard. In Iran, however, the Fasli calendar gained momentum following a campaign in 1930. In Yazd, however, the Zoroastrian community resisted, and to this day follows the Kadmi calendar.
The National Persian/Iranian Calendar
The National Persian/Iranian Calendar also known as the Solar Hijri Calendar, Jalaali Calendar or Hijri Shamsi Calendar developed over centuries.
After the invasion of Iran by Muslim Arabs, the lunar calendar became popular. However, the solar Iranian calendar was still necessary for agricultural activities. Under the newly adopted Arabic Hijri calendar, however, the period during which Karaj, or land tax, was to be collected fell earlier in each annual agricultural cycle; as a result, there were long intervals in which the tax came due before harvest time, so some calendar reforms were suggested to solve this inconsistency. The most important reform was implemented at the request of Malekshah of the Seljuk dynasty in the year 1079 AD by a group of astronomers including Umar Khayyam.
This calendar was based on solar years starting from the vernal equinox. It was called the Maleki or Jalali calendar after the name of the king. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which follows a set of predetermined rules to stay in sync with the solar year, it is based on astronomical observations.
A year in the Iranian/Persian Solar calendar is divided into 12 months of varying lengths. The first 6 months have 31 days, and months 7 through 11 have 30 days. The last month, Esfand, has 29 days in a common year and 30 days in a leap year.
In 1925, during the Reza Shah Pahlavi era, the Iranian parliament approved a new calendar that was based on the Jalaali calendar but its radix was the emigration of the prophet Mohammad to Mecca in 622 AD. In this solar calendar, the names of the month are taken from pre-Islamic Persian months’ names. This is the calendar that is being used as the official calendar in Iran and it was introduced in 1957 in Afghanistan.
Later in 1976, Muhammad Reza Shah introduced the Shahanshahi calendar, but its radix was 559 BC, the Coronation of Cyrus The Great, beginning of the First Persian Empire (1st Pars). As of this date, the Persian Kingdom became the Persian Empire. This calendar was obsoleted three years later. swept away by the Islamic revolution.
Why the Iranian/Persian Calendar is the most Precise Calendar?
The present Iranian calendar also called the Jalaali calendar, dates back to the eleventh century, when Jalal-ed-din Malek Shah Seljuq commissioned a panel of scientists in 1074-1079 AD to create a calendar more accurate than those in use at the time. Prominent among the scientists was the Persian polymath, Hakim Omar Khayyam, best known today for his poetry, especially The Rubaiyat.
The calendar is one of the most accurate because it is self-correcting and based on astronomical observation of the vernal equinox.
Tying the Solar Hijri calendar so closely to the astronomical seasons makes it much more accurate than the Gregorian calendar, which is rule-based and even in its modern form, deviates from the solar year by 1 day in approximately 3300 years. When the accumulated errors reach an intolerable level, then in an ad-hoc way must add or take out days/days.
In the Iranian/Persian calendar, the new year begins at midnight closest to the vernal equinox in Iran—specifically at the Iran Standard Time meridian at longitude 52.5° east, which runs about 250 miles (400 km) east of Tehran.
The first day of the new year is called Nowruz, the first day of Farvardin, and is based on where Earth actually is in its orbit around the sun not where we predict it will be. If the spring equinox happens before noon, Tehran time, on a particular day then that day is Nowruz or the first day of Farvardinn and the start of the new year. Otherwise, it is the next day.
Persian Calendar Leap year
The Persian year is defined by the astronomical vernal equinox, Leap years are simply years in which there are 366 days between two Persian New Year’s days.
Like in the Gregorian calendar, a common year in the Persian Solar calendar has 365 days while a leap year has 366 days. However, because the Persian Solar calendar is observational, there are no mathematical rules to determine leap years. Instead, it is the number of days between two vernal equinoxes that determines if Esfand, the last month of the Persian Calendar, has 29 for a common year or 30 days for a leap year.
Rule-based version to predict Leap year
Some complex mathematical rules have been suggested to predict the distribution of leap years in the Persian Solar calendar. One of them achieves a degree of accuracy very similar to that of the observational version, requiring about 110,000 years to accumulate an error of 1 day. According to these mathematical rules every four years, there is a leap year with 366 days and Esfand, the last month of the Persian Calendar, is 30 days instead of 29 for the leap year.
According because the actual year is 11 minutes and 15 seconds less than 365 days, after a long period of 23 years, the leap year would be after five years.
Nowruz: Persian/Iranian New Year
Nowruz, the Persian/Iranian New Year, is one of the most important cultural celebrations in Iran and is deeply associated with the Iranian calendar. According to the Iranian/Persian Solar Calendar, the first day of Spring is the first of Farvardin. Usually, this is between 19-21 March in the Gregorian calendar depending on astronomical calculations.
All of those who celebrate Nowruz around the world sit around the Seven Nowruz elements set on a table or a Sofre on the ground (Haftseen) at the exact same time all around the world to welcome the new year. The time is different each year and in different time zones.
Isn’t it amazing how Christians’ Easter, Jews’ Purim Day, Indians’ Holi Day, Pegan Ostara Day and in the very new form, Australian Harmony Day are all celebrated on 21 of March or around it?
You can find the exact time and date of the Persian New Year in your time zone through this site
Happy Persian New Year (1403 Hijri Shamsi, 2583 Shahanshahi, 1394 Shenshai and Kadmi YZ, 1393 Fasli YZ )
Iranian National Calendar Converter
Celebrate Nowruz by sending your friends and family one of our unique Persian New Year Postcards.
Resources:
- Zoroastrian Calendar
- Countries That Use Their Own Calendar
- Mehran Moalem on Quora
- Arian Moradi on Quora
- Zartusht Ashvan on Quora
- Encyclopedia Iranica: Calendars
- The Persian Solar Hijri Calendar
- 6 Things You May Not Know About the Gregorian Calendar
- March Holidays Around the World
- Zoroastrian Heritage
- The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies
- 12 Spring Traditions Around the World
- Why Persian Imperial Year Calendar? PIY Iranian Calendar
- Persian imperial calendar conversion
- Iranian Calendar Systems, History and Origins
- Ancient Iranian Calendars by Mohammad BAGHERI
- Encyclopedia Iranica: Calendars
- Zoroastrian Religious Calendar 2024
- The Science of Leap Year
- The Calendar FAQ
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