ੴਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫ਼ਤਹ॥
Guru Piyare Khalsa jio,
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕਾ ਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ॥ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕੀ ਫ਼ਤਹ॥
Daas is writing this post just to aware our fellow GurSikhs over the calenders Sikh Panth have. I am not opening a debate over the NanakShahi calendar; however I disagree that we should go back to Bikrami calendar due to the reason that above 4 Gurpurabs fall on same day because of NanakShahi Calendar of 2003. Bikrami calendar also shows the same date for these Gurpurabs. Following is the image of Makkar-Dhumma shaap calendar.
Now daas will try to discuss on Bhai Bijla Singh Jee's thoughts on this situation.
Quote
NanakShahi calendar has many mistakes and I have heard that it is based on 1999 dates instead of 1469.
As far as daas learned that’s true but to make a calendar one must have the reference point to start with. This question also came to my mind that what reference PS purewal chose then after doing some search on this I find that he took reference of 14th of April 1999 with degrees and minutes at location of Sri Darbar Sahib, Amritsar to make the algorithm for calculations of previous dates. Why he could not take year 1469 as a reference which in fact makes it NanakShahi Calender? He explained the reason for this and for inaccuracies of dates as posted below:
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
THE CAUSES OF THE PROBLEMThe main reason for these errors was lack of availability of detailed almanacs (jantris) for earlier period. Historians and scholars had to work their way from scanty information available regarding the beginning of the Bikarami and Hijri years in relation to the Christian calendar. With good Knowledge of the Bikrami and Christian calendars one could convert the dates of one into the other with an accuracy of one day. However, in the case of lunar dates of the Bikrami Era the problem gets compounded by the adhika masas or malmasas or laund months - intercalary months. If the correct intercalary month is not known, when it occurs in a particular year, the conversion could be easily out by a month.
Dr Ganda Singh, realizing these problems, while working on his research projects in Sikh history, made noteworthy effort by way of calculating the beginning of the solar Bikrami years in relation to the Christian calendar. For these dates he gave the Hijri calendar dates and the tithis (lunar dates) of the lunar months of the Bikarami Era. He published his tables called "Mukhtasir Nanak Shahi Jantri" in Urdu language. In this almanac he also gave a table of intercalary months. It would suffice here to say that there are inaccuracies in the main table, and the table of intercalary months is not very accurate. Moreover, since the corresponding dates for Vaisakh 1 (beginning of the Bikarami solar year) only are given for each year, the Jantri cannot be of much help to researchers working with wide spectrum of dates. The Five Hundred Year Almanac for 1469 CE to 1968 CE (Bikarami 1525/26 to Bikarami 2024/25, Hijri 873/74 to1387/88), by the author of this paper, calculated according to Surya Sidhanta on daily basis would provide in one volume the facility to convert dates of calendars from one era to another without any calculation at all. Almanac is also provided for 1960 CE to 2000 CE calculated according to modern methods. This work could prove very useful to researchers, historians, students, speakers and laymen to fix date of a particular event in any of the given eras.
CONCLUSIONSThe problem of accurate conversion and of checking the accuracy of original dates given in Bikarami and Hijri eras was due to lack of availability of detailed almanacs and lack of expertise in this field by historians, and to certain extent due to the carelessness by the authors while working with the dates. This author's Jantri 500 could be of great help in solving this problem for the period 1469 CE onwards.
*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Quote
In 1500 Vaisakhi was on 27th March and in 1699 on 30th March. Vaisakhi had started coming 3 days late.
It is not because of NanankShahi Calender, It is because of Bikrami Calender infact if Bikrami calendar continued Vaisakhi will fall on 27th of April in year 2999.
Quote
So if Nanakshahi cannot fix this problem and is adding more mistakes then we rather stick with already inconsistent Bikarmi.
There is no doubt that NanankShahi calendar of 2003 is not a perfect calendar because still dates of Holla Mahalla, Bandi Shorr divas and Parkaash purab of Guru Nanak Dev ji kept movable but that does not mean we should abandon this calendar. The errors and problems can be fixed if we do collective efforts of scholarly work and use more authentic resources then doing so over the time calender can be improved. America landed on moon not in overnight effort it was decades of planning and development to reach the goal. Making such a huge calendar is not a one man job it needs team work. What Purewal did was just a start which in fact was good start and this move should continue and should not be over shadowed by Makkar-Dhumma Shaap Calendar.
Daas hope the learned Sikhs should continue to support in this field too.
With Regards,
Daas
ਸਤਿਗੁਰਬਚਨਕਮਾਵਣੇਸਚਾਏਹੁਵੀਚਾਰੁ॥
