The calendar - an item of global appeal

Andrew Scott

Nicolaus Corpernicus	Sir Isaac Newton	Johannes KeplerProcurement

January is the month of calendars throughout the world and anyone is happy to receive the gift of a calendar particularly from the business establishments most of which make it a pleasurable habit to gift their valued customers a calendar or two.

The calendar is a very useful item which we turn to from the time of one's birth up to his time of demise. At the very moment one is born to this world his or her kith and kin make use of a calendar to know for certain the day, date and month of the year on which the babe was born and from the time a new birth is registered up to the time of one's death we make use of calendars to ascertain the day, date and the month of these events. A series of events and activities are packed between the birth and the death of any person and in each one of these important events we turn to the calendar when we have to refer to the day, date and month of any important personal, social, national or international event.

As such there is no doubt that the calendar, in whatever form, shape and colour it appears, is one of the most important items in all human societies. It is quite surprising that in spite of the fact that all of us from the school-going child to the oldest adult make use of this important item at the beginning of a new year little is known on the impact of calendars on our daily activities and the interesting saga of the gradual development of the calendar.

Calendars in various shapes, forms and colours continue to serve the same purpose throughout the world. Calendars can be classified as wall calendars, desk calendars and pocket calendars. It is also important to recall that all of us living in widely different parts of the world make use of calendars to keep track of important personal and other events and today we cannot even imagine a world without any calendar because the entire modern world has got so used to the concept of using calendars.

At the beginning of a new year people throughout the world replace their old calendars with new ones and Sri Lanka is no exception to this age old tradition. While the most useful purpose of any calendar is the indication of the date, day and month of the year, some use calendars for ornamental purposes to adorn the walls of houses and offices and others, specially the business community, use them as an effective medium of advertising.

The word calendar is derived from the Latin ‘Kalendae’, a cardinal day of the Roman month. We know that the rudiments of all sciences, including that of astronomy, began from the evidence of man's senses. The original concept of the earth was that it was round and that rain was water that dropped through holes in the sky-roof. To the savages the sun seemed to go down into the sea in the west and to rise in a like manner in the east and eclipses of the sun (solar) and moon (lunar) were believed to have been brought about when invisible monsters in the sky seized the sun or the moon!

Later these early astronomers developed their hypotheses and began to reckon and measure time with reference to the sun, the moon and the stars. They also observed that the rising and setting of particular stars or constellations took place in an orderly and related pattern. Making observations of these, the earliest astronomers were able to fix the seasons. Before long the change of the sun's height at noon and the lengthening and shortening of the days were noticed and the idea of the year came into being. Later on, the year was arranged with some regularity into months. However, the days were not fitted correctly into the months and the number of days in each year was not settled in this undeveloped calendar. It was from this basic concept of the year of the primitive world that the astronomers of the ancient cultured nations were able to prepare the calendar we use today.

The Greek astronomers were familiar with the idea of the earth being sphere and they measured the movements of the heavenly bodies in relation to their new idea of the earth. Later, due to the untiring efforts and the clear observations of immortal scientists such as Corpernicus, Kepler and Newton, man was stripped off the conceited ideas of heavenly bodies. In ancient Rome the years were named after their consuls. Later the learned Romans found out another system to number the years. They had ascertained the traditional founding of Rome as 753 BC. By this reckoning they numbered the years from the founding of the city.

From the earliest times the Roman year was divided into 12 months of varying lengths and the year consisted of 355 days. The remaining 10 days of the solar year were made into an extra or intercalated month called Macedonians. Julius Caesar got the great astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria to reform the Roman calendar which was confused and inaccurate and the solution was the making of a year of 366 days every fourth year.

That's how the leap year came into existence. This is the calendar we use today. Prior to Caesar's reforms March was the first month of the year. The Romans gave us not only the calendar but also the names of the months of the year. Most of these names of the months were named after the seven planets or their gods as known to the ancients.

The great Anglo-Saxon historian Adam Bede was the first to introduce the concept of A.D. And B.C. To denote Ano Domini (in the year of our Lord) and Before Christ. During the time of the Sinhala kings too there had been astronomers as well as astrologers who prepared calendars. In his much celebrated book ‘An Historical Relation of Ceylon’ Robert Knox says: “These men (astronomers) make leet, that is almanacs that last for a month.

They are written in talipot leaves, a little above a foot long and two fingers broad ..... Their year consists of 365 days. They call their year Avuruddha. This they divide into 12 months. They divide these months into weeks each consisting of seven days...”