27 Facts About Burmese calendar

Burmese calendar is a lunisolar calendar in which the months are based on lunar months and years are based on sidereal years.

The calendar is largely based on an older version of the Hindu calendar, though unlike the Indian systems, it employs a version of the Metonic cycle.

The Burmese calendar therefore has to reconcile the sidereal years of the Hindu Burmese calendar with the Metonic cycle's near tropical years by adding intercalary months and days at irregular intervals.

That seminal Burmese calendar is said to have been recalibrated by King Anjana, the maternal grandfather of the Buddha, in 691 BCE.

That Burmese calendar in turn was recalibrated and replaced by the Buddhist Era with the starting year of 544 BCE.

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Mainstream scholarship holds that the recalibrated Burmese calendar was launched at Sri Ksetra, and later adopted by the upstart principality of Pagan.

Likewise, the Burmese calendar spread to the Chittagong region of Bengal, which was dominated by the Arakanese Mrauk-U Kingdom from the 15th to 17th centuries.

Furthermore, the Burmese calendar system did not incorporate advances in Indian calculation methods of the sidereal year until the mid-19th century.

In sum, at various times the Burmese calendar has used at least three slightly different methods of calculation to determine the insertion times of the intercalary day and month.

In 1889, the only remaining independent kingdom in Southeast Asia, Siam, replaced the Burmese calendar and switched to the Gregorian calendar as the official civil calendar and the Ratanakosin Era as the traditional lunisolar calendar.

Burmese calendar has not been replaced, but used alongside the Gregorian calendar after the fall of the Burmese kingdom.

Burmese calendar is a lunisolar calendar in which the months are based on lunar months and years are based on solar years.

Thai Chulasakarat Burmese calendar uses a slightly different method to place the intercalary day.

Furthermore, in contrast to Indian calendars, the Burmese calendar follows a Metonic cycle in which intercalary months are inserted on a set schedule.

However, because the Burmese calendar has to adjust for the use of Indian-calendar-derived sidereal years with the Metonic cycle's tropical years, maintaining a set Metonic cycle has been a challenge.

Since the main purpose of the Burmese calendar is to keep pace with the solar year, the new year is always marked by the solar year, which falls at the time when the Sun enters Aries.

The Burmese calendar cycle is not the more familiar Jovian cycle of India with 60 years in it.

Burmese calendar uses lunar months but tries to keep pace with the solar year.

The Burmese calendar signs are identical to Indian and Western signs as they were derived from Indian and ultimately Western zodiac.

The Burmese calendar system uses unequal spaces for each segment, and the first segment, Athawani, begins at 350° longitude.

At least down to the early 20th century, the Arakanese calendar used the Makaranta system although the Burmese calendar had moved to the Thandeikta system since the mid-19th century.

Burmese calendar first came to be adopted in present-day northern Thailand in the mid-13th century, and in central Thailand by the second half of the 16th century.

The Kengtung, Lan Na, Lan Xang, and Sukhothai calendars still retained the use of numbering the months even though the Burmese calendar stopped using the numbered months alongside the month names.

Each Burmese calendar has the same regular year of 354 days and a leap year of 384 days.

However, whereas the Burmese calendar adds the intercalary day only in a leap cycle according to its Metonic cycle, the Siamese calendar adds the intercalary day to a regular year.

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Burmese calendar is still used to determine a number of public holidays in Myanmar.

The Burmese calendar date comes first, and is followed by the equivalent Gregorian calendar date in parentheses, both in the Year-Month-Day order.