History of Bangla Shon

The Bengali calendar is tied to the Indian solar calendar, based on the Surya Siddhanta. The first day of the Bengali year, Pohela Boishakh, is celebrated on April 14 in Bangladesh and on April 15 in West Bengal, India. It also coincides with the mid-April New Year’s days of several Asian calendars, including those used in the Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Orissa, Jharkhand, Kerala and Tamil Nadu; in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.

In the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, Boisuk of Tripuri, Sangrai of Marma and Biju of Chakma communities are celebrated together as Boisabi on April 13, the eve of Pohela Boishakh.

The Bengali New Year begins at sunrise, and the day is marked with cultural programmes, colourful rallies and village fairs. People dress up in bright _usually red and white _ traditional costumes and women adorn their hair with fresh flowers.

Historically, the day has been seen across the subcontinent as the day for a new opening. In Bengal landlords used to distribute sweets among their tenants, and business people settled debts and started a new ‘halkhata’ (ledger), locking away the old. Vendors used to offer sweets to their customers to renew their business relationship with them. There were fairs and festivities all over.

The development of the Bengali calendar is often attributed to Shoshangko, the king of Gour or Gauda, as the starting date of the Bengali Era (AD 593/ 594) falls squarely within his reign.

Mughal Emperor Akbar introduced a revised calendar to make tax collection easier in Bengal. The Mughals used to collect taxes according to the Islamic calendar and Akbar ordered an improvement of the calendar systems, because the lunar Islamic calendar did not coincide with the harvests and the farmers faced severe difficulties in paying taxes out of season.

Some sources credit the idea to Akbar’s finance minister Todar Mal. Accordingly, Amir Fatehullah Shirazi, the royal astronomer, formulated a new calendar based on the lunar Hijri and solar Indian calendars. The resulting calendar was introduced following the harvesting season, when farmers would be in a relatively sound financial position.

The distinctive characteristic of the revised Bengali year was that, rather than being a solar or lunar calendar, it was based on a union of the solar and lunar year. This was essentially a great improvement, as the solar and lunar years were formulated on very diverse systems. Primarily, this new calendar was named as ‘Fosholi Shon’ (harvest calender), and later ‘Bonggabdo’ or ‘Bangla Shon’.

The Bengali Year was launched on March 10/11, 1584, but was dated from November 5, 1556 or Hijri 963 _ the day Akbar ascended to the throne. During Mughal reign, the Bangla Shon was implemented throughout the empire. Apart from Bengal and parts of eastern South Asia, however, the calendar was abandoned with the end of Mughal rule.

The Bengali calendar consists of 12 months and six seasons. Two months are paired together for each season. The length of a year is counted as 365 days, as in the Gregorian calendar. However, the earth actually takes about 365 days and six hours to complete a revolution around the sun. To make up for the discrepancy, the Gregorian calendar adds an extra day, to make a leap year, to the month of February every fourth year. Bangladesh adopted an updated version of the Bengali calendar to account for leap years in 1996, with the first day of the year fixed on April 14.

To make the Bengali calendar more precise, the following recommendations of the Bangla Academy are followed:

•  The first five months, from Boishakh to Bhadro, will consist of 31 days each.

• The remaining seven months, from Ashwin to Chaitra, will consist of 30 days each.

•  In every leap year of the Gregorian calendar, an additional day will be added in the month of Falgun (which is 14 days after February 29).

The usage and popularity of the Bengali calendar continues partly due to its adaptation to reflect the unique seasonal patterns of eastern South Asia. The region has a climate that is best divided into six seasons, including the monsoon and the dry seasons, in addition to spring, summer, autumn and winter.

In everyday use, the Bengali calendar has been largely replaced with the Gregorian calendar, although it is still essential for marking holidays specific to Bengali culture, like Durga Puja, and for marking the six seasons of the year. n

Source: Internet.