Reasons why we don’t have a Date-Converter for Vikram Samvat

Though we have come far ahead of the days when people used to believe in things such as even planets could be “feminine” or “masculine” or all such things that are also equally unbelievable, there are lots of people who strike their hand on some astrological website or another – just to appease their inquisitiveness to know what sort of things are destined to happen in their life according to the day when they should have born.

Astrologers insist that astrology can tell everything anyone may like to know what was going to happen in his life according to his stars.

But these sites, invariably, expect them to enter their date of birth in the Gregorian format only besides entering other details such as – their name, their sex (male or female), their time of birth and their place of birth to get themselves registered.

It is all right with those who know the date of their birth according to the Gregorian pattern. Even those who may not know the date of their birth according to the Gregorian calendar may refer to the Date-Converter corresponding to the calendar, according to which, they may know their date of birth. For instance, Muslims may refer to the Hijri Date Converter, the people of Nepal may refer to the Nepali Date Converter and the Chinese may refer to the Chinese Date Converter but those who may not have any such Converter in existence find themselves in a fix.

The most aggrieved among them are the Indians since nobody has come out with a reliable Date-Converter for the Vikram calendar, yet.

Those who think – they could use the Nepali Date-Converter, are quite mistaken since but for the names of the months, the Nepali calendar and the Vikram calendar have nothing in common.

Disparities between the Nepali calendar and the Vikram calendar  

You may, perhaps, know that the current Vikrami year (2075 VS) is a roll-out of thirteen months while the Nepali year runs through only twelve months.

The thirteenth month occurs at an interval of “32 months, sixteen days, three hours and 12 minutes” and is known as “Adhik month” or “Purushottam month”.  

According to the Indian calendar, the month Jyestha of the Vikrami year commenced on May 1 and it would go right up to June 28 but, in Nepal, the Jyestha month began on May 15 and would end on June 14.

The thirteenth month commenced on May 16 and would go up to June 13.

So, this year, Jyestha month shall have 58 days (instead of 31 days) and it would be known as Jyestha (Adhik) – instead of just Jyestha, to signify that it is not a normal 31-day month.

In Nepal, this year has twelve months only.

The funniest part of the additional months is – the interval of “32 months, sixteen days, three hours and 12 minutes” is so odd that if the Purushottam month forms a part of Jyestha this year, the next time it would not form a part of the same month. The month keeps on changing every time.

In an attempt to synchronise the Vikrami year and the tropical year, many a time, one month is often dropped out from the calendar.  So, such calendar years have only eleven months instead of twelve months.

The missing months are known as “Kshaya months”.

The Nepali calendar does not have any “Kshaya months”. 

But, surprisingly, as cited at http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/calendar/indian_kshaya.html, the Vikrami calendar had 11 “Kshaya months” at an interval of 19 years, 3 “Kshaya months” at an interval of 46 years, 6 “Kshaya months” at an interval of 141 years and once each at an intervals of 65, 76 and 122 years over a period of just 461 years between 525 CE and 1985 CE.

This was for only 461 years.

The real problem stems because authentic details of the Kshaya months for other years are far too difficult to find out.   

If we look at the complicated manner in which a balance has been struck between the twelve lunar months of the Vikram calendar and the tropical year we can say, the problem has been very nicely handled in the Gregorian calendar through leap years.