Bangla Calendar

The Bangla Calendar is the traditional calendar used in Bangladesh and Bangla speaking regions of India. The calendar is based on the solar year. The new years day falls on April 14.

History

Under the Mughals, agricultural taxes were collected according to the Hijri calendar. However, as the Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar, the agricultural year does not coincide with the fiscal. Therefore, farmers were hard-pressed to pay taxes out of season. In order to streamline tax collection, the Mughal Emperor Akbar ordered a reform of the calendar. Accordingly, Fatehullah Shirazi, a renowned scholar and astronomer, formulated the Bangla year on the basis of the lunar Hijri and Bangla solar calendars. The new Fasli San (agricultural year) was introduced on 10/11 March 1584, but was dated from Akbar's ascension to the throne in 1556. The new year subsequently became known as Bangabda or Bengali year.

Months

• Baishakh
• Jaishtha
• Ashar
• Sraban
• Bhadro
• Ashwin
• Kartik
• Agrohayon
• Poush
• Maagh
• Falgun
• Chaitra

Organization

The length of a year in the Bangla calendar, as in the Gregorian calendar, is counted as 365 days. However, the actual time taken by the earth in its revolution around the sun is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 47 seconds. To make up this discrepancy, the Gregorian calendar adds an extra day to the month of February every fourth year (except in century years not divisible by 400). The Bangla year did not take into account these extra hours. Bangla months too were of different lengths. In order to counter this discrepancy and make the Bangla calendar more precise, a committee to reform the Bangla calendar was set up on 17 February 1966 under the auspices of the Bangla Academy and under the guidance of Muhammad Shahidullah . Under the recommendations of the committee, the months from Baishakh to Bhadra were to be counted as of 31 days each, while the months from Aswin to Chaitra were to be considered as of 30 days, with Chaitra having 31 days every four years. The revised calendar is officially adopted in Bangladesh. However it is not strictly followed in the neighboring state of West Bengal, India where the old calendar is often followed.