Indian New Year

The New Year Day in India is celebrated on many different days all across the country, in addition to the International New Year Day on the First January every year. Though there is present an official Indian National Calendar, some of its States do also follow their regional calendars for observing and celebrating important days and festivals, as per their diverse cultures.

The Vikrama and Shalivahana calendars, and a great many variants of each of these, are the most used calendars in all across India. The Indian Calendar Reform Committee had identified more than thirty well-developed Indian calendars in the year 1952. The Shalivahana calendar begins with the month of Chaitra (usually in March), while the Vikrama calendar starts with the month of Baishakh (generally in April).

Again, Sun's entrance into the Mesha rashi, is celebrated as the New Year Day by people following the Hindu solar calendar, which occurs usually on April 14-15 every year. Indian States of Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Bengal, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, celebrate New Year during this time. Owing to the influence of Hinduism countries of Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos observe New Year on the same day.

Indian New Year Celebration

India is a unique land of diverse races, religions, cultures, cuisines, and calendars, well-established in its various parts and regions. Therefore, the traditional and cultural celebrations of their New Year Day are on different days of the year, and in different ways indoors and outdoors. But, all people all around the country celebrate the New Year essentially with great optimism and enthusiasm to welcome the happy new year, leaving behind and forgetting all types of sorrow and sadness, grudges, and failures occurred in the year being left behind.

New Year Eve parties, new year eve cruises, new year holiday breaks, and various other new year eve programs are in vogue now-a-days in all over the country, as are these in other parts of the world. Indians hail the bright new year with full of renewed energy and optimism, and with flying colors, glamorous light decorations and firework exhibit being the commonplace.

Hindu New Year

Majority of Hindu calendars used in India are lunisolar calendars. The Vikrama and Shalivahana calendars, and a great many variants of each of these, are the most popular and widely used calendars in all across India. The Vikrama calendar and its variants are mostly used in the western and northern India, and in some parts of Nepal. While the Shalivahana, sometimes also known as Saka, calendar is very popular in the states of Maharashtra and Goa, and in the southern states of India.

The official Indian National Calendar, follows a variant of the Shalivahana Calendar, which begins with the Chaitra month, and counts years taking 78 CE as the zero year, and the number of days in each month (with leap years) being constant.

There are many things common and same in both of these famous Indian calendars. Specifically, both are lunisolar calendars; each has the same twelve lunar months in the annual cycle, in the same sequence; and each month is divided into two waxing and waning phases of the moon called a Paksha. But, the New Year day is different, and so is the 'year zero' for the two calendars. In the Shalivahana calendar, the year zero is 78 CE, while that of the Vikrama calendar corresponds to 58 BCE. The Shalivahana calendar begins with the month of Chaitra (usually in March), while the Vikrama calendar starts with the month of Baishakh (generally in April).