KNOW ABOUT OUR CALENDAR




Man cannot imagine life without clock and calendar.  Without Calendar life will be clueless and helpless.  To monitor our daily schedules, activities, to keep track of events, festivals, meeting deadlines, commitments and so on  we really have to depend on Calendar.  Our life started with the Roman calendar.  Romans had ten months starting from March to December.  Roman writers credited this calendar to their legendry first king Romulus.  Initially the names of months derived from Roman Gods.  

Romulus named the first month March as Martius after his father Mars, the God of War.    April (Aprilis), May (Maius) and June (Iunius) derived from deities of Roman culture.  April was  named after goddess Aphrodite who was born from sea's foam which was considered the open spring season.  May came from the deity , the nymph Maia who was assimilated with the Earth and June was honoured by the deity Juno the goddess of war and women.  The other names were Quintillis, Sextillis, September, November and December .  These were the 10 months.  

After the death of King Romulus, the next king of Rome was Numa Pompilius.  Two extra months were attributed to King Numa at the beginning of the year and it was January (Ianuarius) and February(Februarius).  January took its name from Janus the Roman god of beginnings and endings.  February comes from the word februum means purification and februa means the rites.

In 44 BC after the end of Roman Republic, dictator Julius Caesar was born and in his favour Quintillis the fifth month was rebranded as Iulius (July).  In 8 BC after the assassination of Julius Caesar, his adoptive son and heir Emperor Augustus renamed the sixth month Sextilis as August in his honour when he became consul and conquered Egypt.  The last four months September, October, November and December remained unchanged.

The Gregorian calendar is used in most of the world.  It is named after Pope Gregory XIII who introduced it in October 1582.  This calendar spaces leap year to make it 365 days determining the Earth's revolution around the sun.

August brings a number of cultural festivals.  The present one is Onam and Ganesh festival.  







 

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