"Balhar tina Gursikhan bhav bhagat Gurpurb Karande"
(I am sacrifice to those Sikhs who celebrate the days of Guru with devotion.)
Bhai Gurdas.

"Why is it mom, that Baba Ji’s birthday is on different dates each year?" Nanakshahi Calendar is the response to that simple question. Any Sikh child old enough to understand that (for example) Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday is not celebrated on the same date each year, wonders why not. It will be on the same date i.e. 5th January each year in future. With one exception, so will be all the dates of all Gurpurbs. That is our gain.

Guru Nanak Sahib’s prakaash (birthday) Gurpurb, Bandi Chhor Divas and Hola Mahala dates will still be calculated under the old lunar system. That is not our gain as yet. It is not a "loss" either, because we are no worse off than before.

Symbolically, a separate Sikh calendar is a major historical achievement for the separate Sikh theo-political identity. The Sikhs are a nation and the Sikhs now have a distinct calendar.

The above is a simple response to "why the Nanakshahi calendar?"

But, of course, life is not that simple. Certainly not within the Sikh community confined to the four walls of the Gurdwaras infested with superstition and ritualism. Give them any calendar and they will fill in their own "important" dates depending upon the influential local sant or giani. That will then become their own calendar of "teohars", sant barsis, ritual days and other events. They may even insert moon cycles on it. Let us understand, therefore, what we mean by a calendar.

The dictionary says that a calendar is "Any various systems of reckoning time in which the beginning, length, and divisions of a year are arbitrarily defined or otherwise established." You can have a calendar of events also. Most of the present arguments confuse the calendar of time with a calendar of events. In the calendar of events, you can agree or disagree on what historical EVENTS to put on the calendar as important dates for remembrance.

Other than the ritual infected and "charrava"-dependent sants, or ignorantia at large, all others are agreed that the scientific Tropical year, which remains constant and is used world-wide, should be the year adopted for the Khalsa nation’s Nanakshahi Calendar. The Lunar "year" is a contradiction and the Sidereal year based on star markers is slipping against the seasons so that in time, you will have the month of "Harr" (hottest month which starts in mid-June now) in winter!

Nanakshahi Calendar – Main features

• Year 1 is the year of Guru Nanak Sahib’s birth 1469 CE. It begins on 1 Chet Nanakshahi which is on 14th March.
• Based on the time length of Tropical years of 365days 5 hours 48 minutes 45 seconds.
• First five months from Chet have 31 days each, the remaining seven months have 30 days each. The last month will have 31 days in a leap year.
• It will continue to have permanent month/season relationship and will accord to Gurbani.
• With three exceptions, Gurpurbs and others Sikh events will be on fixed dates in both Nanakshahi and the Common Era calendars. The exceptions are Guru Nanak Sahib’s birthday, Bandi Chhor Divas and Hola Mahala, which will remain on the old lunar system until there is further decision to fix these Sikh events to solar dates also. However, S. Pal Singh Purewal has worked the future dates of these events on the Nanakshahi and Common Era calendars up to year 2020. We are no longer dependent on a Pundit in Panjab to calculate these dates each year.
• Nanakshahi calendar has promoted research by scholars into many historical dates where there has been confusion to arrive at agreed dates.

The Problem

The length of the sidereal year of the Bikrami Samat to which Nanakshahi Samat was linked, does not conform to the tropical year length. The Bikrami year is sidereal year (which uses a star as a marker to calculate the earths annual circle around the sun). This year is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 10 seconds. The tropical year on which the world-wide Common Era calendar is based is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. If the months are to remain aligned to seasons (as described in Gurbani – Bara Mahas, Majh and Tukhari and Rutti Saloks) permanently, then the year length has to be that of the tropical year.

The lunar months and the lunar "years" of 354 days is a Brahmanic complexity; and non-sense e.g. regarding two months by the same name occurring every third year to keep step with the solar year, one of the two being an "unclean" (malmaas) month! Would you believe it, that Gurpurb dates have been linked to lunar months – and as you cannot have a holy day in the "unclean" month, therefore, every third year Gurpurbs have been shifted by 18 or 19 days to avoid the "unclean" month!

"Balhar tina Gursikhan bhav bhagat Gurpurb Karande" But which Guru’s days, those hitherto dictated by a Pundit in Panjab every year?

There is no doubt that some tactical compromises have been made to secure a solarised Nanakshahi Calendar – a separate calendar of the Sikh nation. Nevertheless, this is no small achievement in today’s Panjab, symbolically and in practice. Let us now recover the bits compromised, while educating ourselves that ritualistic observance of days, which are not Gurpurbs and agreed days of the Sikh tradition, is very much against Sikh teachings.

And so this table has been worked up by S. Pal Singh Purewal