Hindu Calendar - Year Numbering

Year Numbering

The epoch (starting point or first day of the zeroth year) of the current era of Hindu calendar (both solar and lunisolar) is February 18, 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar or January 23, 3102 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. According to the Purāṇa-s this was the moment when Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode. Both the solar and lunisolar calendars started on this date. After that, each year is labeled by the number of years elapsed since the epoch.

This is an unusual feature of the Hindu calendar. Most systems use the current ordinal number of the year as the year label. But just as a person's true age is measured by the number of years that have elapsed starting from the date of the person's birth, the Hindu calendar measures the number of years elapsed. As of May 18, 2010, 5119 years have elapsed in the Hindu calendar. However, the lunisolar calendar year usually starts earlier than the solar calendar year, so the exact year will not begin on the same day every year.