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.
Read more about this topic: Hindu Calendar
Famous quotes containing the words year and/or numbering:
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“The task he undertakes
Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)