TheTibetan calendar (Tibetan:ལོ་ཐོ,Wylie:lo-tho), or thePhukpa calendar, known as theTibetan lunar calendar, is alunisolar calendar composed of either 12 or 13lunar months, each beginning and ending with anew moon. A thirteenth month is added every two or three years, so that an average Tibetan year is equal to thesolar year.[1] The 15th centuryPhukpa calendar is the main Tibetan calendar, and the Karma Kagyu'sTsurluk calendar is also in current use. The TibetanNew Year celebration isLosar (Tibetan:ལོ་གསར་,Wylie:lo-gsar), which falls either in the months of February or March in theGregorian calendar.
During theTibetan Empire period, the Tibetan calendar was a seasonally based calendar before theBuddha Shakyamuni's Kalachakra calendar system, a blend of both the Indian zodiac and Chinese zodiac systems, was incorporated. The Tibetan calendar is the basis of theMongolian calendar, and the first day of Losar also aligns with the third Mongolian (Hor) month in other almanacs.[2]
Every month, certain dates in the Tibetan calendar have special significance forTibetan Buddhist practices,[3][4] as do certain months of the Tibetan calendar year when the anniversaries of events fromShakyamuni Buddha's life correspond, such asSaga Dawa of the Tibetan fourth month.
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There were different traditions of naming years (Tibetan:ལོ་,Wylie:lo) in Tibet. From the 12th century onwards, we observe the usage of two sixty-year cycles. The 60-year cycle is known as theBṛhaspati cycle and was first introduced into Tibet by an Indian Buddhist by the name of Chandranath and Tsilu Pandit in 1025 CE.[5] The first cycle is therabjyung (Tibetan:རབ་བྱུང༌།,Wylie:rab byung) cycle. The first year of the firstrabjyung cycle started in 1027. This cycle was adopted from India. The second cycle was derived from China and was calledDrukchu kor (Tibetan:དྲུག་ཅུ་སྐོར།,Wylie:drug cu skor,Chinese:甲子). The first year of the firstDrukchu kor cycle started in 1024. The cycles were counted byordinal numbers, but the years within the cycles were never counted but referred to by special names. The structure of thedrukchu kor was as follows:Each year is associated with an animal and anelement, similar to theChinese zodiac.[6] Animals have the following order:
| Hare | Dragon | Snake | Horse | Sheep | Monkey | Bird | Dog | Boar | Rat | Ox | Tiger |
| ཡོས་ yos | འབྲུག་ 'brug | སྦྲུལ་ sbrul | རྟ་ rta | ལུག་ lug | སྤྲེ་ spre | བྱ་ bya | ཁྱི་ khyi | ཕག་ phag | བྱི་བ་ byi.ba | གླང་ glang | སྟག་ stag |
Elements have the following order:
| Fire | Earth | Iron | Water | Wood |
| མེ་ me | ས་ sa | ལྕགས་ lcags | ཆུ་ chu | ཤིང་ shing |
Each element is associated with two consecutive years, first in its male aspect (pho), then in its female aspect (mo). For example, amale Earth-Dragon year is followed by afemale Earth-Snake year, then by amale Iron-Horse year. The sex may be omitted, as it can be inferred from the animal.
The element-animal designations recur in cycles of 60 years (asexagenary cycle), starting with a (male)Wood-Rat year. These large cycles are numbered, the first cycle starting in 1024. Therefore, 2005 roughly corresponds to the (female)Wood-Rooster year of the 17th cycle. The first year of the sixty-year cycle of Indian origin (1027) is calledrab-byung (same name as the designation of the cycle) and is equivalent to the (female) fire-Rabbit year.
| Year (Gregorian) | Year according torabjyung | Wylie | Element | Animal | Sex |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | rabjyung 17lo 22 | sa pho byi | Earth | Rat | male |
| 2009 | rabjyung 17lo 23 | sa mo glang | Earth | Ox | female |
| 2010 | rabjyung 17lo 24 | lcags pho stag | Iron | Tiger | male |
| 2011 | rabjyung 17lo 25 | lcags mo yos | Iron | Hare | female |
| 2012 | rabjyung 17lo 26 | chu pho 'brug | Water | Dragon | male |
| 2013 | rabjyung 17lo 27 | chu mo sbrul | Water | Snake | female |
| 2014 | rabjyung 17lo 28 | shing pho rta | Wood | Horse | male |
| 2015 | rabjyung 17lo 29 | shing mo lug | Wood | Sheep | female |
| 2016 | rabjyung 17lo 30 | me pho spre | Fire | Monkey | male |
| 2017 | rabjyung 17lo 31 | me mo bya | Fire | Bird | female |
| 2018 | rabjyung 17lo 32 | sa pho khyi | Earth | Dog | male |
| 2019 | rabjyung 17lo 33 | sa mo phag | Earth | Boar | female |
| 2020 | rabjyung 17lo 34 | lcags pho byi | Iron | Rat | male |
| 2021 | rabjyung 17lo 35 | lcags mo glang | Iron | Ox | female |
| 2022 | rabjyung 17lo 36 | chu pho stag | Water | Tiger | male |
| 2023 | rabjyung 17lo 37 | chu mo yos | Water | Hare | female |
| 2024 | rabjyung 17lo 38 | shing pho 'brug | Wood | Dragon | male |
| 2025 | rabjyung 17lo 39 | shing mo sbrul | Wood | Snake | female |
| 2026 | rabjyung 17lo 40 | me pho rta | Fire | Horse | male |
| 2027 | rabjyung 17lo 41 | me mo lug | Fire | Sheep | female |
Three relatively modern notations ofcardinal numbers are used for Tibetan years.
OnTibetan banknotes from the first half of the 20th century cardinal numbers can be seen, with year 1 in 255 CE, which is a reference to the legendary28th Emperor of Tibet,Thothori Nyantsen.
Since the second half of the 20th century another year notation has been used, where the year of, for example, 2025 CE coincides with the Tibetan year of 2152. This relatively modern year notation is referred to asBö Gyello (bod rgyal lo). In this era the first year is 127 BCE, dated to thelegendary progenitor of theYarlung dynasty,Nyatri Tsenpo.
In Tibetan calendars of the second half of the 20th century and on Tibetancoins cardinal year numbers are found with the indication ofraplo, where the first year coincides with the first year of therabjyung-cycle, that is 1027.Rab lo 928, for example, is the year of 1954 on the westernGregorian calendar.
| Year (Gregorian) | Epoch 127 BCE | Epoch 255 | Epoch 1027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| From about February/March 2019 | 2146 | 1765 | 993 |
| From about February/March 2020 | 2147 | 1766 | 994 |
| From about February/March 2021 | 2148 | 1767 | 995 |
| From about February/March 2022 | 2149 | 1768 | 996 |
| From about February/March 2023 | 2150 | 1769 | 997 |
| From about February/March 2024 | 2151 | 1770 | 998 |
| From about February/March 2025 | 2152 | 1771 | 999 |
| From about February/March 2026 | 2153 | 1772 | 1000 |
During the time of theTibetan Empire (7th – 9th century) Tibetan months (Tibetan:ཟླ་བ་,Wylie:zla ba,THL:dawa) were named according to the four seasons:
From the 12th century onwards each month has been named by the 12 animals of theChinese zodiac:
With the introduction of the calendar of theKalacakratantra in the second half of the 11th century, months were also named via lunar mansions within which, roughly speaking, a full moon took place each month:
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In the second half of the 13th century the famous rulerDrogön Chögyal Phagpa introduced the system of counting the month by ordinal numbers, the so-calledHor "Mongolian" month:
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All these systems of counting or naming months were used up to modern times.
There are three different types of days (zhag), thekhyim zhag, thetshes zhag and thenyin zhag.
The first two of these days are astronomical days. The time needed for the mean Sun to pass through one of the twelve traditional signs of the zodiac (the twelvekhyim) is calledkhyim zla (solar month). One-thirtieth of one solar month (khyim zla) is onekhyim zhag, which might be called a zodiacal day, because there is no equivalent name in Western terminology.
The time needed by the Moon toelongate 12 degrees from the Sun and every 12 degrees thereafter is onetithi (tshes zhag, "lunar day"). The lengths of such lunar days vary considerably due to variations in the movements of the Moon and Sun.
Thirty lunar days form one lunar or synodic month (tshes zla), the period from new moon to new moon. This is equal to the time needed for the Moon to elongate 360 degrees from the Sun (sun to sun). The natural day (nyin zhag) is defined by Tibetans as the period from dawn to dawn. Strictly speaking, the months appearing in a Tibetan almanac, called by us Tibetan calendar months, are not the same as lunar or synodic months (tshes zla), which can begin and end at any time of day. In Tibetan, there is no special term for a calendar month containing whole days. These calendar months are just calledzla ba (month).
A Tibetan calendar month normally starts with the week day or natural day (gza' ornyin zhag) in which the first tithi (tshes zhag) ends. A Tibetan calendar month normally ends with the week day or natural day (gza' ornyin zhag) in which the 30thtithi (tshes zhag) ends. In consequence, a Tibetan calendar month (zla ba) comprises 29 or 30 natural days. In the sequence of natural days or week days, there are no omitted days or days that occur twice. But since these days are also named by the termtshes together with a cardinal number, it happens that certain numbers or dates (the corresponding tithi) do not occur at all (chad) or appear twice (lhag). Thetithi are counted from 1 to 30 and it can happen that a Monday with the lunar day number 1 (tshes gcig) is followed by a Tuesday with the moon day number 3 (tshes gsum). On the other hand, a Monday with the lunar day number 1 (tshes gcig) may be followed by a Tuesday with the lunar day number 1 (tshes gcig). In other words, it happens quite often that certain dates do not appear in the Tibetan almanac and certain dates occur twice. But there are no natural days or week days that occur twice or which are omitted.
The days of the week (Tibetan:གཟའ,Wylie:gza') are named forastronomical objects.[7]
| Day | Tibetan (Wylie) | Phonetic transcription | Object |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | གཟའ་ཉི་མ་ (gza' nyi ma) | nyima | Sun |
| Monday | གཟའ་ཟླ་བ་ (gza' zla wa) | dawa | Moon |
| Tuesday | གཟའ་མིག་དམར་ (gza' mig dmar) | Mikmar | Mars |
| Wednesday | གཟའ་ལྷག་པ་ (gza' lhak pa) | Lhakpa | Mercury |
| Thursday | གཟའ་ཕུར་བུ། (gza' phur bu) | Purbu | Jupiter |
| Friday | གཟའ་པ་སངས་ (gza' pa sangs) | Pasang | Venus |
| Saturday | གཟའ་སྤེན་པ་ (gza' spen ba) | Penba | Saturn |
Nyima "Sun",Dawa "Moon" andLhakpa "Mercury" are common personal names for people born on Sunday, Monday or Wednesday respectively.
During the time of theTibetan Empire, the twelve months were named according to the four seasons of the year, and the year started in spring.[8]
Tibetans historically used the Indian astrological system, Tib.kar rtsis, that divided the days into rhythms defined by the elements and the constellations,[8] and later used a Chinese astrological system, Tib.byung rtsis, which focuses on twelve animals and the five elements to describe patterns of events. The Indian and Chinese systems were joined bythe Buddha's teachings found within the SutraAvatamsakra and the TantraKalachakra to develop the Tibetan astrological calendar.
Beginning in the 12th century, the years were named after the 12 animals common in theChinese zodiac.
The translation of theKalachakra Tantra in the late 11th century CE marked the beginning of a change of Tibet's calendar. This tantra references the Indian astronomical calendar system with its calculations that follow the progression of the constellations - the five planets, and the sun and moon eclipses.
As the original teachings of the Kalacakra were taught by the Buddha himself, two hundred years later, the Kalacakra calendar was officially adopted as a Tibetan calendar by theÜ-Tsang kingDrogön Chögyal Phagpa, in the second half of the 13th century.[citation needed]
A distinct Tibetan calendar was developed in 1284 by the lineage of the Gyalwang Karmapas, the Tsurphu tradition calendar. ThisTsurluk calendar is based on the3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje's astrological treatise calledThe Compendium of Astrology (Tib.rtsis kun bsdus pa), a treatise from which many later treatises authored by the subsequentKarmapas and byJamgon Kongtrul the Great evolved. The Tsurluk calendar is still overseen by Tsipa Gelek Dhargay, at the17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje's seat inRumtek, Sikkim, India.[8]
In 1447, a Tibetan astrologerPhukpa Lhündrub Gyatso composed an astrological treatise calledThe Oral Teachings of Pundarika (Tib.pad dkar zhal lung). His work founded thePhukpa calendar which is the main calendar of Tibet.[8] This main Tibetan calendar, the Phukpa, was modified many times during the subsequent centuries, and it remains a luni-solar calendar.
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