INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

Sukhmani Sahib and offered food and rice pudding (khir) to the congregration on this
dark day of the month.
Parallel to the rythm of the moon runs the 12 months of the Vikrami solar year,
which consist of 29 ‒ 32 days each as the sun passes through the zodiac signs. The
first day of a solar month called sangrand starts somewhere between day 12 and day
17 in a month according to the Gregorian calendar. The sangrand marks the astonomical
event when the sun passes from one sign of the zodiac to the next and each first
day of the month is therefore named after the sign of the zodiac whose beginning it
marks. 643 Since the Vikrami solar year of 365/366 days is sidereal and about twenty
minutes longer compared to a tropical solar year, the dates are slowly pushed forward
by one day after 70 ‒ 71 years. 644 The solar and lunar years of the Vikrami calendar
consequently drift in two opposite directions: while the solar year slowly
crawls forwards in time, the lunar moves backwards.
Among local Sikhs the day of sangrand is surrounded by beliefs and ritualized
practices. Those who are born on this day are popularly believed to be lucky in life.
The types of action people perform on the first day of the month is said to determine
the remaining part of it. Therefore many Sikh families will dedicate the day to activities
that are considered good: they start and end recitations from the Guru Granth
Sahib; attend the gurdwara with donations and food offerings; listen to the composition
Barah Maha and organize public distribution of food. The first day of the month
Magh, which marks the winter solistice, is thought to be an especially good day for
religious action. A middle-aged businessman said he had for seven years in a row
completed an Akhand path on Magh sangrand in memory of his departed father. After
having suffered severely by not having money for food, he promised God he would
perform annual readings if the sales increased. The recitation with the bhog ceremony
adjusted to sangrand, he claimed, had made him do extremly well in business.
To keep a check on the calendric systems and to know the correct days on
which festivals should be celebrated is far from common knowledge. Instead people
will take use of a so-called jantri, a small almanac booklet in which the lunar and solar
dates as well as other miscellaneous information about festivals and auspicious dates
are given. The SGPC and book publishers in the Punjab yearly issue these booklets
under the name Nanakshahi samat jantri, literally “the calendar of the great Nanak
era”, which are particularly intended for the Sikh community. 645 Besides mentioning
the current year according to the Saka calendar and the Vikrami calendar and significant
lunar and solar dates, 646 the almanac calculates time from two important events
643
For instance, the day when the sun leaves Sagittarius and enters Capricorn (Makara) in January
will be called Makar sangrand.
644
Editors of the Vikrami calendar use the so-called Surya Siddhanta length of a year, which
consists of 356 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 36 seconds, as compared to the tropical year with
356 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds.
645
The SGPC nowadays publishes the yearly booklet on the Internet (www.sgpc.net).
646
A standard calendar usually mentions the full-moon day (puranmashi), new-moon day (masia),
the first day of the solar month (sangrand), and fifth day (panchmi) of a month.
394
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008