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Tibetan calendar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tibetan calendar is a lunisolar calendar, that is, the Tibetan year is composed of either 12 or 13 lunar months, each beginning and ending with a new moon. A thirteenth month is added approximately every three years, so that an average Tibetan year is equal to the solar year. The months have no names, but are referred to by their numbers.
The Tibetan New Year celebration is Losar.
Each year is associated with an animal and an element. The animals alternate in the following order:
| Hare | Dragon | Snake | Horse | Sheep | Ape | Bird | Dog | Pig | Mouse | Bull | Tiger |
The elements alternate in the following order:
| Fire | Earth | Iron | Water | Wood |
Each element is associated with two consecutive years, first in its male aspect, then in its female aspect. For example, a male Earth-Dragon year is followed by a female Earth-Snake year, then by a male 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, starting with a (female) Fire-Hare year. These big cycles are numbered. The first cycle started in 1027. Therefore, 2005 roughly corresponds to the (female) Wood-Bird year of the 17th cycle.
The days of the week are named for celestial bodies.
| Day | Tibetan (Wylie) | Phonetic transcription | Object |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | གཟའ་ཉི་མ་ (gza' nyi ma) | Sa nyi-ma | Sun |
| Monday | གཟའ་ཟླ་བ་ (gza' zla ba) | Sa da-wa | Moon |
| Tuesday | གཟའ་མིག་དབར་ (gza' mig dmar) | Sa Mik-mar | Mars |
| Wednesday | གཟའ་ལྷག་པ་ (gza' lhak pa) | Sa Lhak-ba | Mercury |
| Thursday | གཟའ་ཕུར་པུ་ (gza' phur bu) | Sa Phur-bu | Jupiter |
| Friday | གཟའ་པ་སངས་ (gza' pa sangs) | Sa Ba-sang | Venus |
| Saturday | གཟའ་སྤེན་པ་ (gza' spen pa) | Sa ben-ba | Saturn |
Nyima "Sun", Dawa "Moon" and Lhagpa "Mercury" are common personal names for people born on Sunday, Monday or Wednesday respectively.
- Norbu, Thubten & Harrer, Heinrich (1960). Tibet is my Country. London: Readers Union, Rupert Hart-Davis.
- Shakabpa, Tsepon W.D. (1967). Tibet: A Political History. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
- Tournadre, Nicolas & Sangda Dorje (2003). Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and Civilization, trans. Ramble, Charles, Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-189-8.