Of Leap Years and Lack of Holidays
Many know that the Hindu calendar is a lunar one. The lunar year (of 12 months) is about 354 days long. This means that there is a difference of 11 days, 1 hour, 31 minutes and 12 seconds between the solar year (followed by the western Gregorian Calendar) and the lunar one. Logically, this would mean that all Hindu festivals should keep shifting by 11 days a year, causing, say, Diwali to some year be in winter, other times be in summer. Yet this does not happen and festivals fall within one month range of the solar year. How does one explain this 'anamoly'.
Well, the answer is that the Gregorians aren't the only ones who thought of a leap year! There is one major difference though. The western calendar opts for an extra day every four years, while the Hindu calendar goes for an extra month every 2.5 years. Now, 11.06333 days * 2.5 years = 27.658333 days, but an additional lunar month would account for only 27.3 days. So what is to be done about the extra 8 hrs and 36 minutes that are piling up every 2.5 years? Well, the gregorian calendar too has a similar problem. The extra day every four years is a little longer than required, resulting in the 'leap year' being dropped in years divisible by 100, but not by 400 (so 2000 wass a leap year, but 1900 was not). Every 190 years, another month is added to the lunar year. Thus (8hrs 36 minutes * 190 / 2.5) = 27.3 days. Voila, the problem is solved!
The extra months are called अधिक मास। No festival falls during this month।
Those of you cribing about the unusual lack of holidays should know that an adhik maas beginning 17th March is to blame - all festivals have got postponed for a month!