Talk:Tibetan calendar

WikiProject Time assessment rating comment

Nearly a Start class.

Want to help write or improve articles about Time? Join WikiProject Time or visit the Time Portal for a list of articles that need improving.
—Yamara ✉ 16:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Almost the same as the Chinese

Similar or identical animals as those found in the Chinese calendar, in the same order. The same elements. Much too close to be separate in origin.

I also found a source that linked them. "We shall briefly describe the Tibetan calendar in this short article. From ancient time there were some phenomenal calendars. In the 7th century, Princess Wen-Cheng brought Tang's calendar to Tibet, later Princess Jin-Cheng did the same thing. Apparently, they did not bring with them the theoretical Astronomy which the calendars were based on. Those Tibetan students who were sent to Tang to study Arithmetics did not learn the computations to make calendars. After the down fall of the Tibetan Dynasty, Tibet became chaotic, and the transmissions of the Han calendars stopped, Tibetan were left without a scientific calendar until 11th century."[1]

--GwydionM (talk) 09:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course they are linked, but Tibetan calenders and almanacs combine elements of both the Chinese Calender and Indian Calender. Tibetan astrology has two aspects, one originating from India called skar rtsis (Indian astrology divination and matmatics), and one from China called nag rtsis(Chinese divination and astrology).
-- Chris Fynn (talk) 09:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

History

The way it's written now reads like Chinese propoganda. If we want to have a history section, it needs to sound more like an encyclopedia with definite sources and so forth. I'm no expert and I don't deny the Chinese side of things but it seems unbalanced so far. Jmlee369 (talk) 20:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

This bit: "However, the Indian calendar was not up to bar with the early Tang's astronomical achievement." is just badly written ("not up to bar"?) It also lacks any references, so it should either be removed or updated with references to back up the statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.248.102.82 (talk) 01:02, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the Wiki page on Indian Astronomy there is no mention of "Kala Wheel" or indeed "Kala". The person that wrote this was probably thinking of the Kalachakra ("Wheel of Time") which is to my knowledge not used for astronomical purposed or as a basis for a calendar. I propose deleting the above text and the mention of "Kala Wheel", and will do so now. Feel free to revert and add a discussion here if you disagree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.248.102.82 (talk) 01:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Kalacakra and The Tibetan Calendar

Perhaps "not to your knowledge" but that doesn't make it so. If you had simply Googled "Kalachakra and Calendar" you would have known this.

Please see: Henning, Edward (2007) Kālacakra and the Tibetan Calendar AIBS 2007 ISBN: 0975373498 

"Kalacakra and The Tibetan Calendar describes the contents of current Tibetan almanacs, from basic mathematics to symbolic and historical information. Essential for understanding the Kalacakra Tantra's first chapter, this book describes the origin of the calendrical systems in this Tantra and translates and elucidates the relevant sections from its famous commentary, the Vimalaprabha. The main calendars in use in Tibet today have remained unchanged since the 15th century, when lamas i several different traditions tried to make sense of the calculation systems they had inherited from India, and to adjust them to remove increasingly obvious errors. This book analyzes the main systems that survive today, assessing their accuracy and comparing them with the methods described in the original Tantra."

And also see: Kālacakra Calendar

--Chris Fynn (talk) 09:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

All glories to the Solitonic Jovian Eye of Brihaspati

• http://www.math.uu.se/~svante/papers/calendars/tibet.pdf
• information from this PDF, particularly the algorithms should be cited in this article in due course

B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:14, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Why doesn't the current year start with 17?

The year of 2005 is 2136 on the tibetan calender. The article states "2005 ... corresponds to ... the 17th cycle". Does someone know why the Tibetans live in the year 2136 and not in 1736? Davin (talk) 18:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The article does not state that Tibetan years are sequentially numbered from some epoch in the past, nor what that epoch or event was. This may be an oversight because an external link states that 2009, not 2005, is Tibetan year 2136. Sometimes years of the Chinese traditional lunisolar calendar are also sequentially numbered, but not by mainland Chinese. Such numbers are used by Western scholars and by Chinese outside of China. The Tibetan calendar may be similar, with Western scholars or astrologers assigning numbers to its years while the Tibetans themselves do not. Tibetan cycles have 60 years each but individual years within each cycle are not numbered according to the article. Given a current cycle of 17, "1736" would not be a decimal number because that 17 would mean 17×60, not 17×100. Furthermore, even if the years within each cycle were numbered, the last two "digits" could not exceed 60, so even they would not be a decimal number. — Joe Kress (talk) 21:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

2005 should have been 2009 indeed.

I've been searching further and found two different first two digits. In the article Historical money of Tibet as well as here several dates are given and dates are separated here with a dash. Calculating with the year numbers given, would deliver the year 17-23 for AD 2009. Year 1-1 would be AD 1027, the year the Tibetan calender was introduced.

However, when I Google on Tibetan calender 2009 2136 or Tibetan calender 2010 2137 I get a huge amount of hits. Recalculating this back to the year 1-1 delivers AD 844. One important event that happened in the 840s was the assassination of Langdarma, but I'm not sure whether the end of his era signifies the beginning of the Tibetan calendar for many people. It's generally seen as a liberation for Buddhism though.

In my view it would be a valuable addition to the article when the use and origin of these two different year numbers are explained on the basis of sources. Davin (talk) 12:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I got my response on German Wikipedia and Prof. Dr. Dieter Schuh and Clemens Marabu helped with discussion and completing the article on German Wikipedia. At least it has nothing to do with what I guessed here above. I translated a part of the German article and added it to this article. The German article is still much more informing than this English one though and of high quality. I hope someone is willing to translate the rest into English one day. I did the same into Dutch today. Thank you Joe for you willingness to help thinking. Best regards, Davin (talk) 18:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)