New Moon

welcome to 2010? or is it still 1931? or 1943, 1431, 2552, or 2670? clearly the way we calculate years and when we number them from is a complicated matter and subject to some dispute around the world, not least here in bali where not only the measurement of time but also the calculation of the cosmological, religious and household significance of each day is an arcane science

The Balinese calendar is not for the faint hearted or numerically challenged. In addition to the solar based Gregorian system now commonly used throughout the world –365 days (usually) divided into 52 weeks of seven days and 12 months of 30, 31 or 28 days (usually) – two other distinct calendrical systems simultaneously circulate through it like geared wheels within wheels, both of which are riddled with their own complexities.

The first of these is the Saka or Sasih lunar calendar derived from one calculated in India in 79AD, which comprises 12 months (sasih) of 30 days, each month beginning on the day after the new moon (tilem), and its middle point marked by the full moon (purnama) 15 days later. To synchronise with the solar calendar, every 30 months an intercalary “leap month” is added. Because of this adjustment, and because 79AD constitutes its year zero, according to the Balinese lunar calendar we are now living in the year 1931. The day after the new moon on March 15 is Nyepi, the day of silence that marks the beginning of 1932.

This lunar calendar is accompanied by the 210-day Pawukon calendar indigenous to Java and Bali. This is divided into 30 individually named weeks or wuku and is believed to derive from the growing cycle of rice. The Pawukon “years” are not tallied and numbered but the system is crucial to determining the complex schedule of temple rituals and ceremonies and identifying the most auspicious and inauspicious days to perform a whole range of other activities from when to lay the foundations for a house to when to get your haircut.

But what day is it? The Pawukon calendar is further divided into concurrent “weeks” of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten days. The names of the days of these weeks, or “wara”.

The most important are the three, five and seven-day weeks: the Triwara, the Pancawara, and the Saptawara. Incidentally, each day of the Saptawara coincides with the seven days of the week in the Gregorian calendar so that Redite is the equivalent of Sunday, Coma is Monday and so forth right up to Saniscara which is the equivalent of Saturday. And not only because they occupy the same spaces in time: the names of each of the days in the Saptawara also refer to the same astral bodies referred to in the Gregorian week. For instance, Redite (Sunday) comes from the Balinese word for the Sun, while Saniscara (Saturday) refers to Saturn.

The three, five and seven-day wara repeat uncomplicatedly through the 210 day cycle, and the conjunctions between them are used to determine the most important religious ceremonies. One of the most significant of these is Kajeng Kliwon, the coincidence of the third day of the Triwara with the fourth day of the Pancawara. It is a day to beware of malevolent forces.

In the month known to many of us as January, named for Janus, the Roman God of beginnings and endings, Kajeng Kliwons fall on the 7th and 22nd. But this is just one of the many auspicious conjunctions. Another, known as Hari Tumpek Kandang, occurs on January 2 with the conjunction of Kliwon and Saniscara, a day to give offerings and prayers to domestic animals like pigs and cows. The 35 possible conjunctions between the days of the Pancawara and the Saptawara are also used to determine the astrological “star signs” of people born on those days.

The Pawukon is further divided into 35-day months representing a full cycle of five (x7) and seven (x5) -day weeks. Six of these make up a full Pawukon year, the end of which, while not celebrated for its own sake, is usually marked by important temple anniversaries (odalan). But because 210 is not evenly divisible by four, eight, or nine, the Caturwara, Asatawara, and Sangawara respectively, require the addition or repetition of extra days according to exact prescriptions. Furthermore, just to complicate matters, the one (Ekawara), two (Dwiwara) and ten-day (Dasawara) cycles, despite their apparently unproblematic numerical relationship with 210, are also subject to mathematical intervention to decide the order of their days. Each day of the Pancawara, Saptawara, and Dasawara has a number value or urip. They are as follows:

5, 2, 8, 6, 4, 7, 10, 3, 9, 1
5, 4, 3, 7, 8, 6, 9
9, 7, 4, 8, 5

To calculate which day it is in the one, ten and ten-day weeks you simply add the urip of the days occurring in the five and seven day weeks, then add one, then, if the sum is greater than ten, deduct ten. If the resulting number is even, then it is Pepet in the two-day week, and Luang in the one-day week; if the number is odd then it is Menga in the two-day week and not a day at all in the one-day week. To calculate the day of the ten-day week, the resulting number is matched against the urip of the ten-day week. This month for example, January 29, the day of the full-moon, is Paing Sukra, that is, the first day of the Pancawara whose urip is nine and the sixth day of the Saptawara, the urip of which is six, giving us the following equation:

(9 + 6 + 1) – 10 = 6

Therefore, January 29, as well as being a Friday, is Luang Pepet Pasah Jaya Paing Tungleh Sukra Guru Erangan Eraja in the wuku of Ugu and the lunar month of Kaulu and tonight you can settle back and enjoy that full moon!