Early Calendars
In ancient astronomical science, geographical or political divisions did not figure. It was a single system. Nothing was 'foreign'. Mathematicians/astronomers from Greece and Alexandria were prominent. Followed by those from Sumeria, Babylon, Egypt and China. Zero came from India with Sumerians also working on it.

It is clear that astronomy, better known by its applied form astrology, was practised in India well before the Vedic period - 8 millennia before Christ. Proof comes from the birth charts and even horoscopes of Lord Ram, King Ravan, his son Inder-Jith, Lord Krishna and other epic figures. It is said a splintered part of Saturn, falling in a wrong zodiac sign, made Inder-Jith vincible. The world history would otherwise have been different.

But calendars (or almanacs) in a compiled form were seen in India only around 1000 BC. They were featured in two treatises, Taitriya Samhita and Atharva Veda, one of the four Vedas. A solar year had 360 days and months only 27/28 days. The inevitable gaps were made good by having one leap month every five years.

Time was measured in terms of moon's passage across the territory of 27 stars - the zodiac. To make the idea simple, moon was described as the royal consort of all the 27 stars, spending one day with each of them every month. The stars were given feminine names. 

But the reckoning of time was complicated, though a scientifically precise, process. The lunar day was the basic unit - that is the day the moon is lodged in the area of a particular star. The day is divided into units, ranging from 0.4 second to 24 to 48 minutes. Identification of the lunar day needed an understanding of the exact time of the sun-rise each day. Among the five components that make the almanac, dates are not mentioned. 

Again the fortnight (based on the waxing or waning phase of the moon) was in use, not the week. The adoption of the seven-day week at a later stage was under western influence. 

To measure the year. Sun of course was the basic factor. But the orbital revolution of the planet Jupiter was also in use. Jupiter takes 12 years to grace the stars in its orbit which the sun does in a year. Jupiter is therefore a 12 - year cycle. A standard solar year makes one month of the Jupiter cycle.

In China, the earliest calendar dates back to 14th century BC. The Shang oracle bone inscriptions speak of a solar year. There was also an extra month of 29/30 days, called the 13th month for the customary adjustment of the fraction. 

In eighth century BC, the Chinese used a metonic cycle of 19 years with a total of 235 months. By the third century BC, the practice of having extra months was falling in disfavour. 

A meteorological cycle was eventually put in place containing 24 points. Experts now point out that the conception of this cycle reflected a deep astronomical understanding. And also elaborate equipment for data collection. It takes about 15.2 days for the sun to cover a point. The experts consider the pre-Sung Chinese astronomy as superior to that in other nations until at least the 13th century AD.

The ancient Babylonians had a lunisolar calendar of 12 lunar months of 30 days each with extra months. Egyptians were the first to replace the lunar calendar with the solar year of 365 days divided into 12 months of 30 days each. Five extra days were there at the end. About 238 BC, King Ptolemy III ordered an extra day to every fourth year same as the modern leap year. In ancient Greece, the lunisolar year had 354 days. The Greeks were ahead of others to add extra months at specific intervals in a cycle of solar years. 

The original Roman calendar (7th century BC) had 10 months with 304 days in a year that began with March. Two more months, January and February, were added later. As the months were only 29 or 30 days long, an extra month was put in place every second year. The days of the month were designated by the awkward method of counting backwards. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar ordered in a purely solar calendar, the Julian calendar, which fixed the normal year at 365 days and the leap year every fourth year at 366 days. It also set the order of the months and the days of the week as seen in present-day calendars. In 44 BC he renamed Quintilis to Julius (July) after himself.

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Measuring Time
No electronic time-pieces were there. Nor computers. But astronomers were measuring time with extra-ordinary precision. The Gregorian calendar so calculated shows a difference of a mere 26 seconds as compared with its solar successor.

The method was crude. But the product indescribably perfect. It subdivides the standard second into atomic fractions. The basic unit (called 'thruti' in Sanskrit) is one 33750th of a second. It is equal to the time a needle (was it a thorn?) takes to pierce a lotus leaf out of a set of 100 such leaves.

At the other end of the scale, the astronomers were quite at home with numerals comprising 51 digits- a trillion is made up of only 13 digits.

The age of the earth as well as of the universe was also calculated by the ancient astronomers. As for the earth the gap is only 500 years compared with the latest findings.

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Religious Calendars
There are religious calendars. The official Christian church calendar was a table of holy days, saints' days and festivals of the church. The most important early church calendar was compiled by Furius Dionisius Philocalus about 354. After the Reformation, the German Lutheran church retained the Roman calendar, as did the church of England and some other Anglican churches. The calendar of the Protestant Episcopal church retains festivals with a scriptural origin.

The Jewish calendar was derived from the ancient Hebrew calendar around AD 900, It is Israel's official calendar. The Hebrew chronology began in 3761 BC, the date when the world according to the Old Testament came into being. The Jewish calendar is lunisoiar, based on lunar months alternately of 29 and 30 days. An extra month is inserted every 3 years, based on a cycle of 19 years. 

Another major religious calendar is the Islamic calendar. It is reckoned from AD 622 the day after the Hegira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. The Islamic year consists of 12 lunar months. Also a cycle of 30 years including 11 leap years.

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Not By Calendar Alone
Journalists working at the fag-end of this millennium would have been luckier if they were there in Vatican while Pope Gregory XIII was on the throne. With all their newspapers. And the electronic media in attendance.

For the 16th century Pontiff was more than a mere calendar-reformer and educationist. The head of the Catholic Church during a turbulent period. A defender of faith, he would have yielded a good copy often.

Born Ugo Boncompagni in 1502, Pope Gregory studied at the University of Bologna, where he later taught jurisprudence.

Pope Gregory is known for his zeal for setting up seminaries and colleges. He founded a University, which was named after him. Also a building enthusiast, who among other structures, built the Quirinal Palace in Rome.

Calendar reforms and construction spree apart, Pope Gregory took his job as the patriarch of the Holy See seriously. He had to because even before he came on the throne, Protestant flags were flying in several parts of Europe. And he considered it is his duty to retrieve the territory lost to the break-away church.

For that he played politics, to use modern expression. He drew fire even then for backing Irish rebels against the anti-Catholic actions of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

The way he received the news of the massacre of St.Bartholomew's Day also provoked criticism. The slaughter of French protestants, called Huguenots, began in Paris in August1572.The year he became Pope.

Like wildfire it engulfed the whole of France. The Pope celebrated the pogrom with a 'Te Deum' (hymn of praise to God) at Rome.

The journalists covering him would have been thrilled by the juicier stuff how the Pope's political excursions and building programme drained the papal treasury. That left many a country in Europe, looking upto Rome for succour, high and dry.

He took the campaign for counter-reformation to its logical end. It was during his time that the diplomatic representation of papacy by nuncios started. The nuncios were handling both religion and political matters.

Despite all his efforts, counter-reformation failed to win back England or Scotland. Russia and Scandinavia stayed out of lie papal orbit. So also the bulk of Protestant Germany and Switzerland. Impact was nil on the northern Netherlands. Even counter-reformation soveriegns remained as recalcitrant as ever. Pope Gregory died in 1585.

I am dedicating this article to my father Late N Kesavapanicker, whom I heard mentioning the name of Pope Gregory XIII and about his calendar for the first time when I was a child

Sarat Chandran Nair

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