Hindu new years day

[VANITHA.KRISHNAMURTHY]

   About Hindu Calendar
   Do we not have generally two systems of calenaers?
   The solar (saura masya) based and the lunara(chandrayana)
   The solar based calendar must have been the older system-
   for it has reached extremes of the land and stayed there.
   The lunar calender is very much in peninsular parts except
   the Tamil country.However, even where the saura masya system is
   the prevalent system,we fall back to lunar calender for all
   the festivals as well as for ritual functions as these are all
   tithi based whether for hindus,jains or sikhs.
   My point of enquiry here is about the new year's day-the solar
   new year's day falls on 14th april as per gregorian calendar.
   This new year's day should actually be the summer  equinox day ie.
   when the sun traverses the equator which is on March 22 as per
   gregorian calendar.However  the pundits tell us that this new year
   day refers to the day on which the sun enters the Mesha rasi.
   This  however does not gel with the notion that april 14th
   is also the Uttarayana day which actually means summer equinox.
   This anomaly  is attributed to the errors which have crept into the
   system on account of the length of the solar year adopted centuries
   back and consequential cumulative error. This error overthe past
   1400 trs or so has accumalated to 22 days which is the difference
   between  astronomical summer equinox and hindu  solar new year.
   Yeras back the govt. set up a calender reforms commision.
   Though the commision was aware of the anomaly they glossed over the
   same and blandly adopted Mar 22 as the official new yrs day of
   the SAKA era . It would have been momentous had they roped in
   the clergy also and ensured adoption of Mar22 as new yrs day of
   the reformed hindu calendar. weare well aware  such anomalies were
   sorted out even in christendom by adoption of reformed gregorian
   calendar in 16th century inspite of otherwise obscruntist approach
   ofthe church towards all other scientific matters. we however misssed
   the bus.
   List  netters may have more information and comments on this .
  Krish.