Happy New Year to Followers of Nepal Sambat

By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

On November 10, 2007, on the first day of the bright fortnight, Nepalis particularly the Newars celebrated the New Year 1128 following the Nepal Sambat (Nepal calendar). This calendar is also known as the Nepal Era. This is one of the calendars introduced by a commoner called Shankhadhar Shakhwa rather than a royalty. The Government of Nepal has recognized Shankhadhar Shakhwa as the National Hero.

History scholars have already found the facts that a commoner called Shankhadhar Shakhwa introduced a new calendar called Nepal Era paying the debts of all citizens of that time. An introduction of a new calendar was possible only by making all citizens free from debts at that time. So, Shakhwa paid off the debts of all citizens. He must have amassed a huge wealth, which he did not like to disclose it publicly for some reasons. So, he developed a legend that tells how he got so much of money to pay off the debts of all citizens.

The legend goes like this. The king of Bhaktapur City-state sent a number of porters each to collect a load of sand from the Vishnumati River at the early hours of the day following the advice of the royal astrologer, who had found that the sands collected from the Vishnumati River at that particular time should convert into gold due to the favorable positions of different planets in the sky.

While taking a usual dip in the holy water of the Vishnumati River, Shankhadhar Shakhwa heard a noise coming from a number of people busy in doing something nearby. So, he approached the people doing a strange thing in early hours of morning even in darkness, and asked them what they had been doing. The innocent porters replied even not looking at him, “Collecting sands.” Shankhadhar Shakhwa further asked, “Why are you collecting the sands.” The porters replied, “We don’t know why but we have to collect as much sands as we could and take them to the king.”

Sensing that the king must have sent the porters to collect sands from the river at this particular time with some purposes, Shankhadhar Shakhwa said to the porters that he would pay the wages to the porters the king would paid for taking the sands to Bhaktapur if they would dump the sands in his basement. For doubling their earnings, the porters happily took the sands to his house and dumped there, and then collected fresh sands and walked to Bhaktapur.

Next morning, Shankhadhar Shakhwa found that all sands became gold. So, he used the gold to pay off the debts of all citizens to introduce a new era, which he did not name by his own name but name by the country’s name.

According to the historians, Shankhadhar Shakhwa introduced the New Era (calendar) during the reign of king Raghabdev at the year-end of the Mandev Sambat 304 (881 AD).  King Mandev introduced the calendar by his own name and called it Mandev Sambat. Before King Mandev introduced his new calendar, the Shakay Sambat had been in use in Nepal for about 500 years.

King Prithivi Narayan Shah unified small principalities and city-states into a larger Nepal in 1769. He continued the Nepal Sambat. Later on, his successor followed the Nepal Sambat until Jang Bahadur became the Prime Minister and received the so-called title of the king of Lamjung and Kaski.

According to Professor Manik Lal Shrestha, Prime Minister Jang Bahadur upgraded him and his clan from the caste called Chhetri to Kunwar and then to Rana elevating to the level of the Rajput Ranas of Rajasthan, India. Then, he borrowed the Vikram calendar from them and introduced it in Nepal to link him and his clan with the Rajput of Rajasthan. However, he did not stop Nepalis using the Nepal Sambat. Then, Prime Minister Chandra Shamsher Rana stopped using Nepal Sambat for official use making the Vikram Sambat only the official calendar of Nepal.

According to Professor Manik Lal Shrestha, some Nepalis have erroneously think that the Nepal Sambat is of the Newars only but it is not but of all Nepalis as all Nepalis had used it in the past. However, Newars have protected it from extinction. Even now, all Nepalis follow the Nepal Sambat for celebrating religious festivals and cultural events.

Professor Manik Lal Shrestha opined that using the Nepal Sambat as the official calendar would not be practicable in the current globalization period as it is the lunar calendar and would complicate in the national and international businesses. So, he suggested using the Gregorian calendar (Christian Calendar) for the official purpose and the Nepal Sambat for religious and social events, as India and China have been using the Gregorian calendar for official purposes and the national calendar for the social and cultural events, so far.

Participating in the celebration of the New Year 1128 on November 10, 2007, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala declared that he would put the Nepal Era in his official letter-pads from the day onward. Prime Minister Koirala also said that the Nepal Sambat was the calendar of the Nepalese land and should be the vehicle for the social unity.

Similarly, General Secretary of the Nepal Communist Party-Unified Marxist and Leninist (CPN-UML), Madhav Kumar Nepal also told that his official letter pads also would carry the Nepal Sambat from now on.