Teravada calendar
Chönyi
I'm trying to understand the epoch of the Teravada calendar, but it
doesn't seem that simple: on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_era
we can find this paragraph:
B.E. — for the Buddhist Era, introduced by Vajiravudh in 1912, which has
an epoch (origin) of 544 BC. This year is called year 1 in Sri Lanka and
Burma, but year 0 in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Thus the year 2500
B.E. occurred in 1956 in the former countries, but in 1957 in the
latter. In Thailand in 1888 King Chulalongkorn decreed a National Thai
Era, dating from the founding of Bangkok on April 6, 1782. In 1912 New
Year's Day was shifted to April 1. In 1941 Prime Minister
Phibunsongkhram decided to count the years since 543 BC. This is the
Thai solar calendar using the Thai Buddhist Era aligned to the western
solar calendar.
And in Kâlacakra and the Tibetan Calendar p. 151 we can find that Miphan
says that the system placing Parinirvâna in 544BCE was followed by the
highly renowned Indian Kâlacakra experts Abhayâkara and Shâkyashrîbhadra.
It would be interesting for me to take the date of 544BCE as the base
date for a calendar, but it would be also important to be synchronized
with Teravadas... As Teravada epoch seems to be quite complicated and
different in each country, does anyone have a good book to advise me on
the topic or does anyone have precise and reliable informations?
Thank you,
--
Chönyi