What New Year is all about and what is the big fuss anyway. Well for one, the New Year brings something we have every year, and also it’s just another day just like the 31st December.
So why is it a big thing to us, psychologically and logically? What New Year is all about?
These questions started swirling in my head in the boring classes, as soon as I got home; I went and hired my free detective Google to find out stuff about the New Year and how come we know about it and all.
Here’s what I found out:
Traditionally, the Roman calendar began the first day of March. However, it was in January (the eleventh month) when the consuls of ancient Rome assumed the government. Julius Caesar, in 47 BC, changed the system, creating the Julian calendar. It was modified in the time of Mark Antony consul in 44 BC, again by the emperor Augustus Caesar in 8 BC and finally by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which brought the calendar to its present day form. This year begins on January 1. Subsequently, this day was marked with a religious significance during the Middle Ages and later centuries.
With the expansion of Western culture to the rest of the world during the twentieth century, the January 1 date became universal in nature, even in countries with their own New Year celebrations (e.g., China and India).
At present, the celebration of New Year is a major celebration worldwide. Many large-scale events are held in major cities around the world New Year's Eve (December 31), being accompanied by the largest fireworks events.
Sydney launched over 80,000 fireworks at midnight, and had more than one and a half million attendees; it was also the most-watched event on television worldwide last year. InValparaiso upwards of two million visitors witnessed the largest fireworks in a natural setting; a total of more than 21 kilometers of fireworks on the bay, from the commercial port city of Valparaiso to Concon, Chile, all in 25 minutes of entertainment. In New York, the celebration is focused around a large crystal ball that descends in a ten second countdown in Times Square; 2008 was the party with the largest number of attendees - more than three million people. Edinburgh plays host to one of the world's largest Hogmanay events. Celebrations last for four days and attract visitors from around the globe to take part in the street parties, and attend concerts.
According to the Christian tradition, on January 1 coincides with the circumcision of Christ (eight days after birth), when the name of Jesus was bestowed. (Luke (II: 21)).
The Tamil Nadu Tamil New Year (Declaration Bill 2008) was introduced in the House by the Tamil Nadu DMK Government on January 29, 2008. According to the statement of objects and reasons of the Tamil Nadu Tamil New Year (Declaration) Act 2008, the Governor in his address to the House had announced that in view of the consensus amongst some Tamil scholars that the first day of the month of Thai is the first day of the Tamil year, the Government had decided to declare the first day of Thai as the Tamil Nadu Tamil New Year Day. This legislative enactment of the DMK government was not without controversy. It abolished the Tamil calendar for purportedly secular reasons and reaffirmed the use of the Tiruvalluvar era created in the 20th century as the official calendar. The order abolishes the use of traditional Tamil Years in the 60 year cycle. It proposes that January 14 of every year be celebrated as Tamil New Year in addition to the famous harvest/farmer festival Pongal. But the said resolution has been met with resistance. and has been challenged in court. The opposition AIADMK and MDMK in Tamil Nadu condemned the decision of the DMK Government in that state and urged their supporters to continue celebrating the traditional date in mid-April. Tamils in Sri Lanka and in other Diaspora communities worldwide continue to observe the New Year in mid-April as they are outside of the jurisdiction of the Tamil Nadu State of India.
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The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter gravissimas. The reformed calendar was adopted later that year by a handful of countries, with other countries adopting it over the following centuries.
The Gregorian calendar reform contained two parts, a reform of the Julian calendar as used up to Pope Gregory's time, together with a reform of the lunar cycle used by the Church along with the Julian calendar for calculating dates of Easter. The reform was a modification of a proposal made by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio). Lilius' proposal included reducing the number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97, by making 3 out of 4 centurial years common instead of leap years: this part of the proposal had been suggested before, e.g. by Pietro Pitati. Lilio also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the moon for completing the calculation of Easter dates, solving a longstanding difficulty that had faced proposers of calendar reform.
Gregory's bull does not ordain any particular year-numbering system, but uses the Anno Domini system which counts years from the traditional Incarnation of Jesus, and which had spread throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. That is the same year-numbering system that is the de facto international standard today.
The Gregorian calendar modifies the Julian calendar's regular cycle of leap years, years exactly divisible by four, including all centurial years, as follows:
Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 is not a leap year; the year 2000 is a leap year.
The Julian calendar, a reform of the Roman calendar, was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and came into force in 45 BC (709 ab urbe condita). It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year, known at least since Hipparchus. It has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years. Hence the Julian year is on average 365.25 days long.
The Julian calendar remained in use into the 20th century in some countries as a national calendar, but it has generally been replaced by the modern Gregorian calendar. It is still used by the Berber people of North Africa, on Mount Athos, and by many national Orthodox churches. Orthodox Churches no longer using the Julian calendar typically use the Revised Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar.
The notation "Old Style" (OS) is sometimes used to indicate a date in the Julian calendar, as opposed to "New Style" (NS), which either represents the Julian date with the start of the year as 1 January or a full mapping onto the Gregorian calendar. This notation is used in reference to dates from tsarist Russia (the country did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1918).
So we can conclude that a certain man is responsible, one Pope Gregory XIII, and it’s all in fact a religious decision. During The 14th century, the year calendar has been reformed by this pope; he defied the ideas put forth by the Roman emperors and followed by the Romans and most part of the communicable Europe and Asia J
The idea has been immediately accepted and brought into all the on-goings of the country and then it was spread to all the nations with which it shared knowledge and wealth by trade. Thus the Gregorian calendar came to be the world’s common calendar for all official and religious matters of reference. However there are many other localised and regional calendars which are still being followed by the locals. (E.g. The Chinese calendar, The Tamil calendar, The Islam calendar, etc.)
The New Year has now been declared and we’ll now see why we celebrate it. The reasons are very obvious and don’t need mentioning. However The basic idea of receiving or recurring cycles are of great interest to the human minds, the passing of a year and the beginning of a new one is just as interesting as any festival which recurs every year. If this is the case there are many other recurring events just as significant as the New Year, why aren’t we celebrating them? Forget celebrations, we don’t even acknowledge them, the Full moon, the new moon, first of every month, February 29th ( which occurs even rarely than the new year, once every four years), and many other cyclic events. Why is the New Year more important and better celebrated?
The answer lies in the history, or more importantly the customs of our ancestors, we all know that Christ was not born during December (it was calculated somewhere in march), but we celebrate Christmas on dec 25th, why? It is because it has been celebrated that way for more than a millennium and half. The same particular reason and logic can be applied to the New Year celebrations too. Did you know that the 8th day after the birth of a child, the male child should be circumcised and baptised with a name in Jewish customs? And Jesus being a Jew had undergone the same thing and the 8th day after his birth happens to be the New Year. Long before the New Year had been celebrated just as a auspicious 8th day. After that, being non Jews, we don’t emphasize or advice circumcision, it was not appropriate to celebrate it anymore, but why spoil the people’s festive moods, so slowly it had become the New Year festival and was considered as such by the younger generations.
But the festivals as such are great assets for the continuation of the human brain function. Imagine a world with no celebrations, no get-togethers, no Christmas carols, no Santa Claus, no presents, no greeting cards, no time for the snow man and definitely no stay home and have fun days at all. Family will be a distant image for most and the concept of children will be a book only matter and the world war will start for spilling coffee on your colleague’s shirt (At least then we’ll have war-time holidays)
Hence great people who had the insight of human mentality never compromised festivals for virtues and concepts, call it by a different name, but we gotta celebrate what so ever.
We know that there can be a time and place where the festivals are remembered rather than celebrated, by then we’d have hopefully gone on and diedJ So now all of us have something in common, a new year, a year full of amazing possibilities and opportunities, a chance once more for makin’ it to the top and hopefully we won’t miss them as we did last year;).
Go out there have fun, have success and most of all keep the spirit of the festival up and runnin’ all over the year.:)
New Year wishes and Regards,
Alan.
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