Today is 12th December, at 12 pm,12th minute and 12 seconds, the date and time will be 12//12/12/12/12/12
Maa Kasam! Sardaron ko kaun sambhalega...??
This is the message that I received on my mobile on 12th December from a fast friend of mine. And I am sure you too had received such text messages on the day.
The brouhaha surrounding the date and time as mentioned ranged across the world from Fiji to Hawaii. In Guwahati also people organised special feast to celebrate the date and time. Besides, many insisted their obstetric surgeons to perform Cesarean section in such a way that the baby is made to be born coinciding the momentous moments.
But a little reflection on the date stirs up our thoughts as to what significance the date(and time)encapsulates and also to the extent of casting serious doubt if at all the date has really taken place.
The celebration of this date and time means the triumph of a model which is Christian and European. The calculation of ab anno Domini is essentially christian. In early Middle Ages years were counted not from the birth of Christ ;but from the presumed creation of the world. In the seventeenth century the protestant Issac de la Peyriere observed that the original sin involved only the descendants of Adam,not other races ,born far earlier. He was declared a heretic. China and India had flourishing civilization before the year 0. Thankfully Plato and Aristotle's births are recorded as 'before Christ'.
After the independence , the government of India constituted a commission under the scientist Meghnad Saha to examine various calendars that were in use among different communities ( Even today the Assamese have a different calendar) and the commission was dumbfounded by the bewildering number calendars that various communities in India were using(and perhaps are using at the moment). A friend from Manipur once told me that there the child's birthday is recorded from day of his or her rice ceremony. A different calendar again!
Now the most pertinent question. Was the day really 12th December?
As we know that 23rd April in 1564 is not the same as 23rd April 2012. By the mid sixteenth century, the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind the solar year and so in 1582 Pope Gregory xiii introduced the Gregorian calendar that we follow today. Many European countries immediately made the changes. Accordingly Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15th October.The anti-papal England rejected the idea and did not catch up till 1752,when 2 September was immediately followed by 14 September. In other words in 1564 in England, the date referred to then as 23 April corresponds to what we would today call 3 May.
This observation ,without doubt. complicates the whole issue of 12/12/12/12/12/12.
Nevertheless a very happy Christmas to you all!
Reference:
On Anniversary by David Crystal( A lecture delivered on the occasion of 425th Anniversary of Cambridge University Press in 2009)
Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco(Vintage,2002)
Argumentative Indians by Amartya Sen( Penguin Books)
Maa Kasam! Sardaron ko kaun sambhalega...??
This is the message that I received on my mobile on 12th December from a fast friend of mine. And I am sure you too had received such text messages on the day.
The brouhaha surrounding the date and time as mentioned ranged across the world from Fiji to Hawaii. In Guwahati also people organised special feast to celebrate the date and time. Besides, many insisted their obstetric surgeons to perform Cesarean section in such a way that the baby is made to be born coinciding the momentous moments.
But a little reflection on the date stirs up our thoughts as to what significance the date(and time)encapsulates and also to the extent of casting serious doubt if at all the date has really taken place.
The celebration of this date and time means the triumph of a model which is Christian and European. The calculation of ab anno Domini is essentially christian. In early Middle Ages years were counted not from the birth of Christ ;but from the presumed creation of the world. In the seventeenth century the protestant Issac de la Peyriere observed that the original sin involved only the descendants of Adam,not other races ,born far earlier. He was declared a heretic. China and India had flourishing civilization before the year 0. Thankfully Plato and Aristotle's births are recorded as 'before Christ'.
After the independence , the government of India constituted a commission under the scientist Meghnad Saha to examine various calendars that were in use among different communities ( Even today the Assamese have a different calendar) and the commission was dumbfounded by the bewildering number calendars that various communities in India were using(and perhaps are using at the moment). A friend from Manipur once told me that there the child's birthday is recorded from day of his or her rice ceremony. A different calendar again!
Now the most pertinent question. Was the day really 12th December?
As we know that 23rd April in 1564 is not the same as 23rd April 2012. By the mid sixteenth century, the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind the solar year and so in 1582 Pope Gregory xiii introduced the Gregorian calendar that we follow today. Many European countries immediately made the changes. Accordingly Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15th October.The anti-papal England rejected the idea and did not catch up till 1752,when 2 September was immediately followed by 14 September. In other words in 1564 in England, the date referred to then as 23 April corresponds to what we would today call 3 May.
This observation ,without doubt. complicates the whole issue of 12/12/12/12/12/12.
Nevertheless a very happy Christmas to you all!
Reference:
On Anniversary by David Crystal( A lecture delivered on the occasion of 425th Anniversary of Cambridge University Press in 2009)
Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco(Vintage,2002)
Argumentative Indians by Amartya Sen( Penguin Books)
