Building an Open-Source Nanakshahi Calendar: Identity and a Spiritual and Computational Journey by Arvinder Singh, Amandeep Singh, Amarpreet Singh, Harvinder Singh, Parm Singh

Fall 2020
Abstract
Until the late twentieth century, Sikhs continued to use multiple calendars, mostly the Bikrami
calendar, for determining dates for important Sikh events. The Bikrami calendar is longer than the
tropical year and has issues such as a shifting relationship with seasons. Pal Singh Purewal proposed
the Nanakshahi calendar in 1992. It was adopted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak
Committee (SGPC) in 1998, but has since diverged from the original proposal and its intent. As the
debate about Sikhs observing their community occasions according to the “reformed” Nanakshahi
Calendar or “mool” Nanakshahi calendar continues, the difference is not apparent to many Sikhs.
This paper explores the questions, research, and workings of the original(ਮੂਲ) Nanakshahi calendar.
An open-source programming library was built to encourage the adoption of the Nanakshahi
calendar in software. Further, this paper proposes new terms based on Gurbani and Panjabi language
etymology that were left open in the original Nanakshahi calendar.

Keywords: Nanakshahi calendar, Bikrami calendar, open-source calendar

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Arvinder Singh
Entrepreneur in Residence, The Digital Economist


Amandeep Singh, Amanpreet Singh, Harvinder Singh
Punjabi Open Source Group


Parm Singh
Independent artist, www.parmsingh.ca

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