--- Ong Yong Peng <ypong001@...> skrev: > Dear
Gunnar and friends,

>
> this is a valuable exchange of cultural practise. In
> chinese
> communities, ordinary calendars usually have the
> lunar dates printed
> side by side. In Singapore, we even have the Arabic
> (for Muslims) and
> the Indian dates printed all together! So, there
> isn't really a need
> to check out what the astronomers say. But, you do
> have a point
> there. Since, it is a lunar calendar, it should
> follow correct moon
> phases. However, is it possible that the Chinese
> lunar calendar is
> based on the position of the moon observed from
> Beijing, while the
> astronomers' one is based on the position of the
> moon observed at the
> Greenwich, and that explains the difference of a
> day. If that is so,
> shouldn't we base our observations of the moon at
> Nepal or India to
> be technically correct?

When Ceylon became Sri Lanka, they tried to replace
the seven day week with a moon phase week, and the
Sundays as public holidays with the four poya days
each lunar month. It complicated international
contacts a lot (perhaps partly because they didn't
have the same moon phases as in the international
calendars), so the reintroduced the Sundays but kept
the full moon days.

And besides, Sri Lanka is 5 1/2 hours before
Greenwich, and Beijing I think is 8 hours before
Greenwich, so midnight in England is around dawn in
Asia; the two differences should more or less cancel
each other.

I think that, for purely practical reasons, and since
Buddhism is a world religion, not just an Asian one,
it would be most rational for all concerned to follow
the dates calculated by the astronomers.

In the Dhamma, and again: Happy Vesak! (Today,
Tuesday, is marked as the full moon day in my secular
calendar.)

Gunnar



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