section_path: Origins
section_name: Origins
paragraph_text: Origins
  
  Time keeping
  
  The current year minus one, multiplied by twelve, multiplied by two, added to the elapsed half months of current year, increased by two for every sixty in the sun, is the quantity of half-months (Syzygy)).
  
  The Vedic culture developed a sophisticated time keeping methodology and calendars for Vedic rituals, and timekeeping as well as the nature of solar and Moon movements are mentioned in Vedic texts. For example, Kaushitaki Brahmana chapter 19.3 mentions the shift in the relative location of the Sun towards north for 6 months, and south for 6 months.
  
  Time keeping was important to Vedic rituals, and Jyotisha was the Vedic era field of tracking and predicting the movements of astronomical bodies in order to keep time, in order to fix the day and time of these rituals. This study is one of the six ancient Vedangas, or ancillary science connected with the Vedas.
  
  Yukio Ohashi states that this Vedanga field developed from actual astronomical studies in ancient Vedic Period. The texts of Vedic Jyotisha sciences were translated into the Chinese language in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, and the Rigvedic passages on astronomy are found in the works of Zhu Jiangyan and Zhi Qian. According to Subhash Kak, the beginning of the Hindu calendar was much earlier. He cites Greek historians describing Maurya kings referring to a calendar which originated in 6676 BCE known as Saptarsi calendar.
  
  The Vikrami calendar is named after king Vikramaditya and starts in 57 BCE.