section_path: Calendar system
section_name: Calendar system
paragraph_text: Calendar system
  
  Like the Hebrew and Chinese calendars, the Vikram Samvat is lunisolar. In common years, the year is 354 days long, while a leap month (adhik maas) is added roughly in accordance to the Metonic cycle, namely, 7 times every 19 years, to ensure that festivals and crop-related rituals fall in the appropriate season. Early Buddhist communities in India adopted the ancient Hindu calendar, followed by the Vikram Samvat and local Buddhist calendars. Buddhist festivals are still scheduled according to a lunar system.
  
  The Vikram Samvat has two systems. It began in 56 BCE in the southern Hindu calendar system (amaanta) and 57–56 BCE in the northern system (purnimaanta). The Shukla Paksha, when most festivals occur, coincides in both systems. The lunisolar Vikram Samvat calendar is 56.7 years ahead of the solar Gregorian calendar; the year 2082 VS begins mid-April 2025 CE, and ends mid-April 2026 CE.
  
  The Rana dynasty of Nepal made the Vikram Samvat the official Hindu calendar in 1901 CE, which began as 1958 VS. The new year in Nepal begins with the first day of the month of Baisakh, which usually falls around 13–15 April in the Gregorian calendar and ends with the last day of the month Chaitra. The first day of the new year is a public holiday in Nepal. Bisket Jatra, an annual carnival in Bhaktapur, is also celebrated on Baishakh 1. In 2007, Nepal Sambat was also recognised as a national calendar alongside Vikram Samvat.
  
  In India, the reformulated Saka calendar is officially used (except for computing dates of the traditional festivals). In the Hindi version of the preamble of the constitution of India, the date of its adoption (26 November 1949) is presented in Vikram Samvat as Margsheersh Shukla Saptami Samvat 2006. A call has been made for the Vikram Samvat to replace the Saka calendar as India's official calendar.