Hi kumar rangan; Re: "The Muslim and Hindu calendars (and maybe others I am not aware of), are based on lunar cycles, and therefore there is no fixed date in any year."
I've seen it claimed that the closer a society is to the equator, or the more their climate is not as deeply seasonal, the more likely they are to use a lunar calendar rather than a solar one. For example, if you get far enough north, each year there is a day when the sun doesn't rise at all, and in a lunar calendar this momentous day would have different dates each year. On the other hand, the moon is an excellent time keeper, and one can conveniently refer to a date in the future as one moon from now with the time obvious to all. So the two traditions are both quite natural.
Also, in the Christians, Easter is kept according to a lunar calendar. The calendar the Chrisitans use is not Christian, it's Roman, I suppose.
-- Carl |
