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Tibetan Calendar dating system is based on a cycle of 60 Tibetan years, each of which usually has 354 days. History of Tibetan calendar, dates back to the 7th century, when Princess Wen Cheng brought Tang's calendar to Tibet, later Princess Jin Cheng embraced the same calendar. After the down fall of the Tibetan dynasty, Tibet became chaotic, and the disseminations of the Han calendars stopped, the Tibetans were thus left without a scientific calendar until 11th century. The first month of a year was fixed by the position of the third `zhong-qi' counted from the winter solstice as in the Han calendar. The Tibetan calendar is Solar-Lunar calendar.
Significance of Tibetan calendar stems from the fact that these calendars were particularly used for providing a working seasonal schedule for farmers, affiliating the enlightening date of Buddha and more importantly calculating the moon and sun eclipses. The proper way to add the leap month was arranged during the reign of Tang dynasty in the Han calendars, and thus the Tibetan calendars followed them. At the beginning, the Tibetan adopted the Indian way of naming the month according to the position of the full moon. Later, the Tibetan moved to the Han customs of naming each month numerically by beginning the month with the new moon.
Tibetan religious calendar usually forecast the coming year's general climate, along with droughts, blizzards and earthquakes. Due to the differences in setting the lengths of the months, the new year day in the Tibetan and the Han calendars are identical. Important dates in the Tibetan calendar include ‘Monlam’, the Great Prayer Festival, ‘Chunga Choepa’, ‘Saka Dawa’ festival and ‘Shoton festival’. Thus, the Tibetan calendar provides a vivid glimpse of the Tibetan culture.
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