The Porhalaan is the traditional calendar of the Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The Batak Calendar is a lunisolar calendar consisting of 12 months divided to 30 days with an occasional leap month. The Batak calendar is derived from Hindu calendar. The Batak people do not use the porhalaan as a mean to tell time, but rather to determine auspicious day, which is only used by the Batak shaman.
The name porhalaan came from the word hala, which is derived from Sanskrit kala, "scorpion", as the practice put observation of constellations into account. [1] The porhalaan is used by the Batak people for divination. Batak people did not use the porhalaan for telling time. The responsibility of interpreting the porhalaan fell solely to the chief male ritualist known as the datu. The datu would read the porhalaan to determine which day is considered auspicious or inauspicious to hold a certain ritual. [2]
In order to minimize the risk of accidentally selecting an unfavorable day due to errors in calendar management, days are often chosen based on whether the day is able to promise happiness in two months time, probably the current month and the following one. There is often an extra 13th month in the calendar that serves this purpose, originally a Hindu leap year, but in the Batak context, it is used for a different reason. If the additional 13th month is not available, then the first month is simply used again for protection. Whether the 13th month is used to compensate for the difference to the solar year is not proven in the context of Batak society. [3]
The Porhalaan is usually written as a table of square boxes of 30 columns (days) of 12 or 13 rows (months) as recorded in the pustaha, the Batak magic book. Sometimes the porhalaan is written on a cylindrical piece of bamboo. [3]
The Porhalaan is the clearest example of the Batakization of Hindu culture. The original Hindu Calendar was borrowed, modified and reworked according to Batak empirical and pragmatic principles. The result is a simplification of the original calendar. All that remains of a complicated system of adjusting lunar months to the solar Zodiac is a divination calendar which is not used for the purpose of telling times. [4]
There is no designation of year in Batak Calendar. New Year begins on the New Moon in May, when the constellation Orion (siala sungsang) vanishes in the west and the constellation Scorpius (siala poriama) rises in the east. [3]
Porhalaan is divided into 12 months, each contains 30 days. Each month was named by its number, the first month is called simply "first month" or bulan si pahasada, second month is bulan si pahadua, etc. The eleventh month is called bulan li, while the twelfth month is named bulan hurung. The first day of each month (bona ni bulan) fell directly one day after the New Moon. The Full Moon usually fell on the 14th or 15th day. [3]
Porhalaan do not use the term for "week", but each month is divided into four each containing seven days. The name of each of the seven days was borrowed from the Sanskrit name. The first day is called Aditya ("sun"), the second Soma ("moon"), Anggara (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brihaspati (Jupiter), Syukra (Venus), and Syanaiscara (Saturn). In the porhalaan way of naming days, the name of the day in the context of '30 days of a month' is maintained. For example, the third day in a month which fell on Tuesday is known Nggara telu uari. sixth day is Cukera enem berngi, ninth is Suma na siwah, tenth is Nggara sepuluh, and so on. The 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day is named after the moon phase, that is bělah (first quarter waxing moon), bělah purnama (full moon), bělah turun (third quarter waning moon), dan mate bulan (dead moon). The word pultak ("increasing") is added to the bright fortnight days of the porhalaan when the moon phase grows, while the word cěpik ("decreasing") is added to the dark fortnight days of the porhalaan when the moon phase decreases; [5] this is obviously influenced by the Hindu shukla pasha and krishna paksha.
The Hindu calendar, also called Panchanga, is one of various lunisolar calendars that are traditionally used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, with further regional variations for social and Hindu religious purposes. They adopt a similar underlying concept for timekeeping based on sidereal year for solar cycle and adjustment of lunar cycles in every three years, but differ in their relative emphasis to moon cycle or the sun cycle and the names of months and when they consider the New Year to start. Of the various regional calendars, the most studied and known Hindu calendars are the Shalivahana Shaka found in the Deccan region of Southern India and the Vikram Samvat (Bikrami) found in Nepal and the North and Central regions of India – both of which emphasize the lunar cycle. Their new year starts in spring. In regions such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the solar cycle is emphasized and this is called the Tamil calendar and Malayalam calendar and these have origins in the second half of the 1st millennium CE. A Hindu calendar is sometimes referred to as Panchangam (पञ्चाङ्गम्), which is also known as Panjika in Eastern India.
The Batak script is a writing system used to write the Austronesian Batak languages spoken by several million people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The script may be derived from the Kawi and Pallava script, ultimately derived from the Brahmi script of India, or from the hypothetical Proto-Sumatran script influenced by Pallava.
A panchāngam is a Hindu calendar and almanac, which follows traditional units of Hindu timekeeping, and presents important dates and their calculations in a tabulated form. It is sometimes spelled Panchāngamu, Pancanga, Panchanga, Panchaanga, or Panchānga, and is often pronounced Panchāng. Panchangas are used in Jyotisha.
Ashadha or Aashaadha or Adi is a month of the Hindu calendar that corresponds to June/July in the Gregorian calendar. In India's national civil calendar, this month is the fourth month of the year, beginning on 22 June and ending on 22 July. In Hindu astrology, Ashada begins with the Sun's entry into Gemini. It is the first of the two months that comprise the monsoon season.
Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Toba, Angkola, and Mandailing, related ethnic groups with distinct languages and traditional customs (adat).
Nakshatra is the term for lunar mansion in Hindu astrology. A nakshatra is one of 27 sectors along the ecliptic. Their names are related to a prominent star or asterisms in or near the respective sectors. In essence, a nakshatra simply is a constellation. Every nakshatra is divided into four padas related to the Char Dham, a set of four pilgrimage sites in India.
Vikram Samvat, also known as the Vikrami calendar is a Hindu calendar historically used in the Indian subcontinent and still used in several states. It is a solar calendar, using twelve to thirteen lunar months each solar sidereal years. The year count of the Vikram Samvat calendar is usually 57 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar, except during January to April, when it is ahead by 56 years.
Amāvásyā is the lunar phase of the new moon in Sanskrit. Indian calendars use 30 lunar phases, called tithi in India. The dark moon tithi is when the Moon is within 12 degrees of the angular distance between the Sun and Moon before conjunction (syzygy). The New Moon tithi is the 12 angular degrees after syzygy. Amāvásyā is often translated as new moon since there is no standard term for the Moon before conjunction in English.
A unit of time is any particular time interval, used as a standard way of measuring or expressing duration. The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), and by extension most of the Western world, is the second, defined as about 9 billion oscillations of the caesium atom. The exact modern SI definition is "[The second] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the cesium frequency, ΔνCs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the cesium 133 atom, to be 9 192 631 770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s−1."
Chaturthi refers to the fourth day of a lunar fortnight in the Hindu calendar.
Kārtika is the eighth month of the Hindu calendar, which falls in October and November of the Gregorian calendar. In India's national civil calendar, Kartika is the seventh month of the year, beginning on 23 October and ending on 21 November.
Paksha (Sanskrit: पक्ष, romanized: pakṣa) refers to a fortnight or a lunar phase in a month of the Hindu lunar calendar.
Pradosha or Pradosham is a bimonthly occasion on the thirteenth day of every fortnight in the Hindu calendar. It is closely connected with the worship of the Hindu god Shiva. The auspicious three-hour period 1.5 hours before and after sunset is considered as the most suited and optimal time for worship of Shiva on this day. The fasting vow performed during the period is called "Pradosha vrata". A devotee should wear rudraksha, Vibhuti and worship Shiva by abhisheka, sandal paste, bael leaves, fragrance, deepa and naivedya.
Sankashti Chaturthi, also known as Sankatahara Chaturthi and Sankashti, is a holy day in every lunar month of the Hindu calendar dedicated to the Hindu god Ganesha. This day falls on the fourth day of the Krishna Paksha. If this Chaturthi falls on a Tuesday, it is called Angaraki Sankashti Chaturthi, Angaraki Chaturthi, Angaraki and Angarika. Angaraki Sankashti Chaturthi is considered highly sacred.
Auspicious wedding dates refer to auspicious, or lucky, times to get married, and is a common belief among many cultures.
Prathama or Pratipada is the Sanskrit word for "first", and is the first day in the lunar fortnight (Paksha) of the Hindu calendar. Each month has two Prathama days, being the first day of the "bright" (Shukla) and of the "dark" (Krishna) fortnights respectively. Prathama occurs on the first and the sixteenth day of each month.
Boraspati ni Tano or Boraspati, also known as Ilik, is the earth deity in Batak mythology. Boraspati ni Tano is represented as a tokay gecko. Images of Boraspati can be found decorating the door of a Batak Karo and Batak Toba buildings as well as other Batak objects e.g. the cover of the pustaha or the pupuk container naga morsarang.
Pustaha is the magic book of the Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The book contains magical formulas, divinations, recipes, and laws. The pustaha is written and compiled by a Batak magician-priest (datu).
The naga morsarang, also known as sahan, is a container which is used to store medicine in the culture of Toba Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The naga morsarang is created out of the horn of the water buffalo.
Pupuk is the name given to a magical substance which was used by the Batak shamans of North Sumatra. The pupuk is the main feature to perform black magic, e.g. to inflict damage to enemies. Method of creating the pupuk is inscribed in the pustaha, the magic book of the Toba people, among which involved the kidnapping and murder of a child from neighboring village.