Adhik Mas

The Maker of Skies

This universe is the creation of Paramatma (the Supreme Being). Bhagwan made the skies, and humans made the globe. Bhagwan created the world, and humans drew the countries. Upon the creation fashioned by the Lord, humans imposed continents, nations, provinces, borders, and lines of control. How strange that we have forgotten to cherish the boundless, yet have become so adept at guarding our boundaries!

Slicing the Infinite

In the same way, it was humans who carved infinite, eternal time into fragments. Kaal (time) is an endless, flowing stream. Humans divided it into years, months, days, hours, and seconds — or into varshas, masas, prahars, ghadis, pals, and vipals. To behold the divine form of Kaal Devata (the deity of Time) and to make sense of their own existence, humans searched and discovered the Trikal — past, present, and future. To understand and shape the present in the context of past and future, humans imprisoned Kaal in a calendar!

Humans have always been more enthusiastic about recording history than making it. And so calendars were born, giving historical writing a concrete form. Across different eras, religions, and nations, countless calendars have arisen to count, measure, and bind time. The Shalivahan Shak follows the solar calculation, while the Vikram Samvat follows the lunar one — both are prevalent among Hindus. Christians have the Common Era, Parsis have the Shahenshahi year, Muslims have the Hijri calendar, and Jains count by the Jain Vir Samvat. It is said that after the Mahabharata, the Yudhishthir Samvat was in use. Even today, some Krishna Bhaktas work by the Krishna Samvat. According to each tradition's Dharma and faith, the motion of either the sun or the moon has been accepted as the standard of reckoning.

Why an Extra Month?

Twelve solar months equal 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 47.50 seconds — the time it takes for the earth to complete one orbit around the sun. This is our commonly accepted "year." To adjust for those extra hours, a leap year comes every four years, giving February 29 days instead of 28. And then, because we took a few extra minutes in those six hours, a leap year is skipped every hundred years. When the millennium changed in the year 2000, the Y2K crisis — born entirely from the calendar system — caused great anxiety about whether computers could differentiate two zeros of 1900 from 2000.

Twelve lunar months, based on the moon's orbit around the earth, total 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, and 33.5 seconds.

The difference between these two types of years — solar and lunar — amounts to roughly eleven days. Over time, this gap accumulates, and if left uncorrected, festivals and seasons would slowly drift out of alignment. Just as the Western calendar uses the leap year (and the concept of a Blue Moon), our tradition conceived of the Adhik Maas — the extra month. It is also called Purushottam Maas. An Adhik Maas arrives approximately every 32 months, 16 days, 1 hour, and 46 minutes — in practice, roughly once every three years. And to readjust even this calculation, a Kshaya Maas (an eliminated month) occurs every 141 years. The last Kshaya Maas was in 1985. Muslims follow the lunar calendar but do not adjust for the eleven-day difference, which is why their sacred month of Ramadan arrives eleven or twelve days earlier each year.

Beyond the Calendar

Infinite Kaal itself never increases or diminishes. Humans fill their lives with years but forget to fill their years with life. What truly matters is this: may we, in this human life granted to us by great fortune, come to know the Supreme Being — that imperishable, infinite, all-pervading reality which is the primordial cause of creation, the sustainer and the regulator of all that exists. Beyond the clock, the calendar, and the diary — may we recognize that Mahakaal (the Great Time) which cannot be bound by any of these.

That Supreme Principle is not somewhere far away. It dwells within each of us, forever seated on the throne of our hearts. In every breath we take, the Lila of that Kaal Bhagwan continues to unfold. To understand this, to experience it, and to be so moved by it that we become filled with gratitude toward that Supreme Being — that is what is truly "Adhik" — that is what matters the most of all.