Losar and calendar a millennium tradition
Residents in most parts of Tibet embraced the “Water Tiger Losar” on March 3, which is New Year’s Day, or the first day of the first month on the Tibetan calendar. Losar means New Year in the Tibetan language.
For 2022, the date comes about a month after the Chinese Lunar New Year and has been worked out by Tibetan calendar experts based on more than 1,000 years of research, according to Dekyi, a researcher at the Tibet Astrology and Calendar Calculation Research Institute.
Dekyi said the interval between Tibet’s Losar New Year and Chinese Lunar New Year, which is popular across the rest of the country, is not always one month. Losar can be the same day with Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, or one or two days before or after, depending on when the leap month is set on the lunar or Tibetan calendar.
A leap month is equal to an extra month used once in several years to make up the difference between the lunar or Tibetan calendar and the Gregorian calendar.
If the leap month is set in the same year on both the lunar and Tibetan calendars, Losar and Spring Festival might be celebrated on the same day or with a difference of one or two days, according to Dekyi. He added that the one-month difference is caused by the use of leap months in different years.
“There is a leap month once in four years on the lunar calendar, while it is once every two years and eight months on the Tibetan calendar,” Dekyi said.
The researcher added that Losar New Year’s Day, which falls on the first day of the Tibetan calendar’s first month, is set by the Tibetan calendar calculations dating back about 1,200 years.
He noted that there are similarities and differences in naming a year with Zodiac animals on both calendars.
Both calendars make 12 years a small circle, which correspond to 12 zodiac animals. And five small circles make up a large circle, which is called jiazi in China.
“On the lunar calendar, the naming of years repeats every 12 years. As this year is the Year of the Tiger, it will be exactly the same 12 years from now.
“But on the Tibetan calendar, the naming is also combined with the five elements of gold, wood, water, earth and fire.
“While this year is named the Year of the Water Tiger, it will be the Year of the Wood Tiger 12 years from now,” the researcher said.
While Spring Festival and Losar might be celebrated on different days, the period for New Year celebrations can also vary across different regions in Tibet.
In some areas in the southeastern Tibetan city of Nyingchi, people spend their New Year, which they call Gongpo New Year, on the first day of the 10th month on the Tibetan calendar. That falls on a day in November or December.
In Shigatse, residents celebrate their New Year on the first day of the 12th Tibetan calendar month.
Nowadays, Losar is also celebrated in Nyingchi and Shigatse. Spring Festival and the Jan 1 New Year’s Day have also become popular across all of Tibet. So it’s not unusual for Tibetans to celebrate three or four New Year’s Days in a time span of about four months each year.