Pohela Boishakh (Bengali: পহেলা বৈশাখ or পয়লা বৈশাখ) is the Bengali New Year celebrated by the Bengali people worldwide and as a holiday on 14 April in Bangladesh and 15 April or 14 April (leap year) in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Jharkhand and Assam (Goalpara and Barak Valley). It is a festival based on the spring harvest—which marks the first day of the new year in the Bengali calendar. Pohela Boishakh celebrations started during the rule of Mughal empire, representing the proclamation of tax collection reforms under Akbar. Its celebration is rooted in the traditions of the Bengali Muslim Mahifarash community of Old Dhaka. Presently, it is largely a secular holiday for most celebrants and enjoyed by people of several different faiths and backgrounds. The festival is celebrated with processions, fairs and family time. The traditional greeting for Bengalis in the new year is শুভ নববর্ষ (Shubho Noboborsho) which is literally "Happy New Year". The festive Mangal Shobhajatra is organised in Bangladesh. In 2016, UNESCO recognised this festivity organised by the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Dhaka, as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
History and origin
Nomenclature In Bengali, the word Pohela (or Pahela Bengali: পহেলা), alternatively Poila (Bengali: পয়লা), means 'first' and Boishakh (or Baishak Bengali: বৈশাখ) is the first month of the Bengali calendar (Bengali: পহেলা বৈশাখ Pohela Boishakh, Pahela Boishakh, Pahale Baishak or Bengali: পয়লা বৈশাখ Poila Boishakh).
Bengali New Year is referred to in Bengali as Nobo Borsho (Bengali: নববর্ষ), where 'Nobo' means new and 'Borsho' means year.
Traditional roots
Mughal origin theory During Mughal rule, land taxes were collected from Bengali people according to the Islamic Hijri calendar. This calendar was a lunar calendar, and its new year did not coincide with the solar agricultural cycles. According to some sources, the festival was a tradition introduced in Bengal during the rule of Mughal Emperor Akbar to time the tax year to the harvest, and the Bangla year was therewith called Bangabda. Akbar asked the royal astronomer Fathullah Shirazi to create a new calendar by combining the lunar Islamic calendar and solar Hindu calendar already in use, and this was known as Fasholi shan (harvest calendar). According to some historians, this started the Bengali calendar. According to Shamsuzzaman Khan, it could be Nawab Murshid Quli Khan, a Mughal governor, who first used the tradition of Punyaho as "a day for ceremonial land tax collection", and used Akbar's fiscal policy to start the Bangla calendar. According to Shamsuzzaman Khan, and Nitish Sengupta, the origin of the Bengali calendar is unclear. According to Shamsuzzaman, it is called Bangla shon or shaal, which are Arabic (سن) and Persian (سال) words respectively, suggests that it was introduced by a Muslim king or sultan." In contrast, according to Sengupta, its traditional name is Bangabda. It is also unclear, whether it was adopted by Alauddin Husain Shah or Akbar. The tradition to use the Bengali calendar may have been started by Husain Shah before Akbar. Regardless of who adopted the Bengali calendar and the new year, states Sengupta, it helped collect land taxes after the spring harvest based on traditional Bengali calendar, because the Islamic Hijri calendar created administrative difficulties in setting the collection date. Some say that the current Bengali Calendar begins from the year of Hijrah, i.e., migration of Prophet Muhammad, the last messenger in Islam, from Makkah to Madinah. The festive celebrations of the Bengali New Year can be traced back to the Bengali Muslim fishmonger community of Mahifarash in Old Dhaka. During the Mughal period, the Mahifarash were known for organising feasts and banquets at their Azimpur grounds to mark the beginning of the cultivation harvest season. This day-long feast served as a precursor to what would later be evolved into the traditional Pohela Boishakh celebration.
Vikramaditya origin theory Some historians attribute the Bengali calendar to the 7th-century Gauda king Shashanka. The term Bangabda (Bangla year) is found too in two Shiva temples many centuries older than Akbar era, suggesting that Bengali calendar existed before Akbar's time. Various dynasties whose territories extended into Bengal, prior to the 13th-century, used the Vikrami calendar. Buddhist texts and inscriptions created in the Pala Empire era mention "Vikrama" and the months such as Ashvin, a system found in Sanskrit texts elsewhere in ancient and medieval Indian subcontinent. In rural Bengali communities of India, the Bengali calendar is credited to "Bikromaditto", like many other parts of India and Nepal. However, unlike these regions where it starts in 57 BCE, the Bengali calendar starts from 593 CE suggesting that the starting reference year was adjusted at some point.
Contemporary usage In Bangladesh however, the old Bengali calendar was modified in 1966 by a committee headed by Muhammad Shahidullah, making the first five months 31 days long, rest 30 days each, with the month of Falgun adjusted to 31 days in every leap year. This was officially adopted by Bangladesh in 1987. Since then, the national calendar starts with and the new year festival always falls on 14 April in Bangladesh. In 2018–19, the calendar was amended again, with Falgun now lasting 29 days in regular years and to 30 days in leap ones, in an effort to more align with Western use of the Gregorian calendar. However, the date of the celebration, 14 April, was retained. The Bengali calendar in India remains tied to the Hindu calendar system and is used to set the various Bengali Hindu festivals. For Bengalis of West Bengal and other Indian states, the festival falls either on 14 or 15 April every year. The current Bengali calendar in use in the Indian states is based on the Sanskrit text Surya Siddhanta. It retains the historic Sanskrit names of the months, with the first month as Baishakh.
Holiday customs
Visiting family and friends During Pohela Boishakh, people wear traditional attire, namely women clad in saris and salwar kameez and men dressed in kurta, visit their families and friends and spend time together. Pohela Boishakh is also known for uniting friends and family after a long time. It is a time for unity and reuniting, and spending enjoyable time with friends and family, while putting the past behind.
New year salutation
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