Mongolian calendar rules and traditions

Tsagaan Sar

Tsagaan Sar, usually translated as White Month, is Mongolian New Year. It marks the opening of spring in the traditional calendar and a renewal of family relationships. Visiting relatives, greeting elders and exchanging news are central to the occasion. For pastoral families separated by journeys between grazing grounds, such visits have also provided an opportunity to learn how other households have fared.

Bituun is New Year's Eve. It closes the old year before the greetings and visits of Tsagaan Sar begin. The celebration belongs to a longer period of family preparation and hospitality, rather than to New Year's Day alone.

The festival follows a Mongolian lunisolar calendar, whose first month need not begin with Chinese lunar month 1. A difference in month placement can separate the two New Years by an entire month.

New Year dates in 2017

The two New Year's Days were thirty days apart. This was a difference between the calendars, rather than a month-long delay to a single shared holiday.

Calculation traditions

One important Mongolian calculation tradition is Tögs buyant, also discussed in English as New Genden. It belongs to the Tibetan-derived lunisolar family. Its calculations share average-motion constants with the Tibetan Phugpa system, but use different starting values and leap-month rules. A year has twelve or thirteen months, with a leap month adjusting the relationship between lunar months and the solar year.

Month placement and day numbering are separate parts of the calculation. Within a month, the numbers refer to calculated lunar intervals of varying length. Assigning these intervals to ordinary days can omit a lunar-date number or give two successive days the same number. A repeated date therefore needs a first- or second-occurrence designation when it is converted into a civil date.

Omitted and repeated numbers determine the labels within a month. A leap month changes the number of months in the year. Both features matter when comparing a Mongolian date with a Chinese date, whose day numbers run consecutively within each month.

New Genden has also been used in Buryatia. Other regional traditions include the “yellow calculation” systems associated with Inner Mongolia. A historical regional calendar may use different month placement or day-numbering conventions, so Mongolian-speaking communities cannot all be assigned one uniform calendar.

Year names and calendar records

Traditional Mongolian year names combine an animal with an element or its associated colour in a sixty-year cycle. The animal alone returns every twelve years. An element-and-animal name narrows the identification, but still needs a cycle number or historical context to distinguish its successive occurrences.

A complete date record preserves that year designation, the original month name or number, any leap-month marker and the lunar day. Where a day number is repeated, record which occurrence is intended. Keep the issuing calendar or calculation tradition with the Gregorian equivalent, since the same written lunar numbers can identify different days in different systems.

For Tsagaan Sar and religious observances, an annual calendar identifies the date followed by the community. A public gathering may be scheduled on a convenient neighbouring day, especially outside Mongolia. Recording the festival date separately from the event date preserves that distinction without changing the traditional calendar.