Samvatsara

The Samvatsara

Lord  Brahma is known to be the embodiment of Samvatsara

The term ‘Samvatsara’ is a Sanskrit word for ‘year’ in the Vedic literature. It roughly means a period of one full year sidereal when the Sun enters the sign of Aries.

It is the time in which Brihaspati (planet Jupiter) with its average speed crosses the journey of one zodiac sign and moves on to the next. According to this definition, when Jupiter completes the entire circle of traversing all 12 zodiac signs, it comprises 12 Samvatsaras. During the entire journey, Jupiter is either close-by or far from planet Earth based on which it creates positive or negative influences for an individual.

The Hindu calendar has a cycle of 60 years and is named from Prabhava to Kshaya. Generally, the new Hindu year begins at the end of April every year.

In the current cycle, the year Prabhava coincides with the Christian year 1987.

These 60 Samvatsaras repeats in a cycle of 12 years. The significator of the year is Shani, Saturn, which takes approximately 30 years to complete the entire twelve signs of the zodiac. The yugas of periods began when both Jupiter and Saturn were at 0-degree of Aries. So, if we take the lowest common multiple between the motion of Jupiter and Saturn (approximately 12 years and 30 years), we get the count of 60.

Therefore, every 60 years, both Jupiter and Saturn reach the 0-degree of Aries, and this interplay between both the planets, the angles formed, the influences that arise due to the combination, significantly affect the Samvatsaras and the individuals.

The sixty Samvatsaras (Prabhava to Kshaya) are divided into three groups of 20 Samvatsaras each wherein the first group of 20 Samvatsaras (Prabhava to Vyaya) is assigned to Lord Brahma, the next group of 20 Samvatsaras (Sarvajit to Parabhava) to Lord Vishnu, and the last 20 (Plavanga to Kshaya) to Lord Shiva.

The cycle of 60 years is an approximation for a return back of both Brihaspathi and Shani. Now thanks to small shifts that add at every cycle, a given samvatsara year (for example Prabhava) does not correspond to a specific position of Brihaspati and Shani

The Names of the Samvatsara’s  are as follows: