Happy New Year

Today is the mallu New Year. The first of ചിങ്ങം. 

Most people may know this, but still sometimes reviews can refresh things :-)

ചിങ്ങം is the തത്ഭവം of സിംഹം, lion, or leo according to zodiac. The സ in Sanskrit gets converted into ച. (It seems to be the case that all the words with ശ, ഷ, സ and ഹ came from Sanskrit and are not Tamil origin, though I am not quite sure.)

The names of the other months closely follow the names of the western counterparts:
Leo - സിംഹം - ചിങ്ങം 
Virgo - കന്യ - കന്നി
Libra - തുലാം 
Scorpio - വൃശ്ചികം 
Sagittarius - ധനു 
Capricon - മകരം 
Aquarius - കുംഭം 
Pisces - മീനം 
Aries - മേഷം - മേടം 
Taurus -ഋഷഭം -  ഇടവം 
Gemini - മിഥുനം 
Cancer - കര്‍ക്കടകം 


Of these the, word for Taurus is a bit complex in etymology. There seems to be a series of letter transformations, ഋ -> ഇ, ഷ -> ട and ഭ -> വ, but these are kind of not atypical.


Thus, it is obvious that the mallu calendar we now follow came with the Sanskrit sub-culture. 

It will be interesting to see what kind of calendar we had when malayalam was in its infancy - as a branch of Tamil.  Even the Tamil calendar was based on the Hindu solar calendar. 

Does any one know if there were any other calendars in use in ancient times?