NOU ROUZ NIM ROUZ

NOU ROUZ

NIM ROUZ

Fariborz Rahnamoon

“The coming of the season at the proper time of the solar year.”

Avesta Haptan Yasht (Ha -3)

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= The anci= ent Iranian calendar was a solar calendar. The fact is repeatedly documented in= the ancient Avesta writings. One of the most important solar festivals is called Nou Rouz - the New Year. Nou Rouz literally means the 'New Day' and is celebrated on the vernal equinox in spring. It is the time of rejuvenation = in nature, the beginning of a new life and what better time can there be to st= art the New Year than with nature itself.

Nou= Rouz is celebrated by the people of the lands that once formed the Persian Empire, irrespective of their present day political borders or religious beliefs.

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Nou= Rouz according to the Persian mythology is believed to date back to about ten thousand BCE, when Shah Jamshid the Pisdadian king celebrated the first spr= ing after the end of the last ice age.

The= ancient Zarathushti calendar consists of twelve equal months of 30 days each and between the last day of the twelfth month and the vernal equinox there are = five free days or six in the case of a leap year. The leap year is automatically determined by the equinox and not by any belief or human agreement. Every y= ear the equinox happens about 5 hours 48 minutes 20 seconds (.24190day) latter whereby automatically by the 4^th year it happens 23:13:20 hour l= atter making that year a 366 day year.

NIM ROUZ & NOU ROUZ

Nou= Rouz is one of the only scientific New Year celebrated in the world. The calculation and coining of the word “Nou Rouz” (New Day) as against “Sal e Nou” (New Year) = was the work of Zarathushtra the sage of ancient Iran, who was also the first to envisage the concept of Meridian. Zarathushtra calculated the f= irst meridian and called it “Nim Rouz”, which= means “Mid Day”. The= Meridian of Zarathushtra was loc= ated in ancient Sistan at 62 degrees longitude. Even today that location in Afghanistan is called the Nimruz Province<= /st1:PlaceType>.

Whe= n it is mid day at the Meridian of Zarathushtra (62 degrees longitude) there is sunshine from Japan th= e land of the rising sun to the western tip of Africa. What better location can there be for an intellectual and scientific meridi= an.= = [i]

Sim= ilarly the unequal relation between the revolution and rotation of the earth led Zarathushtra to calculate and derive the concept of Nou Rouz the New Day. <= span style=3D'font-family:"Arial Black"'>Nou Rouz is when the sunrise coincides = with the vernal equinox at a predetermined longitude. This event happens every year at a different longitude and has repeated itself at the same location once in about 1230 – 1240 years.

The= fact is that the earth goes round the sun in 365.24190 tropical days, thereby every four years we have an extra 0.9676 day (0.24190 X 4), so we can add a day in the forth year, although by that we are starting the fifth year short by 0.0324 day (1 - .9676) which means= 46 minutes and 39.36 seconds short. To cover the short fall every 120 years we skip a leap year but even that results in a fraction 120 X 365 +116\4 =3D 4= 3829 days accounted for by our system of recording leap years. While in fact the earth has taken 365.24190 X 120 =3D 43829.028 days. Thus the 120^{th year
again starts short by 40 minutes and 32 seconds (1440x.028). Apart from the=
se
there are other factors that effect the time on earth, like the gravitation=
al
pull of various planets when they come close to the earth once in a few yea=
rs,
or a comets passing close to the earth, even a strong earthquake has an eff=
ect
on the time on earth. Since the advent of the atomic clock these factors ha=
ve
been recognized by the scientific world.}

Zar= athushtra was a sage whose wisdom was far ahead of our time and even times to come, f= or he understood the ultimate truth in nature – Asha. He may be called a prophet if we do not categorize him and do injustice to his wisdom.

Zar= athushtra looked for the solution in nature. He realized that every year the equinox coincides with the sunrise at a different longitude and whatever fractional difference has remained in the calendar can be zeroed out when the sunrise coincide once again at the same longitude.

Zarathushtra’s calculation showed= him that in the year 1725 BCE the vernal equinox would coincide with the sunris= e at Sistan and so he named the New Year of that year as Nou Rouz the New Day. <= o:p>

As = recorded in history on the spring equinox of 487 BCE Nou Rouz was celebrated at Takth-e-Jamshid (Persepolis), when the first rays of the rising sun lighted the square stone set in the central hall of the Apadana palace. The next Nou Rouz in Iran was missed around 750 ACE after the f= all of the Persian Empire into the hands of the= Arabs who followed the lunar calendar and the event went unnoticed. The ancient knowledge was lost and today Nou Rouz has become synonymous with Sal e Nou = (New Year).

Nou= Rouz has also been adopted as a religious new year by those modern Semitic relig= ions that were started in Iran. Like the Bahai’s and the Ismaili’s who have adopted it without knowing the real significance of the festival or the origin of its name.

Nou= Rouz as a new year shall one day be adopted by the intellectual world when their at= tention is drawn to the truth behind it.

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