Saka Calendar Converter

About this calculator

This converter translates any date between the Indian national calendar — the civil Saka calendar — and the Gregorian calendar, in either direction. The Saka calendar is a solar calendar that India adopted in 1957 on the recommendation of the Calendar Reform Committee, and it is published every year as the Rashtriya Panchang and used officially alongside the Gregorian calendar (for example in the Gazette of India and in All India Radio date announcements). It counts years in the Saka era, whose epoch is 78 CE, so a Saka year is roughly the Gregorian year minus 78. Its twelve months — Chaitra, Vaishakha, Jyeshtha, Ashadha, Shravana, Bhadrapada, Ashwin, Kartika, Agrahayana, Pausha, Magha and Phalguna — begin the year on 1 Chaitra, fixed to 22 March (21 March in a Gregorian leap year), the day after the vernal equinox. Pick a direction, type a year, month and day, and read the converted date with its day of the week. By default it shows today’s date converted to Saka, so it doubles as a "what is the Saka date today" lookup.

How to read your results

The toggle at the top chooses the direction: "Gregorian → Saka" turns a civil date into its Indian national calendar equivalent, and "Saka → Gregorian" does the reverse. The headline result is the converted date — its year, named month and day in the target calendar — followed by the day of the week, which is the same real weekday in both calendars because they describe the same 24-hour civil day. Saka years are written as plain numbers in the Saka era (often shown with the abbreviation "Śaka" or SE). The note under the result matters: this is the official civil Saka calendar, not a religious panchang, so Hindu festivals that follow regional lunisolar calendars (and the older Vikram Samvat era) will not line up with these dates.

How it's calculated

Both directions pivot on the Julian Day Number (JDN), a continuous integer count of days that is independent of any calendar. To convert, the input date is first reduced to its JDN, then that JDN is read out in the target calendar. The Gregorian side uses the standard civil-date formula from Fourmilab’s calendar algorithms; the Saka side is resolved through the Unicode ICU "indian" calendar (Intl.DateTimeFormat), inverted to a JDN by scanning the Gregorian day ladder for the day whose Saka fields match. The day of the week is derived directly from the JDN, so it is identical for both calendars. The calendar follows the Calendar Reform Committee rules: a leap Saka year is one whose corresponding Gregorian year is a leap year; in a leap year Chaitra has 31 days and the year starts on 21 March, otherwise Chaitra has 30 days and the year starts on 22 March, with the following five months at 31 days and the final six at 30 days (365 or 366 days in total). "Today" is computed at local civil midnight in your time zone after the page loads, so the default date is correct wherever you are without baking a build-time date into the page.

Worked example

Convert 1 Chaitra of Saka year 1946 (Saka → Gregorian).

The Saka New Year, 1 Chaitra 1946, falls on Thursday, 21 March 2024 CE. It is 21 March rather than the usual 22 March because 2024 is a Gregorian leap year, and in a leap year Chaitra 1 is pulled one day earlier and Chaitra itself gains a 31st day. Converting the other way, 15 August 2024 CE (India’s Independence Day) comes out as 24 Shravana 1946 Saka, and 1 January 2000 CE comes out as 11 Pausha 1921 Saka — still Saka year 1921, because the Saka new year does not begin until 1 Chaitra in late March.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the Saka year about 78 less than the Gregorian year?

The Saka calendar counts from the Saka era, whose epoch is 78 CE. That fixed starting point means the Saka year number runs roughly 78 below the Gregorian year. The exact gap is 78 or 79 depending on the time of year: because the Saka year does not begin until 1 Chaitra in late March, a January or February date still belongs to the previous Saka year — for example 1 January 2000 CE is 11 Pausha 1921 Saka, an offset of 79.

Why does 1 Chaitra (New Year) move between 21 and 22 March?

The civil Saka calendar fixes 1 Chaitra to the day after the vernal equinox, which is normally 22 March. In a Gregorian leap year the extra 29 February nudges the equinox a day earlier, so 1 Chaitra falls on 21 March instead, and Chaitra in that year is lengthened from 30 to 31 days to keep the calendar aligned with the sun. After Chaitra, the next five months (Vaishakha through Bhadrapada) have 31 days and the last six (Ashwin through Phalguna) have 30 days.

How is the Saka calendar different from the Vikram Samvat?

They are two different Hindu eras. The Saka era used here has its epoch in 78 CE, while the Vikram Samvat begins about 57 BCE — a gap of roughly 135 years, so a Vikram Samvat year is about 57 ahead of the Gregorian year and about 135 ahead of the Saka year. The Indian national calendar standardises the Saka era as a single solar civil calendar for the whole country; Vikram Samvat is more common in North India and Nepal and is usually reckoned as a lunisolar calendar.

Is this the same as the panchang used for Hindu festivals?

No. This is the civil Indian national calendar — a uniform solar calendar for administration and the press. Hindu religious festivals such as Diwali, Holi, Navratri and Ugadi are set by regional lunisolar panchangs that track the moon and the sun together, and many of them still count years in the Vikram Samvat era. Use this tool for civil dates, official documents and date arithmetic, and consult a religious panchang for festival dates.

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_national_calendar
• www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar

Reviewed by the YouCalc Team · Last reviewedJune 13, 2026