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Death during the Gathas

When death occurs, as per tradition, we disregard the Gatha days and count the first Gatha as Hormazd roz and the last Gatha as Spandarmad roz. I would like to differ with this system, pointing out some discrepancies in this traditional method.

Though we take the first Gatha to be Hormazd roz, this roz actually comes five days later. How can we predate the roz?

My layman’s logic tells me that we have a calendar of 360 days, plus five days of Gathas which makes it 365 days (intercalation forgotten!). So the last month was made of 30 plus five days added to make up 365 days. The five days were added after many calculations and we cannot disregard them. As there were no roz names left, we used the names of the Gathas for the five extra days.

I suggest that we take the five Gatha days into consideration and count the roz 30 days from the day that death occurred. For example, if it occurred on August 13, 2013 the first Gatha, as per the Shahenshahi calendar, counting 30 days from it, we get the siroja as roz Ashishvangh, mah Fravardin corresponding to September 11 and masiso roz Ashtad corresponding to September 12. If it is the last Gatha, corresponding to August 17, the siroja would be roz Mahraspand, mah Fravardin corresponding to September 15, and masiso would be roz Aneran corresponding to September 16.

If death has occurred in a leap year, as per the Fasli calendar on Roz-e-Wahizag, which comes once in every four years (created to keep March 21 as Navroz), then how would one count the roz?

BURJOR DABOO

Ahmedabad

burkhurdar@yahoo.com

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