Legal V. Religious Calendar
The Thai solar calendar (Patitin Suriyakati, Thai: ปฏิทินสุริยคติ), Thailand's version of the Gregorian calendar, replaced the Patitin Chantarakati in AD 1888 / 2431 BE for legal and commercial purposes. In both calendars, the four principal lunar phases determine Buddhist Sabbaths (uposatha), obligatory holy days for observant Buddhists. Significant days also include feast days. Thai Chinese likewise observe their Sabbaths and traditional Chinese holidays according to lunar phases. These move with respect to the solar calendar, so common Thai calendars incorporate both Thai and Chinese lunar dates for religious purposes.
Mundane astrology also figures prominently in Thai culture, so modern Thai birth certificates include lunar calendar dates and the appropriate Chinese calendar zodiacal animal year-name for both Thai Hora (โหราศาสตร์ โหราสาต ho-ra-sat) and Chinese astrology.
Read more about this topic: Thai Lunar Calendar
Famous quotes containing the words legal v, legal, religious and/or calendar:
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends—an attainment conditioned in this way by universality—there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“To divide one’s life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.”
—Clifton Fadiman (b. 1904)