[Buddha-l] MARYSVILLE: American Buddhism facing generationalshift

[Dan Lusthaus]

>Quakers hated the idea of days named after pagan gods and months named 
>after Roman emperors and Latin numbers, so they refused to use those names 
>and referred to the days of the week as First Day, Second Day and so on, 
>and referred to the months as First Month (which originally meant March but 
>eventually became January, to everyone's great inconvenience).

Assigning the days of the days of the week numbers instead of names (except 
the seventh day, which was named Shabbath -- "resting", lit. "sitting") is 
Biblical, and a practice still followed in Israel and on Jewish calendars. 
Yom Rishon ("First Day") corresponds to Sunday, Yom Sheini (Second Day) to 
Monday, etc.

The concept of the seven-day week and (one day) weekend (off from work) is 
also biblical, linked to the Shabbath idea. On the seventh day, everybody, 
including one's animals, is supposed to rest, desist from work. The two-day 
weekend was invented in New York City, as a compromise. To observe Jewish 
sabbath, Jews closed their stores and refrained from business on Friday 
nights and Saturdays (until after sundown), while Christians closed their 
shops on Sunday. The Jewish stores were open on Sunday, so, everyone only 
being off work on Sundays (workdays were longer back then) had that day 
alone to do serious shopping and they would go to the only stores and 
businesses open, the Jewish stores. The Christian businesses cried fowl, 
unfair business practices, and tried to pass a law forbidding Jewish shops 
from doing business on Sundays. The Jews replied that since they are already 
closed on Saturday, if they were forced to close on Sundays, that would be 
two days of no business against the Christians only one day of no business, 
which would be even more unfair. When the smoke settled, the compromise was 
that all stores and businesses would henceforth close on Saturday AND 
Sunday. People got a two-day weekend released from work. Of course, business 
is business, so soon shops opened on both days, and now one can go shopping 
all weekend!

As for India, the lunar calendar treats the month as consisting of 30 days, 
and breaks the month into roughly two segments of 15 days each, going from 
Full moon to New Moon to Full moon. So special days tended to happen on the 
15th or 1st. The discrepancy between the lunar year and solar year -- along 
with the fact that lunar months are not always exactly 30 days -- engendered 
the seven day week (14 day intervals). Buddhists retained those customs as 
they brought Indic sensibilities to China, etc.

The Chinese used to have very elaborate systems for naming months and years, 
based on a few ideas of calendrical cycles, though no weekend, until modern 
times, when they adopted the "first month, second day" -- and the year of 
the "dynasty" in Taiwan (the "Republican Period" begins in 1911/12, so this 
would be "Year 100." Mainland simply adopted the secularized western 
calendar. The first Chinese month used to be mid-February, but these days 
new years day is Jan. 1st in most of East Asia. They count year first, then 
month, then day, so today is Year 100 Month 7 Day 19 in Taiwan, and Year 
2011 Month 7 Day 19 in Mainland China (and Japan). Based on various 
numerological ideas, there are auspicious and inauspicious days, and a very 
popular type of daily calendar (one page for each day) marks in great detail 
the auspicious and inauspicious aspects of that day for each of the Chinese 
zodiacs.

For more on how time, calendars, etc. developed, a free download from 
http://library.nu/ will tell you everything you need to know (plus!):
David Kelley and Eugene Milone, _Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of 
Ancient and Cultural Astronomy_, Springer, 2011 (Second Edition)

Dan