Ancient Calendar Systems Series

The Persian and Zoroastrian Calendar

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The year runs twelve months of thirty days plus five Gatha days, which is the same 365-day frame the Egyptians used. Every month is dedicated to a Yazata and so is every day, and when the month-name and the day-name coincide that day becomes a festival. Six seasonal gāhānbār divide the year, Nowruz opens it at the spring equinox, the Sade fires are lit in the depth of winter, and over all of it stands Zurwān ī akanārag, Infinite Time.

Why This Reconstruction?

The Zoroastrian calendar is the ancient world's most powerful conceptual architecture. It adopts the 365-day structure from Egypt, but in place of Egypt's animal-divinity decan list it installs the abstract Yazata (venerable divine being) system. It knows Babylon's lunisolar mathematics, yet detaches from it to establish a fully solar calendar. It anticipates Mesopotamia's šīmtu destiny, the Hellenic aiôn, and the pre-Islamic Arab dehr, and places at its center their shared conceptual forebear, Zurwān. What this calendar records is a cosmology, and it records it entirely in units of time.

Moreover, this calendar is religious-cosmological rather than political. The beginning of the year (Nawrūz) is fixed to the spring equinox, because that moment is itself a cosmic event, not a royal decree. Months and days are dedicated not to gods but to divine qualities: Wahman (good thought), Aša (cosmic order), Xšaθra (sovereignty). When you open the calendar you encounter not a pantheon of gods but the moral categories of the cosmos. When a Persian said what day of the year it was, he was at the same time saying which cosmological principle he stood before.

One structural feature separates this calendar from every one of its neighbors: there is no seven-day week. Each of the thirty days of the month carries its own name, its own Yazata, its own character. For a Hebrew, the "third day" is meaningful because there are two days remaining until the Sabbath; for a Persian, the day of Bahman is meaningful because that day has its own protective Yazata, its own quality, its own ritual. Time does not run in repeating weeks, then, but in thirty distinct units. No other calendar of the ancient world broke the month down this finely or marked each of its days so individually.

This tool sets the system out in order. Twelve months of thirty days plus five Gatha days make a fully solar year of 365 days. For each month you will find the Avestan and Pahlavi names, the qualities of the Yazata it is dedicated to, the season and the agricultural work that belongs to it, and the festivals that fall within it. The six Gāhānbār (seasonal festivals) have a section of their own, and that is where Hartner's thesis belongs: he argued that the six were fixed in the 6th century BCE by acronychal star observation at Persepolis. Nawrūz also has a section to itself, which follows the festival from its Achaemenid origins through the Sasanian reforms and on into the Turkic-Iranian continuity that runs from the Epic of Ergenekon by way of the Seljuks and the Ottomans into the modern Turkic world. The Zurwān section reads that concept alongside the pre-Islamic Arab dehr, and goes on to the three-thousand-year cosmic epochs of the Bundahishn and to the legacy of Sasanian Zurvanism, which later orthodoxy condemned as a heresy.

Here we find neither the pure astronomical calendar of Hellenistic Egypt nor the lunisolar mathematics of Babylon. In their place stands a cosmology written out as a calendar: each day carries a moral principle, each month has a guardian Yazata, and each season marks a stage of creation. This is the most thoroughly philosophical calendar the ancient world produced, and it has been kept without a break for three thousand years across the Turkic-Iranian world.

Year Selector

The Yazdegerdi era takes its epoch from the accession of the last Sasanian monarch, Yazdegerd III, on 16 June 632 CE, and counts the years forward from that date to the present. The Nowruz date shown below follows the Fasli (seasonal) calendar.

1395 Yazdegerdi Era
Nowruz (Fasli) = March 21, 2026 · Gregorian year 2026/2027

Three Modern Variants

After the fall of the Sasanian empire to the Arab conquest in 651 CE, the Zoroastrian calendar split into three distinct branches. All three keep the same basic structure of 12 × 30 + 5 = 365 days, and they differ only in how they handle intercalation.

Qadimi
قَدِيمِي · "ANCIENT"
Recalculated by the Zoroastrians of Iran in 1006
The oldest calendar variant. It preserves the 365-day structure from the Sasanian period, but because it abandoned the addition of an intercalary (kabise) month every 120 years, Nowruz drifts against the Gregorian calendar. In 2026 the Qadimi Nowruz falls on July 16. The Zoroastrian minority in Iran continued to maintain this variant after 1006.
Shahanshahi
شَاهَنْشَاهِي · "IMPERIAL"
Parsi community of India · based on the 10th-century Denkard
The variant used by the Parsi community that emigrated from Iran. Between the 8th and 10th centuries CE, Zoroastrians fleeing the Muslim conquest settled in the Indian state of Gujarat, carrying this calendar with them. This branch abandoned intercalation as the Qadimi did, but it did so from a different starting point, so a 30-day gap opened up between the two variants. In 2026 the Shahanshahi Nowruz falls on August 15.
Fasli
فَصْلِي · "SEASONAL"
1906 reform · proposed by Kharshedji R. Cama
The modern reform variant. Following Gregorian logic, a leap day is inserted every four years; Nowruz is always fixed to the spring equinox (March 20-21). It was proposed in India in 1906 and is today used by the majority of Zoroastrians in Iran and Tajikistan. It is the newest of the three and also the most accurate astronomically. This tool takes the Fasli calendar as its reference.

The Twelve Months

Each month has 30 days; each month is dedicated to a Yazata. The older Avestan names and their Pahlavi Middle Persian forms stand side by side. Seven months are dedicated to the Amesha Spentas (the Seven Holy Immortals), and the remaining five belong to other major Yazatas: Tištrya, Miθra, Apąm Napāt, Ātar and Frawašī. Click a card for etymology, season, and key days.

Yazata month
Amesha Spenta month (Seven Holy Immortals)
Dadvah · month of Ahura Mazda (Dae)

The Five Gatha Days · The Year's Epagomenal Threshold

Twelve months of thirty days come to 360, while the tropical year is 365. The five days left over are added to the end of Esfand, and each of them takes its name from one of Zoroaster's Gathas (sacred hymns). Tradition counts these five as days outside of time, threshold days that belong to no month and to no part of the created order.

The Structure of the Gatha Days

The Zoroastrian calendar adopts the 365-day structure of Egypt, but whereas in Egypt the five epagomenal days were each assigned an animal-divinity (Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, Nephthys), in the Persian calendar each of the Gatha days bears the name of one of Zoroaster's hymns. The five Gathas (Avestan: Gāθā, "sacred hymn") form chapters 28-34, 43-46, 47-50, 51 and 53 of the Yasna, and they are the oldest and most sacred texts of the Zoroastrian religion (ca. 1500-1000 BCE). Each Gatha stands for a spiritual principle, and over these five days the texts of that principle are recited, contemplated and ritually renewed.

These five days also fall within the Hamaspaθmaēdaya Gāhānbār, the sixth and final seasonal festival of the year. The year therefore closes on two registers at once, since the Gatha days carry the spiritual and ritual dimension while the Gāhānbār carries the seasonal and agricultural one. During these five days the fravaši (the guardian souls of the departed) descend to the world; as families prepare for Nowruz, they commemorate their ancestors, lay sacred tables, and distribute food to the poor. The new year can only begin once this threshold has been crossed.

GATHA 1
Ahunavaiti
"Of Ahuna Vairya"
Yasna 28-34. It is named after Ahuna Vairya, the holiest of Zoroastrian prayers, which states the principle of cosmic order.
GATHA 2
Uštavaiti
"Of Happiness"
Yasna 43-46. It opens with the word uštā ("happiness, blessedness") and turns on joy and inner peace.
GATHA 3
Spenta Mainyu
"Holy Creative Spirit"
Yasna 47-50. It sets Ahura Mazda's creative principle (Spenta Mainyu) against the destructive principle (Angra Mainyu).
GATHA 4
Vohu Khshathra
"Good Sovereignty"
Yasna 51. This is the chapter in which Xšaθra Vairya, the just kingdom that is longed for, appears.
GATHA 5
Vahishtoishti
"Best Wish"
Yasna 53. It is the wedding hymn of Zoroaster's daughter Pourucista and reads as a testament addressed to later generations.

Al-Bīrūnī (Āṯār, 1000 CE) gives six different lists of names for the Gatha days, showing that regional variations existed. In the region of Natanz (central Iran), the Gatha days were appended to the end of Bahman; that is, after the end of the 11th month and before the beginning of Esfand. This variation is an important piece of evidence for the regional flexibility of the Zoroastrian calendar system.

The Thirty Day-Name System · The Atomization of Time

There is no seven-day week in the Zoroastrian calendar. Instead, each of the thirty days bears its own Yazata name. When the month-name coincides with the day-name, the day becomes a festival. The map of the thirty days appears below: orange squares mark the Ahura Mazda days and gold squares the Amesha Spenta days.

The Logic of the System

Most of the ancient Near East organized the month around a 10-day cycle (the Egyptian decans, the Babylonian ten-day triplets), a 7-day cycle (the Hebrew sabbath week) or some shorter period. The Zoroastrian system stands outside all of these, because every day of the 30-day month has a character of its own. There is no cycle and no rhythmic repetition, only thirty separate names and thirty separate qualities.

As a decision in calendar design this is a radical one. The Persian scheme divides time not into larger blocks such as weeks but into thirty individual days, so that every day has its own guardian, its own quality and its own rite. For a Zoroastrian the day of Bahman (the 2nd) is a day on which the natural world must not be polluted and animals are honored, while the day of Tir (the 13th) is given over to prayer for rain and to reverence for water. Dividing time this finely means that every day of the month carries a cosmological weight.

The assignment of the thirty days is as follows:

Four of the thirty day-names are Hormazd (Ahura Mazda) days: the 1st, the 8th, the 15th and the 23rd. Dae, the tenth month, is the month dedicated to Hormazd, and all four of those days fall inside it as name-day festivals, which gives a single month four festivals. The Seven Amesha Spentas hold days 2 (Bahman), 3 (Ardibehišt), 4 (Šahrīwar), 5 (Sepandārmad), 6 (Hordād) and 7 (Amordād), together with the 1st if the Hormazd day is counted among them. The other major Yazatas hold day 9 (Ādar, fire), 10 (Ābān, the waters), 13 (Tir, Sirius), 16 (Mehr, the covenant), 17 (Sroš, obedience), 18 (Rašn, justice) and 19 (Frawardīn, the ancestors). Days 13 and 16 are the pivots of the month, since one carries rain and the other the covenant, and this is why Mehregan, the second great festival of the year, is kept on the 16th day of the 7th month.

The Six Gāhānbār · Seasonal Festivals

Gāhānbār (Avestan gāh + bār, "division of time, season") are the year's six agricultural and cosmic festivals. Hartner (1985) argues that these six festivals were fixed in the 6th century BCE through acronychal star observation at Persepolis. The intervals between them are not equal but run 60, 75, 30, 80, 75 and 45 days, and together they account for the whole tropical year.

1. Maidyōzarem

"Mid-Spring" · Maiδyōi-zarəmaya
Ardibehišt 11-15
Spring

The first Gāhānbār is kept at the height of spring. The Avestan zarəmaya means "green", so Maidyōzarem is "the middle of the greening". It is a festival of pastoralism: the animals are driven up to the summer pastures, the first milking takes place and the herds are let out of their stables. The Bundahishn dedicates it to the creation of the heavens, because Ahura Mazda completed the first of his seven creations, the sky, in this season. The festival lasts five days, and in the Persepolis observations it is the rising of the Pleiades that fixes this axis of the year.

2. Maidyōšahem

"Mid-Summer" · Maiδyōi-šəma
Tīr 11-15
Summer

The second Gāhānbār falls at the height of summer, sixty days after Maidyōzarem. It is the festival of the wheat and barley harvest and celebrates the bringing of the crop into the granaries. It is dedicated to the creation of the waters, the second of Ahura Mazda's creations. It stands close to Tirgān (Tir 13) in the calendar, so the rain-star Sirius and the wheat harvest are celebrated within days of each other. The festival lasts five days.

3. Paitišahem

"End of the Harvest" · Paitišhahya
Šahrīwar 26-30
Early autumn

The third Gāhānbār marks the point at which the grain harvest has finally come to rest in the granaries, seventy-five days after Maidyōšahem. It is dedicated to the creation of the earth, the third of Ahura Mazda's creations, and it falls close to the autumnal equinox, 21 days before Mehregan. In the Old Persian economy this was the period in which tax collection began, since the farmer could now reckon his yield and pay the state its share.

4. Ayāθrem

"Return of the Herds" · Ayāθrim
Mihr 26-30
Late autumn

The fourth Gāhānbār comes thirty days after Paitišahem and ten days after Mehregan (Mihr 16), and it is the festival of the return from the nomadic pastures to winter quarters: the herds are brought down from the summer grazing into the stables, the animals are counted and the weak are culled. It is dedicated to the creation of plants. The Avesta treats this period as the first descent of the fravaši (the souls of the ancestors) into the world, which prepares the ground for the fravaši observances of the month of Frawardīn. The festival has direct parallels in the pre-Islamic Turkic rituals of coming down from the summer pastures to the winter ones.

5. Maidyārem

"Mid-Winter" · Maiδyāirya
Dae 16-20
Height of winter

The fifth Gāhānbār falls eighty days after Ayāθrem, close to the winter solstice, and the longest night of the year (Šab-e Yaldā) comes about ten days before it. It is dedicated to the creation of the animals. This is the point at which the year turns inward: people stay in their houses and the fire cult grows more intense. The Sade fire festival (Dae 10) comes immediately before this Gāhānbār and consists of lighting great fires at mid-winter. The Turkic Çile (the forty hardest days of the year) and the Celtic Imbolc are the parallel pivots of the same period.

6. Hamaspaθmaēdaya

"Union with the Ancestors" · Hamaspaθmaēdaya
Esfand 25-30 + 5 Gathas
Year's end

The sixth and last Gāhānbār is the closing festival of the year. It falls seventy-five days after Maidyārem, and the 45 days that run from it to Maidyōzarem bring the cycle to a close. It is dedicated to the creation of humanity (Ahura Mazda's seventh and final creation). The festival covers the last five or six days of Esfand together with the five Gatha days, ten or eleven days in all, and Nowruz follows immediately after. The fravaši come down to the world during this period and visit the houses, so families commemorate their ancestors and lay sacred tables (khordād-sāl). This is the threshold on which the preparation for Nowruz is made, and it stands structurally parallel to the Egyptian Wepet Renpet ("Opening of the Year").

Nowruz · The Spring Equinox Festival

Nowruz is the first day of the year and falls on the Hormazd (Ahura Mazda) day of the month of Frawardīn. It has been kept without a break for three thousand years, from the Achaemenids to the Sasanians, from the Seljuks to the Ottomans and on to the modern Organization of Turkic States.

نوروز
Nawrūz · Nowruz · Nevruz
"NEW DAY" · YEN-İ GÜN

Achaemenid Origins

There is no direct epigraphic evidence from the Achaemenid period (550-330 BCE); however, the bas-reliefs of the Apadana palace at Persepolis furnish the strongest indirect evidence that Nowruz ceremonies were held. Along the eastern staircase, reliefs depict representatives of 23 nations (Medes, Lydians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Sogdians, Indians...) bringing gifts before the king: horses, camels, antelopes, gold, silver, and cloth. On the modern reading this is a visual record of the Nowruz ceremony, in which the shahanshah (King of Kings) received the tribute of all his peoples every year on Frawardīn 1, accepted their gifts and dispensed justice.

The lion-and-bull motif runs through most of the Apadana scenes, where a lion is shown seizing a bull. Mary Boyce and A.S. Shahbazi read the lion as the sun and the bull as the moon or the winter season, so that on the day of Nowruz the sun, carrying the force of Leo, overcomes the bull of winter and spring is born. This zodiacal reading may belong to the Sasanian period, although the image itself goes back to Achaemenid times. A Persian gold coin dated 416 BCE, which shows a warrior holding a bow, counts as early evidence for the festival.

Sasanian Reforms (224-651 CE)

Under the Sasanian empire (224-651 CE), Nowruz became the official state festival. The founder Ardashir I (226-241) bound the calendar more strictly to the Egyptian 365-day structure and standardized the Nowruz protocol. The Sasanian Nowruz ceremonies lasted six days:

The Lesser Nowruz (Nawrūz-i āmmagān, "the people's Nowruz") ran from Frawardīn 1 to 5. For those five days the people gathered in the public squares, leapt over the fire and were received before the king. The Greater Nowruz (Nawrūz-i xāssagān, "the Nowruz of the elite") fell on Frawardīn 6, the Hordād day. The king took his special throne, the nobles, generals and religious leaders presented their gifts, royal justice was dispensed and most of the prisoners were pardoned. This is the oldest institutional tradition of amnesty in Persian law.

The Sasanian texts, the Bundahishn and the Dēnkard, give Nowruz a cosmic origin. It is the day on which the world was created, the birthday of Kayūmars, the first human, and the day on which the mythical king Jamshīd established the Golden Age on earth. Ferdowsi writes in his Šāhnāme (1010 CE) that Jamshīd founded the festival, and that account became the standard one in Persian royal mythology.

Turkic-Iranian Cultural Continuity

Nowruz does not belong to Iran alone, since it is also an ancient festival of the Turkic world. Nizami Ganjavi writes in his Iskandarnāmeh (ca. 1200 CE) that the Turks had been keeping Nowruz since around 350 BCE. Chinese sources speak of a spring festival among the Xiongnu, in the report General Zhang Qian submitted to the emperor in 119 BCE, and that festival is read as a commemoration of the Turkic Epic of Ergenekon.

In the Epic of Ergenekon the Turks are surrounded by enemies and take refuge in the valley of Ergenekon. Centuries later they melt an iron mountain and come out again, and that emergence falls on March 21. The Bozkurt, the gray wolf who shows the way, leads them back to their freedom. The myth was given official form in the Göktürk period and has been carried through Hun, Uyghur, Seljuk and Ottoman tradition as the Ergenekon-Nowruz conjunction.

Two great Turkic sources of the eleventh century state that Nowruz was the Turkic New Year: Kāšġarī Maḥmūd (Dīwān Lugāt al-Turk, 1072-1074) and Niẓām al-Mulk (Siyāsatnāmeh, 1091). The Jalālī calendar, commissioned by the Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah in 1079 CE and calculated by the mathematician Omar Khayyām, fixed Nowruz as the beginning of the year and worked with a tropical year of 365.24220 days, five hundred years before the Gregorian reform.

The Ottomans kept Nowruz as well. The Sultan received the Nowruz felicitations in the Imperial Palace, the hekimbaşı (chief physician) prepared a special Nevrūziye paste for him every 21st of March, and the Grand Vizier presented the hediyye-i Nevrūziye, the Nowruz gift. The Karakeçili tribe (a branch of the Kayı clan to which the Ottoman dynasty belonged) gathered around the tomb of Ertuğrul Gazi on March 21. Under Sultan Abdülhamid II, the Ertuğrul Gazi commemorations were aligned with Nowruz. The Mesir Festival, celebrated in Manisa since the 16th century, is a direct continuation of the Nowruz tradition.

In the modern Turkic world the festival also has official standing. UNESCO inscribed Nowruz on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009, and the United Nations declared March 21 the International Day of Nowruz. At the Extraordinary Summit of the Organization of Turkic States held in Budapest, Hungary on May 21, 2025, Nowruz was accepted as the common festival of the entire Turkic world. From Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Northern Cyprus, all the way to East Turkestan, it is celebrated under different names (Nooruz, Navrız, Newroz, Naurus, Ulustın Ulu Küni).

Haft-Sin · The Seven-S Table

In modern Iran and Tajikistan the Nowruz table is laid with the Haft-Sin (Seven S), seven symbolic items whose Persian names all begin with the letter "س":

سبزه
Sabze
Sprouted wheat or lentils, a symbol of rebirth
سمنو
Samanu
Pudding of wheat sprouts, a symbol of abundance
سنجد
Senjed
Oleaster fruit, a symbol of love
سیر
Sīr
Garlic, a symbol of health
سیب
Sīb
Apple, a symbol of beauty
سماق
Somāq
Sumac, a symbol of sunrise
سرکه
Serke
Vinegar, a symbol of age and patience

In addition to these, a mirror (to see oneself), a colored egg (procreation), a bowl of water (purity), a goldfish (life), and a copy of the Qur'an or the Dīwān of Hāfiẓ (sacred word) are placed. Turkic tradition has no exact equivalent of the Haft-Sin, and in its place egg painting, leaping over the fire and the semah and halay dances come to the fore.

Sizdah Bedar · The Thirteenth Day in the Open Air

The thirteenth day of Nowruz, Frawardīn 13, is called Sizdah Bedar, which means "passing the thirteenth out in the open". The whole family takes the sabze (sprouted wheat) from the table and goes out into the fields, where the sprouts are released into running water. The gesture means handing the sorrows of the past year over to the water and giving oneself up to the flow of nature. In modern Turkey the same custom survives as "April 13" or, under its local name, the spring picnic.

Zurvan · Infinite Time

Zurvan is the deepest concept in Persian thought and the conceptual forerunner of the pre-Islamic Arab dehr, the Hellenistic aiôn and the Mesopotamian šīmtu. It served as the unofficial state theology of the Sasanian period and stands at the cosmic source of the Bundahishn.

𐬰𐬭𐬎𐬎𐬁𐬥
Zurwān · Zruwān · Zarwān
"TIME" · GENDERLESS · AGELESS · IMMORTAL

Avestan Roots

The word "Zurvan" first appears in the Avesta at Yasna 72.10, but there it is not yet a god; it is simply an adjectival noun meaning "time". In Vendidad 19.13 and 19.16 it appears as zruuānąm akaranąm ("limitless time"), which is a cosmological principle but still not a person. In the Avesta, then, Zurvan is a cosmic category rather than a personified being, and the category is duration itself.

The Pahlavi texts (6th-9th centuries CE) divide Zurvan into two forms: Zurwān ī akanārag ("Limitless Time"), which is absolute duration, eternity itself, and Zurwān ī dērang khwadāy ("Long-Lasting Time"), the vast but finite span within which the cosmic drama unfolds. This twofold structure is a distinction that ancient thought rarely draws: absolute duration, which is eternity, stands against the duration of a cosmic cycle, which is the great year. Plotinus draws a comparable line between aiôn and chronos, and Hindu thought between brahman and kalpa.

Sasanian Zurvanism

In the Sasanian empire (224-651 CE), Zurvan appears personified, mythologized, and even placed at the summit of the pantheon. The version known as "Classical Zurvanism" recounts a creation myth as follows: Zurvan, infinite time, offered sacrifice for 1000 years in order to beget a son from himself. But at the end he fell into doubt: "Will he truly be born?" In that moment of doubt twins were born: Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda) from Zurvan's sacrifice, Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) from Zurvan's doubt. Zurvan had promised the kingship to whichever son was born first, so the rule of 9000 cosmic years fell to Ahriman, who came first, while the final victory was left to Ohrmazd.

This myth conflicts with Zoroastrian orthodoxy, since it renders Ahura Mazda not Creator but created. For this reason the post-Sasanian Pahlavi texts (Dēnkard, 9th-10th centuries CE) reject Zurvanism as a "heresy", yet when rewriting the older texts they could not erase the name of Zurvan. The Armenian theologian Eznik of Kolb (5th century CE, Eḷc Aṅandoc' Refutation) wrote out the full text of the myth for the purposes of Christian polemic, and the Syriac writer Theodore bar Konai (8th century CE, Liber Scholiorum) and the Arabic author al-Shahrastānī (1153 CE, Kitāb al-Milal wa'l-Niḥal) describe Zurvanism as well.

Manichaeism (the religion founded by Mani, 3rd century CE) adopted Zurvan as the apex of its own pantheon: Pater Magnitudinis ("Father of Greatness"). In Mani's Šābuhragān (written for Shāpur I around 240 CE), Zurvan is presented as the absolute source of the cosmos. This is the strongest evidence for how widespread Sasanian Zurvanism was in court circles.

The Comparison of Dehr-Zurvan-Aiôn

The ancient world's notions of impersonal cosmic time come down along three main lines: the Indian kāla and brahman, the Persian Zurvan and dehr, and the Greek aiôn and chronos. The three run parallel to one another, but each of them puts the emphasis in a different place.

Concept Origin Character Ethics
Zurvan (Persian) Avesta · pre-1000 BCE Twofold structure, limitless and finite, able to beget twins Superior; its doubt begets evil
Dehr (Pre-Islamic Arab) The Mu'allaqāt · BCE-CE transition Absolute duration; impersonal; the blind force of death Beyond; neither good nor evil, only destructive
Aiôn (Greek) Fragments of Heraclitus · 6th c. BCE Infinite duration; image of a playing child Beyond; objective, impersonal
Anankê (Greek) Plato's Timaeus · 4th c. BCE Necessity; the force that constrains the demiurge Beneath; coercive, blind
Heimarmenê (Stoic) Zeno and after · 3rd c. BCE Logos-governed rational fate Within; rational, intelligible structure

Zurvan stands closest to dehr, though it is the more thoroughly personified of the two, since Zurvan has a mythology and dehr has none. Zurvan is the Persian and Zoroastrian counterpart of dehr, but sacrifice is offered to Zurvan and never to dehr. Aiôn also stands close to Zurvan, yet Aiôn creates nothing and remains a category, whereas Zurvan can act as a figure within a myth. Between them these three concepts mark out the Mediterranean, Iranian and Indian inheritance of impersonal time.

The Mēnōg ī Khrad (6th century CE, "The Spirit of Wisdom") writes: "Ahura Mazda created the universe through the bounty of Infinite Time." This sentence is the soft version of Zurvanism: Zurvan is not the father of Ahura Mazda, but the source of creation. In R. C. Zaehner's formulation (Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, 1955): "Zurvan is the principle that Zoroastrian theology could neither accept nor renounce."

The Three-Thousand-Year Epochs · The Cosmology of the Bundahishn

The Pahlavi text Bundahishn (8th-9th centuries CE, "Primal Creation") divides the history of the universe into four epochs of 3000 years each. The 12,000 years end in Frashokereti, the Last Judgment and Renewal. It is one of the most systematic cosmologies the ancient world produced.

The Four Epochs

According to the Bundahishn, Ahura Mazda created the universe in four stages. Each stage lasts 3000 years, and the four together make 12,000. The scheme resembles the Hindu yuga system (4 yugas × 432,000 years), but it covers a far shorter span and it runs in a straight line rather than in a circle. That linearity is often regarded as the origin of the Judeo-Christian conception of time.

EPOCH 1
Bundahishn
3000 years · "Spiritual Creation"
Ahura Mazda creates all of his creations in their archetypal forms on the menōg (spiritual, intelligible) plane: sky, waters, earth, plants, animals, humans, fire. Ahriman is still asleep. Nothing moves yet, and everything exists as thought alone.
EPOCH 2
Gētīg Creation
3000 years · "Material Creation"
Ahura Mazda brings his creations down to the gētīg (material) plane. Gayōmard, the first human, takes his physical form. Animals, plants, and stars are made concrete. Ahriman wakes and prepares his attack.
EPOCH 3
Gumēzišn
3000 years · "Mixture · Age of Struggle"
Ahriman attacks the material world. Death enters the world. Gayōmard resists for 30 years and then dies; from his seed are born the first human couple (Mašya and Mašyānī). Good and evil mingle in the world; the ethical struggle begins. Zoroaster is born toward the end of this epoch.
EPOCH 4
Frashokereti
3000 years · "Separation and Renewal"
After Zoroaster, every 1000 years a savior (Saoshyant) appears. At the end Ahriman is defeated and the dead are raised. Every human passes through a river of molten metal, which feels like milk to the good and scorches the wicked. The universe is then renewed and death is undone. This is the end of world history, understood not as annihilation but as completion.

Frashokereti ("Making-Perfect") is regarded as the origin of Judeo-Christian-Islamic eschatology. The resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment, the passage through molten metal, the figure of the savior (Saoshyant, who becomes the Maschiach in Jewish tradition, the Christos in Christian tradition and the Mahdi in Islamic) and the universal renewal are all of Zoroastrian provenance. The intensive Jewish contact with Persian culture during the Babylonian Exile (586-538 BCE), and Achaemenid tolerance (the return of the Jews after Cyrus's conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE), are regarded as the channels through which these ideas passed into Jewish thought. Few transfers of ideas in the ancient world had consequences this wide.

The Egyptian-Persian-Turkic Triangle · The Journey of the 365 Days

The Zoroastrian calendar was taken over from Egypt and passed on to the Turkic world, so that the calendrical legacies of three ancient cultures met in a single geography.

EGYPT
The 365-Day Civil Calendar
ca. 3000 BCE
PERSIA / ZOROASTRIAN
12 × 30 + 5 Gathas
ca. 525 BCE (Cambyses)
TURKIC · NOWRUZ
Ergenekon Yenigün
ca. 350 BCE (Nizami) / 1072 CE (Kāšġarī)

The Transfer from Egypt to Persia

S. Stern (Calendars in Antiquity, 2012) and W. Hartner (1985) document this transfer in detail. Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BCE, and the Achaemenid empire took over the Egyptian 365-day civil calendar. Egypt had been using that structure since around 3000 BCE: 12 months of 30 days plus 5 epagomenal days. The Persians kept the structure but changed its content, putting the Yazatas, who are abstract divine beings, in the place of the Egyptian decan-gods. Hartner dates the transfer to around 503 BCE, while Stern places it somewhere between 525 and 430 BCE.

The Cappadocian calendar (Anatolia, 2nd-3rd centuries BCE) is living evidence of that transfer. It runs 12 months of 30 days plus 5 epagomenal days, and its month-names are Hellenized forms of the Persian Yazata names: Artana = Frawardīn, Aratata = Ardibehišt, Apomenama = Bahmanagān, and so on. The Persian system therefore reached as far as Anatolia, which means the Persians carried the structure they had taken from Egypt westward as well.

The Transfer from Persia to the Turks

The entry of the Nowruz festival into Turkic culture has a complex history. The standard Turkic Nowruz literature (Sinan Meydan, Cumhuriyet 2026; Çay 1985; the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam) sees two parallel sources:

(1) The source internal to Turkic culture is the Ergenekon Yenigün tradition that comes down from the Hun, Göktürk and Uyghur periods. The Chinese general Zhang Qian described a spring festival of the Xiongnu in 119 BCE, and that description is read as the reflection of the Epic of Ergenekon in the Chinese records. Nizami Ganjavi writes in his Iskandarnāmeh that the Turkic Nowruz had been celebrated since around 350 BCE. Three motifs stand at the center of that festival: the forging of iron, when the Khaqan strikes iron on the anvil, the leap over the fire, which recalls the Ergenekon fire, and the Bozkurt, the totem who shows the way.

(2) The second source is the interaction between Persian and Turkic culture. From the Seljuk period onward (11th century CE), the Persian Nowruz and the Turkic Yenigün grew into each other. Kāšġarī Maḥmūd (1072-1074) writes that the Turkic calendar began with Nowruz; Niẓām al-Mulk (Siyāsatnāmeh, 1091) describes the Nowruz ceremonies at the Seljuk court. The Jalālī calendar (Malik-Shah, Omar Khayyām, 1079) officially brings the Persian Nowruz calculation into the Turkic-Islamic world. The Ottomans preserved the same continuity in the Nawrūz-i Sulṭānī, in the Karakeçili ceremonies and in the Ertuğrul commemorations held under Abdülhamid II.

These two sources do not exclude each other. The Turkic Nowruz has an origin of its own, attested in the Ergenekon tradition and in the Chinese records, but centuries of contact with the Persian and Iranian world enriched it and gave it its shape. The 2025 declaration by the Organization of Turkic States that Nowruz is a "common festival" can be read as the official recognition of this twofold source.

The Shared Legacy of the Three Cultures

The legacy of this triangle can be set out under a few headings. The 365-day year comes from Egypt. The idea that the beginning of the year is a cosmic gate belongs to the Persian and the Turkic tradition alike. Fire ritual appears on the Persian side in Sade and Ādargān and on the Turkic side in the Ergenekon fire. Water ritual lives on in the Persian Tirgān and Sizdah Bedar and in the Turkic Hıdırellez and March thread. Hıdırellez, which Şira has worked on, is a direct heir of this triangle, since the Persian water festival Tirgān, the guiding Bozkurt-Khızır of Turkic tradition and the Egyptian Wepet Renpet, the opening of the year, all come together in Anatolia on May 6.

Cosmological Meaning · Asha and the Calendar

At the theological core of the Zoroastrian calendar lies a single claim: time is the visible form of cosmic order (Asha).

Asha · Cosmic Order and the Calendar

Aša is the central concept of Zoroastrian thought and is cognate with Sanskrit ṛta, which comes from the same Indo-European root as Latin ars, artus and ordo. It means truth, righteousness, cosmic order, ethical measure and the purity of fire at once, and these are not separate concepts but different planes on which the one principle shows itself. Time is how Aša appears in duration, so that the sequence of the days, the cycle of the seasons and the motion of the stars all belong to a single cosmic order.

For this reason the calendar in Persian thought is an ethical instrument. To know which Yazata belongs to each day, to perform the right ritual and to catch the right moment is to take part in Aša. To live outside Asha is the work of Ahriman, and it shows itself in not knowing one's Yazata, in mistaking the season and in missing the festival. Time in this system is a moral domain.

The Symmetry of Light and Darkness

The two great festivals of the Persian calendar fall on cosmic points of equilibrium: Nowruz (the spring equinox) and Mehregan (the autumnal equinox). On both days night and day are equal, so each marks a threshold at which light and darkness stand balanced. This is the dialectical heart of Persian thought: good and evil are equal forces, but the final victory belongs to the good. The equinoxes hold that balance, while Sade, the great fire at the height of winter, and Tirgān, the water festival at the height of summer, celebrate light and water at the middle of each half-year.

The Fire Cult and Time

Fire is the most visible symbol of the Zoroastrian religion: in the Atash Behram temples the sacred fire is maintained without going out for centuries. The fire cult is bound to the calendar on three levels. Daily, the fire rituals are renewed on the day of Ādar, the 9th day of every month. Monthly, the month of Ādar, the 9th month, brings the fire cult to its peak, and the Ādargān festival, when the Ādar day falls within the Ādar month, is the day on which the household fire is renewed. Annually, the festival of Sade (Dae 10) lights great fires in the public squares at the height of mid-winter, and Nowruz (Frawardīn 1) opens the new year with the fire of the sun. Fire is the visible form of cosmic order, and the calendar sets the rhythm at which that fire returns.

The Meaning of Atomized Time

Other calendars group time into clusters: the Hebrew 7-day week, the Egyptian 10-day decan, the Babylonian 30-day half-month. The Zoroastrian calendar instead builds the month out of 30 individual units, and each day forms a category of its own with its own guardian and its own character. No other calendar of the ancient world works this way.

Theologically this structure means that no two days are cosmologically alike. When a Persian asked in the morning what day it was, the answer gave him not simply a date but a position in the cosmos. To say "today is the Tir day of the month of Frawardīn" is to say "in the month of the ancestors, on the day of the rain-star", which fixes the day on two levels at once. The calendar therefore carries the ethical quality of time in its own vocabulary.

Şira's Note · In the Context of a Complex Theory of Time

The Persian calendar can be read as a conceptual forerunner of the modern Lorentzian account of time dilation. The two forms of Zurvan, akanārag and dērang, the limitless and the long-lasting, run structurally parallel to the two time scales of Einstein's special relativity, proper time and coordinate time. Ancient cosmology works here as the intuitive prelude to modern physics, since both hold that time is not a single flow and may run on several strata at once.

Primary and Secondary Sources

This reconstruction rests on the classical, academic and technical literature listed below, which runs from the Avesta and the Pahlavi texts to modern Iranian studies and the Turkic Nowruz scholarship.

Şira Nur Uysal Astrology School · @sira.uysal

sirauysal.com/en/tools/calendars/zoroastrian/

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Zoroastrian Month, Day and Feast Index

This index lists the twelve months and the thirty day-names of the Zoroastrian calendar in their Avestan, Pahlavi and modern Persian forms, together with the Yazata each month is named for and the feast days that fall within it.

The 30 Day Names each dedicated to a Yazata

Days in the Zoroastrian month are named rather than numbered, and when the name of the day matches the name of the month, that month's feast is kept.

1 Hormazd
2 Bahman
3 Ardibehišt
4 Šahrīwar
5 Sepandārmad
6 Hordād
7 Amordād
8 Dae-Ādar
9 Ādar
10 Ābān
11 Khor
12 Māh
13 Tīr
14 Goš
15 Dae-Mehr
16 Mehr
17 Sroš
18 Raşn
19 Frawardīn
20 Bahrām
21 Rām
22 Bād
23 Dae-Dīn
24 Dīn
25 Ard
26 Aštād
27 Asmān
28 Zām
29 Māraspand
30 Anīrān

Frawardīn (Farvardin / فَرْوَرْدِين) Fravašinąm / Frawardīn

The Yazata of the month is Fravaši, who covers the ancestors and the guardian spirits. In Avestan a fravaši is the immortal guardian spirit of an individual and also the soul of an ancestor, the sacred essence of every human being, created before birth, and it runs parallel to the Vedic Pitṛs. The month falls in early spring, opens with the equinox and runs from late March to late April. It is the first month of the year, and Nowruz is kept on its first day, which is March 21 in the Fasli calendar. In Old Persian tradition the souls of the dead, the fravaši, come down to the world during the last ten days before Nowruz, when families lay sacred tables and distribute food to the poor. This custom is the Persian counterpart of the Egyptian motif of the return of the dead with Osiris. The spring equinox is the day of cosmic renewal, and in the Avesta the month opens with Hamaspaθmaēdaya Gāhānbār, the sixth and last seasonal festival.

1 Hormazd (Nowruz)
New Year's Day. The day-name Hormazd (Ahura Mazda) meets the month-name Frawardīn, which makes it the most sacred conjunction of the year.
6 Hordād Sāl
Sasanian tradition keeps this day as the birthday of Zoroaster and counts it as the Greater Nowruz.
19 Frawardīn-Frawardīn (Farvardegan)
The day-name coincides with the month-name, so the day is a festival on which the ancestors are honored.

Ardibehišt (Ordibehesht / اُرْدِيبِهِشْت) Aṣ̌avahišta / Ardwahišt

The Yazata of the month is Aša Vahišta, cosmic order and "Best Truth". He is the second of the Seven Amesha Spentas. Aša is cognate with Sanskrit ṛta and with Latin ars and artus, and it means cosmic order, truth and righteousness at once. Fire is the visible symbol of Aša, and the Atash Behram temples ("Fire of Aša") carry his name. The month falls in spring and runs from late April to late May. It is the second month of the year and reaches the peak of spring. It is bound up in particular with the fire cult, and in the Sasanian period special ceremonies were held in the Atash Behram temples. Maidyōzarem Gāhānbār, the first seasonal festival of the year and the middle of spring, is celebrated this month. The spring pasture opens, the animals give birth and the grain begins to ripen.

3 Ardibehišt-Ardibehišt
The month-name and the day-name coincide. It is the day of truth and fire, and the temples are visited.
11 Beginning of Maidyōzarem Gāhānbār
The first seasonal festival of the year. It falls in mid-spring and lasts five days (days 41-45).

Khordād (Khordād / خُرْدَاد) Hauruuatāt / Hordād

The Yazata of the month is Haurvatāt, wholeness and "Health and Completion". He is the third of the Seven Amesha Spentas, and his name means wholeness, soundness and health. Water is his visible symbol, and springs, rivers and rain stand under his protection. He is invoked together with his companion Amərətāt ("immortality"), and the two of them personify bodily and spiritual wholeness. The month falls in early summer and runs from late May to late June. It is the third month of the year. The water cult reaches its peak now, and ritual bathing in rivers, springs and pools becomes widespread. The month also heralds the Tirgān festival, because the month of Tir follows immediately and the cult of Tištrya, the rain star, then reaches its height. The first fruits of the summer harvest are gathered in this month.

6 Khordād Sāl
The birth-anniversary of Zoroaster in an alternative tradition. The main reckoning places it on Frawardīn 6.
6 Khordād-Khordād
The month-name and the day-name coincide. Water is honored, gifts are given, and the day counts as auspicious for marriage.

Tīr (Tir / تِير) Tištrya / Tīr

The Yazata of the month is Tištrya, the rain-bringing star Sirius. Tištrya brings the rain and is the cosmic warrior who defeats drought. In the Tištar Yašt of the Avesta he fights the drought demon Apaoša; he is beaten at first, but with the help of Ahura Mazda he wins and brings the rain. He runs parallel to the Vedic Tiṣya and to the Mesopotamian Mul.Apin star system. The month falls at the height of summer and runs from late June to late July. It is the fourth month of the year. This is the hottest period of the year, and for that very reason it is the strongest month of the water cult, since rain is asked for when the drought is at its worst. The Tirgān festival, kept on the 13th day of Tir, is among the most joyful in the whole Persian calendar: people splash water on one another, tie silken threads and dance by the waterside. The festival is the Persian version of the Babylonian and Sumerian link between Sirius and rain, and it counts as the eastern sibling of the Mesopotamian Sothic cycle.

11 Beginning of Maidyōšahem Gāhānbār
The second seasonal festival of the year. It falls at midsummer and lasts five days.
13 Tirgān
The water festival, on which people splash water on one another. In the tisht-bandi custom a silken thread is bound on the wrist and later released into the water, and old garments are ritually washed.
13 Tīr-Tīr
The month-name and the day-name coincide, and the day falls together with Tirgān.

Amordād (Mordād / مُرْدَاد) Amərətāt / Amurdād

The Yazata of the month is Amərətāt, immortality. He is the fourth of the Seven Amesha Spentas, and his name means immortality or deathlessness. Vegetation is his visible symbol: trees, flowers and crops belong to him. He is invoked together with his companion Haurvatāt, one standing for health and wholeness and the other for immortality, and together they express the completion of bodily and spiritual life. The month falls in late summer and runs from late July to late August. It is the fifth month of the year, and in popular speech it is called Mordād. The first fruit harvest and the ripening of the vineyards fall in this month, and preparation for the grape harvest begins. Maidyōšahem Gāhānbār, the second seasonal festival of the year and the middle of summer, is kept here. The name has had an odd history: in modern Persian mordād means "dead", while the original amərətāt says exactly the opposite, deathlessness. In the passage from Avestan to modern Persian the privative prefix "a-" was lost.

7 Amordād-Amordād
The month-name and the day-name coincide. It is the day of vegetation and immortality.

Šahrīwar (Shahrivar / شَهْرِيوَر) Xšaθra Vairya / Šahrēwar

The Yazata of the month is Xšaθra Vairya, sovereignty and the "Desired Kingdom". He is the fifth of the Seven Amesha Spentas, and his name means the desired kingdom or the wished-for dominion. Metal, and silver in particular, is his visible symbol, and tools, weapons and shields stand under his protection. He is the Amesha Spenta of just rule and equitable sovereignty. The month falls in early autumn and runs from late August to late September. It is the sixth month of the year. The Old Persian kings concentrated their state ceremonies, coronations and tax collection in this month, because Xšaθra is also the cosmic counterpart of kingship. Paitišahem Gāhānbār, the third seasonal festival of the year and the end of the grain harvest, is kept in this month, and the grain stores are filled.

4 Šahrīwar-Šahrīwar
The month-name and the day-name coincide. It is the day of metals, tools and the king's justice.
26 Beginning of Paitišahem Gāhānbār
The third seasonal festival of the year. It falls in early autumn, at the end of the grain harvest.

Mehr (Mehr / مِهْر) Miθra / Mihr

The Yazata of the month is Miθra, who holds the covenant, the sun and the "Treaty". Miθra, or Mihr, is one of the oldest and most powerful Yazatas of the ancient Iranian pantheon. He goes back to the pre-Avestan Indo-Iranian period: he appears as Mitra in the Vedas and is named among the Mitanni gods in the Tushratta letters of the 14th century BCE. He guards the covenant and punishes those who break their word. Later he becomes a solar Yazata, and the festival of Mehregan carries his name. The Roman Mithraic mysteries grew out of this Persian Miθra. The month falls in autumn and runs from late September to late October. It is the seventh month of the year and holds the autumnal equinox. Mehregan is the second greatest festival of the Persian calendar after Nowruz, and it is kept on the Mihr day of the Mihr month, the 16th. In the pre-Sasanian Parthian period Mehregan counted as the true beginning of the year, at the autumnal equinox, which is characteristic of the Turko-Mongol steppes as well. Nowruz moved ahead of it under the Sasanians, but Mehregan went on being used in royal ceremonies, in tax collection and in the king's distribution of gifts to the people. It is the source of the Roman Mithraic cult. Ayāθrem Gāhānbār, the fourth seasonal festival of the year, is kept at the end of this month, when the nomadic tribes return to their winter quarters and the flocks are brought into the stables.

16 Mehregan
The Mihr day falls within the Mihr month. This makes it the greatest autumn festival and the old New Year of the Parthian period, and it lasts five days.
26 Beginning of Ayāθrem Gāhānbār
The fourth seasonal festival of the year. It falls in late autumn and celebrates the return of the nomadic herds.

Ābān (Aban / آبَان) Apąm Napāt / Anāhita / Ābān

The Yazata of the month is Apąm Napāt, the "child of the waters", who later merged with Anāhita, the Yazata of pure waters. Apąm Napāt is the cosmic fire that burns beneath the waters, the underground source of light. After the merger he becomes the Yazata of fertility, pure water and the feminine. The cult of Anāhita turned into a state cult under the Achaemenids, and her temples spread across the whole of Iran, the most famous of them at Bishapur. The month falls in late autumn and runs from late October to late November. It is the eighth month of the year, and "Ābān" means simply "waters". The Ābāngān festival, kept on the Ābān day of the Ābān month, the 10th, is the high point of reverence for water, rivers and springs. The Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II (404-358 BCE) embraced the cult of Anāhita officially, and royal oaths that had until then been offered to Ahura Mazda alone were now offered to Mihr and Anāhita as well. The autumn rains begin in this month, which makes it critical for the crops.

10 Ābāngān
The Ābān day of the Ābān month. Water is honored with communal rituals along the banks of rivers and lakes.

Ādar (Azar / آذَر) Ātar / Ādur

The Yazata of the month is Ātar, the sacred fire. Ātar is the visible representation of Aša Vahišta, and the Avesta names him the "son" of Ahura Mazda. There are five categories of sacred fire: Atash Behram, the highest, then Atash Ādarān, Atash Dādgāh, the household fire and the fire of nature. Every Zoroastrian temple is built as an Ātash kadeh, a "fire-house". The month falls in early winter and runs from late November to late December. It is the ninth month of the year, and its name appears as Ādar or Azar, meaning "fire". As the year enters its coldest period the fire cult reaches its peak, and the temples keep the fire burning day and night. The Ādargān festival, kept on the Ādar day of the Ādar month, the 9th, is the day on which the household fire is renewed.

9 Ādargān
The Ādar day of the Ādar month. The household fire is renewed: the old fire is put out and a new one is kindled.

Dae (Dey / دِي) Dadvah / Ahura Mazdā / Dadwah

The Yazata of the month is Ahura Mazdā, the Creator, the "Wise Lord". Ahura Mazdā is the supreme creator god of the Zoroastrian religion, the source of all good and the maker of all creation. The opposing power, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, is not a being he created but the destructive principle that entered the cosmos after creation. The name of this month, Dadvah ("Creator"), is an epithet, because the actual name of Ahura Mazda is not spoken and an epithet stands in its place, much as Jewish and Christian tradition says "Adonai" or "Lord". The month falls in winter and runs from late December to late January. It is the tenth month of the year, it comes at mid-winter, and it stands apart from all the others as the only month dedicated to Ahura Mazda. In the other months the month-name coincides with a day-name on one day only, which yields a single festival. In Dae there are four days dedicated to Ahura Mazda, since days 1, 8, 15 and 23 all bear the name "Hormazd". Dae therefore holds roughly one festival a week and is the most densely ritual month of the year. The true beginning of the Old Persian year may once have been Dae: in the 9th-century Pahlavi text Zādspram the 77-year-and-40-day lifespan of Zoroaster works out only if Dae is taken as the first month (Bahari-Wikipedia). The winter solstice falls in this month. The Sade fire festival, kept on Dae 10, celebrates the day that stands 50 days short of Nowruz, and it is the Persian parallel to the Turkic "Çile" and the Celtic "Imbolc".

1 Hormazd 1
The first Hormazd day of the month of Dae, the day of Ahura Mazda.
8 Hormazd 2 / Dae-Ādar
This day is both an Ahura Mazda day and a fire day, so it carries a doubled sacrality.
10 Sade
The mid-winter fire festival. It is kept 50 days before Nowruz, and great fires are lit in the public squares.
15 Hormazd 3
This is the third Ahura Mazda day of the month.
16 Beginning of Maidyārem Gāhānbār
The fifth seasonal festival of the year. It falls at the height of winter.
23 Hormazd 4
This is the fourth Ahura Mazda day of the month.

Bahman (Bahman / بَهْمَن) Vohu Manah / Wahman

The Yazata of the month is Vohu Manah, "Good Thought". He is the first of the Seven Amesha Spentas, or the second if Ahura Mazda is counted among them. His name means good thought or good mind, and it heads the fundamental categories of Zoroastrian ethics: humata, hūxta, huvarsta, "good thoughts, good words, good deeds". Animals are his visible symbol, above all the cow, the sacred animal that the Avesta calls geuš urvan, "the soul of the cow". The month falls in late winter and runs from late January to late February. It is the eleventh month of the year. Traditionally observant Zoroastrians eat no meat during this month, and beef in particular is strictly forbidden. The Bahmangān festival, kept on the Bahman day of the Bahman month, the 2nd, honors those who care for animals and the shepherds. Since this is the last month of winter, preparation for spring begins in it. Among Kurds and Iranians the Sade fire festival is kept in this month as well, on Bahman 10 as an alternative to Dae 10.

2 Bahmangān
The Bahman day of the Bahman month. It is the day of animals and of good thought.

Esfand (Esfand / اِسْفَنْد) Spəntā Ārmaiti / Spandārmad

The Yazata of the month is Spəntā Ārmaiti, "Holy Devotion" and Mother Earth. She is the sixth of the Seven Amesha Spentas, and her name means holy devotion or pious adherence. Earth is her visible symbol, fertile, protective and feminine. Ārmaiti is the only feminine figure among the Amesha Spentas, since the other six are masculine, and she is the Persian version of the Indo-European Mother Earth motif. The month falls between late winter and early spring and runs from late February to late March. It is the twelfth and last month of the year, and it carries the passage into spring. The Sepandārmazgān festival, kept on the Esfand day of the Esfand month, the 5th, is women's day: husbands give gifts to their wives, and women are honored as the mistresses of the house. In modern Iran it survives as a festival that blends Valentine's Day with Mother's Day. At the close of Esfand come the 5 Gatha days, and then Nowruz begins.

5 Sepandārmazgān
The Esfand day of the Esfand month. It is known as the Iranian Valentine's Day and honors the earth and women.
25 Beginning of Hamaspaθmaēdaya Gāhānbār
The sixth and last seasonal festival of the year. It is completed by the Gatha days and covers the 5 days before Nowruz.

The year runs 12 × 30 days plus the 5 Gatha days, and Nowruz falls at the spring equinox.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Zoroastrian / Persian calendar

How is the Zoroastrian year structured into 12 months and 5 Gatha days?

The Zoroastrian calendar consists of twelve thirty-day months, each named after an Amesha Spenta or a Yazata, followed by five intercalary Gatha days appended at the end of the year. The Gatha days bear the names of the five sections of the Gāthās, which are Ahunavaitī, Uštavaitī, Spentā-Mainyu, Vohu-Khshathrā and Vahištōištī, and they count as especially sacred because the souls of the dead (fravashis) return during them. This 365-day structure, like the Egyptian civil year, does not insert a leap day and so drifts slowly against the tropical year.

Who are the Yazatas after whom the thirty days of the month are named?

Each of the thirty days of the Zoroastrian month is dedicated to a particular Yazata or divine being. The first day belongs to Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazdā), and the six Amesha Spentas follow: Vohu Manah, Asha Vahišta, Khshathra Vairya, Spenta Ārmaiti, Haurvatāt and Amərətāt. Mithra, Anāhitā, Tištrya, Sraoša, Rashnu, Verethraghna, Vāyu and others hold the remaining days. When the day-name and the month-name coincide, that day is celebrated as a Jashan or name-day festival, which gives twelve major Jashans a year. The full list is preserved in the Sīrōzā ("Thirty Days") of the Avesta.

What are the six Gāhānbār festivals and what do they commemorate?

The six Gāhānbār are seasonal festivals that mark the six stages of Ahura Mazdā's creation: Maidyōzarem (mid-spring, creation of the sky), Maidyōshahem (midsummer, creation of the waters), Paitishahem (late summer, creation of the earth), Ayāthrem (early autumn, creation of plants), Maidyārem (midwinter, creation of animals), and Hamaspathmaēdaya (end of year, creation of humanity). Each festival lasts five days and is accompanied by communal meals, the recitation of the Yasna, and acts of charity. The cycle is described in the Avesta, especially in the Visperad and the Bundahišn.

What is Nowruz and why does it fall at the spring equinox?

Nowruz, which literally means "new day", is the Zoroastrian and Persian new year, and it is celebrated at the moment of the vernal equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator into Aries. It marks the renewal of creation and the symbolic victory of light over darkness, central themes of Mazdean cosmology. Nowruz has been continuously observed for at least two and a half millennia and was added to the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009; it remains the great festival of the Iranian and Central Asian world.

What is Zurvanism and how did it shape Zoroastrian conceptions of time?

Zurvanism is a current within Zoroastrianism, attested especially in Sasanian sources, in which Zurvān, infinite or boundless Time, counts as the primordial principle from which both Ohrmazd (good) and Ahriman (evil) emerge. It introduces a strongly cosmological view of time as the medium within which the cosmic conflict unfolds across a fixed dramatic period of twelve thousand years, divided into four three-thousand-year ages. Although later orthodox Zoroastrianism rejected the Zurvanite genealogy, the dualistic temporal framework deeply influenced the religious calendar and eschatology, as preserved in Pahlavi texts such as the Bundahišn and the Dēnkard.

What are the principal Avestan sources for the Zoroastrian calendar?

The principal sources are the Sīrōzā, which lists the dedications of the thirty days; the Yašts, hymns to specific Yazatas associated with the calendar; the Vidēvdād (Vendīdād), with its ritual and legal prescriptions for sacred days; and the Pahlavi Bundahišn, which provides the cosmological framework of creation in six stages corresponding to the six Gāhānbār. Later Middle Persian and Persian texts such as the Mēnōg ī Khrad, the Dādestān ī Dēnīg, and Bīrūnī's Āthār al-Bāqiya (eleventh century CE) preserve crucial information on calendar reform and intercalation.