Indian Saka Converter

India adopted the Saka calendar as its national civil calendar on 22 March 1957, a date picked deliberately: it was 1 Chaitra 1879 in Saka reckoning. The recommendation came from a reform committee chaired by the physicist Meghnad Saha, set up because dozens of regional panchangas disagreed about what day it actually was. Nothing religious was replaced. The Saka calendar simply took its place beside the Gregorian one in the Gazette of India, on government paperwork, and in the date read out at the top of All India Radio bulletins.

The rules fit in a paragraph. The era starts in 78 CE, so the Saka year is the Gregorian year minus 78 from 1 Chaitra onward and minus 79 before it. That second half is where most hand written converters go wrong, because they subtract 78 all year long. Chaitra 1 lands on 22 March, or on 21 March when the Gregorian year is a leap year. Chaitra runs 30 days, 31 in a leap year; Vaisakha through Bhadra have 31 days each; Asvina through Phalguna have 30. Since the Saka leap year is pinned to the Gregorian one, the two counts never drift apart.

This page converts in both directions and adds the weekday, the position within the Saka year, and whether that year runs 365 or 366 days. Two results you can check against any source: 15 May 2026 is 25 Vaisakha 1948 Saka, and 1 January 2000 is 11 Pausa 1921. The supported window runs from 1583 to 2999 in the Gregorian direction, which is 1505 to 2920 going the other way. What it will not give you is the lunisolar panchanga. Diwali, Holi and the tithis depend on lunar phases and stay outside its scope, as do Vikram Samvat and the Bengali and Tamil calendars, each with rules of its own.