Month of the year on mei

[Nicolas Maestre]

Hi everyone,

 

I’m a little confused when it comes to dates on mei regarding the month of the year.

Up until today, I thought it was pretty clear, according to several sources that I could find online such as this one, that the first month of the year was roughly starting around Feb. 5th.

But I just found out that on Aoijapan (aoi art), the owner always directly translates months like 1 gatsu = January, 2 gatsu = February and so on.

 

So what’s your opinion? Is there a “definite” answer somewhere?

 

I know it’s a detail, but I’d appreciate your input.

 

Thanks 😊

[SteveM]

Nowadays everyone uses the Gregorian Calendar, where ichi gatsu = January. 

Before Japan switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1873, they used the lunar calendar, which means  ichi gatsu = sometime in late January or February depending on the year. 

 

When translating old (say, pre-1873) signatures, its a pain to try to be faithful to the lunar calendar, so even on old inscriptions we (or, I should say "I") tend to just translate ichi gatsu = January, and so on. It may not be chronologically accurate, but there is a linguistic simplicity and consistency to it that most people find more satisfying rather than trying to figure out when exactly the months started 300 years ago.

 

Also, many swords carry inscriptions that bear auspicious dates (February and August, typically) rather than the exact date the sword was made. A swordsmith may have made a sword in April or May, but the swordsmith would still inscribe it with "a lucky day in the second month" because it was customary to do so (or the client may have wished it that way). So given the auspicious nature of the dates on many swords, it is something of a fools errand to try to faithfully transpose lunar dates into Gregorian dates, and better to consistently use Gregorian dates. 

[Toryu2020]

If you must be precise then the Nihonto Meikan and the Nihonto Kantei Hikketsu list the nengo and the Gregorian date it went into effect...

 

-t

[Nicolas Maestre]

Thanks both!

 

Yeah I understand that it's clearly not an important matter. But I don't know, I'm kinda obsessed with accuracy in general so 😁.

 

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my question 😉