In 1999 the Sikh Calendar was standardized so that annual events and holidays occur on fixed dates. Sikh events were decoupled from the old, imperfect Bikrami Calendar, and matched to the ‘tropical year’ so holidays would occur at the right times in the right seasons.

The Sikh Calendar is called the Nanakshahi Calendar. You can subscribe to this calendar as a feed directly from Google, and then you can stay on top of all your Sikh Holidays.

The Nanakshahi Calendar [XML]

And here’s the same calendar, embedded below.

Now, the funny part is, all dates save one were moved to the more precise calendar. The one date left to conform to the old calendar is Guru Nanak’s Birthday! So if you subscribe to the Google Calendar above, you’ll get all the Gurpurab, or high holiday, dates except for the birthday of the founder of Sikhism.

You can read a bit more about this calendar at Sikhs.org and sikhlink.net, and the Sikh Coalition. The Sikhs.org page lists all the dates, and points out that only Guru Nanak’s birthday is left on the old system. I wonder why?