Calender System

We are in the year of 2010, Common Era.

During my recent trip to Hyderabad, I attended the rock show that was held at IIIT. I was hanging out with the guys from Blind Image(metal band from Chennai) backstage, waiting for the rock show to get underway. I remained a mute spectator for most part of the conversations that were held when Kitha(bass player for Shruti Haasan band), broached the topic of Anno Domini and how one ought to use After Christ instead. This was my chance to hog the limelight and make my presence felt.

B.C and A.D are designations used to represent the number of years before and after the birth of Christ. There is a popular misconception that because B.C stands for Before Christ, A.D would stand for After Death. If that were the case, then thirty odd years of Christ's life wouldn't be in any era.

A.D actually stands for Anno Domini, a medieval Latin term slated as In the year of (the/Our) Lord).It is sometimes specified more fully as Anno Domini Nostri Iesu (Jesu) Christi ("In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ").The Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus, and was later popularized by an English monk Bede(672/673–May 26, 735) in his book Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People). In this book he used anno ab incarnatione Domini (in the year from the incarnation of the Lord) or anno incarnationis dominicae (in the year of the incarnation of the Lord) to denote the era after the birth of Christ and ante incarnationis dominicae tempus (before the time of the incarnation of the Lord) for the era before Christ. However, only the former mentioned usage became popular while the latter era is now commonly referred to as Before Christ. In this dating system, a year before Christ would be written as 350 B.C (for example) and the current year would be A.D 2009.

The calender system that is now gaining popularity (in fact it has already done so) in most parts of the world is that of Common Era. The numbering of years under this system is similar to the one used in the A.D system sans the reference to Jesus Christ. This system is being increasingly adopted in Western world, especially by non-Christians who don't believe Jesus that is their lord and in communist countries, most notably China where the Common Era system was adopted back in 1949. Under this system, the year 350 before Christ would be written as 350 BCE(“Before the Common Era” or “Before the Current Era”) and the current year as 2009 CE(Common Era).

While most publications still use A.D, because of A.D.'s obvious Christian overtones, many(including me) prefer to use the more secular abbreviation C.E. My reason for the using the latter has got more to do with me being an agnostic than a non-Christian, and I suggest my friends who consider themselves to be agnostics or atheists, and followers of other religions as well to start using the C.E system to avoid being politically incorrect.