penanggalan

Penanggalan is the Malay and Indonesian term for calendar or dating. It denotes the system by which time is organized into days, months, and years, and the conventions used to assign dates to events. The word emphasizes the chronological aspect of timekeeping, rather than the social or cultural features of a calendar.

The concept covers both civil calendars used in daily life and various religious, ceremonial, or historical dating systems. In Indonesian and Malaysian usage, penanggalan can refer to a calendar itself as well as the act of dating events, and it often appears in discussions of chronology and era designations.

Calendar traditions in the region are diverse. The Gregorian calendar is used for most civil purposes, while the Islamic Hijri calendar governs the dating of religious occasions such as Ramadan and Hajj. Traditional calendars also exist, notably the Javanese penanggalan (penanggalan Jawa), which combines lunar and solar elements and includes the Pasaran five-day cycle to determine auspicious days. Similar traditional systems have been used in other parts of the Malay Archipelago, frequently alongside the Gregorian framework for ceremonial timing and agriculture.

In scholarly and historical contexts, penanggalan also encompasses methods of chronological dating—how events are anchored in time within specific eras, such as Anno Domini (Masehi) or the Hijri era. The term thus covers both contemporary calendar use and historical timekeeping practices across cultures that speak Malay and Indonesian.