The ledger opened before Ganesha (the haal khata and how the Bengali year began)
On the morning of Pohela Boishakh a shopkeeper opens a new red ledger before Ganesha and Lakshmi, the first customer pays a token and is given sweets and a calendar, and the shop tells how the Bengali year began: Akbar's astronomer Fathullah Shirazi made a solar year in 1584 counted from the emperor's accession in 1556 so that the tax would meet the harvest, the zamindars' Punyaha fed the tenants who paid, and the traders made it the haal khata. The other telling gives the year to King Shashanka of Gauda about 594, and names what the historians say of both.
On the morning of Boishakh 1 a shop is washed and hung with marigold and mango leaves, and the new red ledger lies before Ganesha and Lakshmi.
The priest performs the puja, writes the gods' names on the first page and presses a coin's print in vermilion; the old ledger is closed.
Customers are invited; the first clears a due or pays a token, and is given sweets and a copy of the new year's calendar.
Asked why the year begins in Boishakh, the shopkeeper tells of Akbar's revenue year: the lunar Hijri drifted eleven days a year against the harvest, so thirty-one lunar years made thirty of the sun's.
Akbar had Fathullah Shirazi make the Tarikh-e-Ilahi, promulgated in March 1584 in his twenty-ninth regnal year and counted from the Hijri year 963 of his accession; Muharram 963 fell in Baishakh, so Baishakh became the first month.
The zamindars' Punyaha: dues cleared on the last day of Chaitra, tenants fed sweets on the first of Baishakh; the traders turned it into the haal khata.
The other telling gives the era to King Shashanka of Gauda about 594 and names the historians on both sides.
East India · Kolkata and DhakaFolkBengali traders🪔 Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year
Bengal's traders and Banglapedia tell the year's beginning as Akbar's. Mughal revenue was collected by the lunar Hijri calendar, but the crop follows the sun; the lunar year is about eleven days short, so thirty-one lunar years equal thirty solar years and the peasant was asked for tax before the harvest, which Abul Fazl describes in the Akbarnama. Akbar commissioned his astronomer Amir Fathullah Shirazi, who had come to Agra in 1583 and was made Amin-ul-Mulk in 1584 to set the accounts in order, to make a reformed calendar. The Tarikh-e-Ilahi was promulgated on 10 or 11 March 1584 in the twenty-ninth regnal year but counted from the accession in the Hijri year 963 (1556), so the Bengali year kept the Hijri number and the sun's length; because Muharram 963 fell in Baishakh, Baishakh became the first month in place of Chaitra of the Shaka year then used in Bengal. Shah Jahan later replaced Akbar's daily names with the seven-day week, and the Persian month names gave way to the old star names, Baishakh from Vishakha. In Bengal the day became the revenue day: dues were cleared on the last day of Chaitra, and on the first of Baishakh the landlords entertained their tenants with sweets at the Punyaha, with fairs after; traders made the same day their haal khata, closing the old book and opening a new one with sweets for every customer, which jewellers and grocers still keep. The Punyaha itself died with the zamindari system.
The other telling: Shashanka's era, and what the historians say
East India · BengalShaivaBengali🪔 Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year
Some historians, Nitish Sengupta, Kunal and Shubhra Chakrabarti, Meghna Guhathakurta and Willem van Schendel among those Wikipedia cites, give the Bengali era to Shashanka, king of Gauda at Karnasuvarna, the first independent ruler of a unified Bengal and a Shaiva whose coins carry Shiva; the era's zero year falls in 593/594, which they read as his accession, and Sengupta notes the word Bangabda in two Shiva temples older than Akbar. Rural Bengal credits the calendar to a Bikromaditto, a Vikramaditya, though the Bengali count begins in 593 and not in 57 BCE. Sengupta himself calls the origin unclear and suggests Alauddin Husain Shah (1494-1519) may have joined the lunar Hijri to the local solar year to ease revenue collection. Shamsuzzaman Khan holds that Nawab Murshid Quli Khan first used the Punyaho as a revenue day, applying Akbar's fiscal policy, and that the words san and sal show a Muslim ruler behind the calendar. Amartya Sen writes that Akbar's Tarikh-ilahi was little used outside the court and abandoned after his death, yet survives in traces in the Bengali calendar, which helped collect the tax after the spring harvest. The Shashanka of the records reigned about 590 or 600 to the 620s or 636, fought Harsha, and is accused in a text five centuries later of cutting the Bodhi tree, which R. C. Majumdar doubts.
What is different here:
No emperor and no astronomer: the era is a Bengali king's, nine centuries before Akbar, and the historians named disagree about every claimant.