Months of the year in Hindi

India runs on two calendars at once, and Hindi reflects both. For appointments, salaries, school terms and the news, people use the familiar twelve Gregorian months — but said the Hindi way, with their own settled spellings and stress. Learn these first; they are the ones you'll need to fill in a form or catch a date in conversation.

Alongside them lives the older Hindu lunar calendar (the Vikram Samvat system), whose twelve months — चैत्र, वैशाख … फाल्गुन — govern festivals, weddings, fasts and the all-important panchang almanac. A festival like Holi or Diwali is fixed by these months, not by a Gregorian date, which is why its “English” date shifts each year. Knowing both sets lets you read a wedding invitation and a calendar app with equal ease.

Month, year & useful extras

The building-block words. Month is महीना (maheena) or formally मास (maas); year is साल (saal) or वर्ष (varsh). “This month” is इस महीने and “next year” is अगले साल.

The two year-counts. The Hindu era is the Vikram Samvat (विक्रम संवत), which runs roughly 57 years ahead of the Gregorian year — so a panchang may show a year in the 2080s while your phone shows the 2020s.

When to use which. Default to the Gregorian months for anything practical — dates, deadlines, travel. Reach for the traditional months when you talk about festivals, fasts (व्रत), weddings, or anything tied to the religious calendar.

A frequent beginner slip is over-Sanskritising the everyday months. No one says a Sanskrit equivalent for “March” in conversation — they just say मार्च. Keep the two systems in separate mental boxes and you'll always pick the natural one.