PalV's KastiFree tool · Shahenshahi, Kadmi & Fasli
Find Your Parsi Birth Roj
Your birth roj is the roj (day name) on which you were born. The roj changes at sunrise, not at midnight, so someone born before dawn carries the roj of the day before.
Enter your date of birth, and the time and place if you know them, to get your roj, mah and year in all three Parsi calendars, what your roj stands for, and when your Parsi birthday comes round.
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How we work it out
The sunrise rule
A roj runs from one sunrise to the next, so the hours before dawn still belong to the previous day. If you give a time and place of birth, the tool works out sunrise for that place on that day and compares. Without a time it shows the roj for a birth after sunrise, and the roj you would have if you were born before it. Most printed calendars use 6 am as the crossover for convenience.
Three calendars, three answers
Shahenshahi (Shenshai) is the calendar most Parsis in India follow. Its year is exactly 365 days with no leap day, so Navroz now falls in mid-August.
Kadmi uses the same roj and mah names but runs 30 days ahead of Shahenshahi. Some Surat Parsis moved to it in 1745.
Fasli, proposed in Bombay in 1906, fixes Navroz on 21 March and adds a leap day, Avardad-sal-Gah, after the five Gatha days every fourth year. It is followed by most Iranian Zoroastrians and much of the diaspora.
Births in India in 1942–1945
From September 1942 to October 1945 India kept "war time", one hour ahead of Indian Standard Time. A birth time from those years may have been written on either clock, so for a birth close to sunrise the tool shows both possible rojs.
The calendar rules follow the standard accounts in Mary Boyce's studies of Zoroastrian practice, the Encyclopaedia Iranica entries on the Iranian calendars, and the Pahlavi texts they cite, the Bundahishn (ch. 25) and the Denkard (Book III, ch. 419). The calculation was checked against the printed Parsi Calendar 1396 Y.Z. day by day and against ZANC's converter for 40 dates from 1940 to 2026. Roj and mah meanings are from the teaching notes on our Parsi calendar page, each with its source.
Questions
Birth roj FAQ
What is a birth roj?
It is the roj (day name) of the Zoroastrian calendar on which you were born. It works like a personal name day: it comes round every thirty days, and once a year it falls in the same mah as well, which is your Parsi birthday.
Why does the roj change at sunrise?
In the Zoroastrian calendar the day begins at dawn, not at midnight. This reckoning is found in the ninth-century Pahlavi text, the Bundahishn. So a person born in the small hours, before sunrise, carries the roj of the day before.
I don't know my birth time. What do I do?
Leave the time blank. The tool shows the roj for a birth after sunrise and, on a second line, the roj for a birth before sunrise. If you know you were born before dawn, tick "I was born before sunrise".
Why are there three answers?
Parsis and Iranian Zoroastrians keep three versions of the same calendar: Shahenshahi, Kadmi and Fasli. All three use the same roj and mah names but put them on different English dates, so the same birthday can carry a different roj in each.
Why does my Parsi birthday move every few years?
The Shahenshahi and Kadmi years are exactly 365 days with no leap day, while the English calendar adds 29 February every four years. So your roj-and-mah birthday falls one day earlier on the English calendar every four years. The Fasli calendar adds its own leap day, so its dates stay put.
Is this the same as my Navjote date?
No. Your birth roj comes from the day you were born. A Navjote, the initiation of a child into the faith with the sacred sadra and kasti, is held on a roj and mah that the family and priest choose from the calendar.
Can I find the roj of a relative born in the 1940s?
Yes. The calendar years have a fixed length, so any date from 1900 onwards can be worked out. For births in India between September 1942 and October 1945, check whether the time was written in war time (one hour ahead of IST); near sunrise the tool shows both possible rojs.