TYPES of LUNAR CYCLES
Chinese:
Chinese Buddhism (traditional Chinese: 漢傳佛教; simplified Chinese: æ±‰ä¼ ä½›æ•™) refers collectively to the various schools of Buddhism that have flourished in China since ancient times.[citation needed] These schools integrated the ideas of Confucianism, Taoism and other indigenous philosophical systems so that what was initially a foreign religion (the buddhadharma) came to be a natural part of Chinese civilisation albeit with its own unique character.[citation needed] Buddhism has played an enormous role in shaping the mindset of the Chinese people affecting as it has aesthetics, politics, literature, philosophy and medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Buddhism[bThe Uposatha is the Buddhist sabbath day, [/b] in existence from the Buddha's time (500 BC), and still being kept today in Theravada Buddhists countries.
1. The Buddha taught that the Uposatha day is for "the cleansing of the defiled mind," resulting in inner calm and joy.
2. On this day, disciples and monks intensify their practice, deepen their knowledge and express communal commitment through millenia-old acts of lay-monastic reciprocity. In general, Uposatha is observed about once a week
3. in accordance with the four phases of the moon: the new moon, the full moon, and the two quarter moons in between.
4. In some communities, only the new moon and full moon are observed as uposatha days.
5. For a calendar of uposatha days, see John Bullitt's "Calendar of Uposatha Days."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UposathaJAPANESE
For some time following adoption of a lunar calendar, Japan used Chinese sexagenary cycles for naming days and years. However, there is evidence that from 807, a seven day week with names related to the "planets" had found its way to Japan. Before this year, as in China, Sunday had no special significance (workers did not get any days "off"), and the most important aspect of each day was determining whether it was "good" or "bad" (a practice that continues in "unofficial" lunar calendar use to this day).
http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/calendar.htmARABS
The Islamic calendar or Muslim calendar (Arabic: التقويم الهجري; at-taqwīm al-hijrī; Persian: تقویم هجري قمری ‎ taqwīm-e hejri-ye qamari; also called the Hijri calendar) is the calendar used to date events in many predominantly Muslim countries, and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days. It is a lunar calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. Because this lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holy days, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, such as a year of the Gregorian calendar. Islamic years are also called Hijra years because the first year was the year during which the Hijra occurred—Islamic prophet Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Medina. Thus each numbered year is designated either H or AH, the latter being the initials of the Latin anno Hegirae (in the year of the Hijra).[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendarANCIENT EGYPTIAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE WEEK
"The custom, however, of referring the days to the seven stars called planets was instituted by the Egyptians, but is now found among all mankind, though its adoption has been comparatively recent; at any rate the ancient Greeks never understood it, so far as I am aware." (Cassius Dio, History of Rome, XXXVII, 18.1
In Egyptian astronomy, the order of the planets, beginning with the most remote, is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Each hour in the day was consecrated to a particular planet. One to Saturn, the next to Jupiter, the third to Mars, and so on according to the above order; and the day received the name of the planet which presided over its first hour.
If the first hour of a day was consecrated to Saturn, that planet would also have the 8th, the 15th, and the 22nd hour . The 23rd would fall to Jupiter, the 24th to Mars, and the 25th, or the first hour of the second day, would belong to the Sun. In like manner the first hour of the 3rd day would fall to the Moon, the first of the 4th day to Mars, of the 5th to Mercury, of the 6th to Jupiter, and of the 7th to Venus. The cycle being completed, the first hour of the 8th day would return to Saturn, and all the others succeed in the same order.
According to Dio Cassius, the Egyptian week began on Saturday. On their flight from Egypt, the Jews, out of hatred toward the Egyptians, made Saturday the last day of the week.
http://www.theriverstyx.net/the_days_of_the_week.shtml Ptolemy (or Claudius Ptolemaeus or Klaudios Ptolemaios) (Πτολεμαίος ΚλαÏ?διος) lived in Alexandria, Egypt, from approx. 87 to probably 170 AD. Very little is known about his personal life. He was probably born in the Hellenistic city of Ptolemais Hermii on the Nile in Upper Egypt.
Ptolemy was an astronomer, mathematician and geographer. He codified the Greek geocentric view of the universe, and rationalized the apparent motions of the planets as they were known in his time. Ptolemy synthesized and extended Hipparchus's system of epicycles and eccentric circles to explain his geocentric theory of the solar system. Ptolemy's system involved at least 80 epicycles to explain the motions of the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets known in his time. The circle was considered as the ideal orbit even if Hipparchus proposed an eccentric motion. It was only Kepler who finally showed that the planet orbits are elliptic and not spherical.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/PtolemyAstronomy.htmThe planetary week, an institution which has spread eastward over the Oriental world and westward into Europe, is a product of the speculations of astrologers and philosophers during the Hellenistic, or Grseco-Oriental, era. The sequence of its days depends ultimately upon the order of the seven planetary spheres, adopted by Ptolemy in antiquity and after him by astronomers until the discoveries of Copernicus. If the planets are grouped according to their distance from the earth, beginning with the highest and descending to the lowest, we obtain the following order : Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. No certain evidence exists that this arrangement was known at an earlier date than the second century before our era. The astrological order, which also begins with Saturn, proceeds next to the fourth planet, or Sun, from which again the fourth planet (by inclusive reckoning) is the Moon. By continuing to select every fourth planet thereafter we obtain at length the regents of the seven weeksays : Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus.
Rest Days by Hutton Webster, page 216
http://www.archive.org/details/restdays ... 00websrich