Asar is the third month of the Bikram Sambat calendar, running from about the middle of June to the middle of July. It is the monsoon month, and it is when paddy is planted across Nepal. Paddy in Nepali is धान, dhaan, meaning the rice plant and the unhusked grain; चामल, chaamal, is the husked raw rice, and भात, bhaat, is rice once it is cooked. Three words where English has one.
Nepal runs on the Bikram Sambat calendar for every official purpose. Dates on documents, in newspapers, on government notices and on your visa extension are BS dates, and the Gregorian year appears alongside them for foreigners rather than instead of them.
What Bikram Sambat is
It is a solar calendar, about 56 years and 8 months ahead of the Gregorian one. The year that began in April 2026 is 2083 BS. New Year falls on the first of Baisakh, which lands in mid-April, usually on the 13th or 14th.
The months are not fixed lengths. Each begins when the sun enters a new zodiac sign, so a month runs between 29 and 32 days depending on how fast the earth is moving through that part of its orbit. Summer months run long and winter months run short. That is also why the Gregorian start date of each Nepali month shifts by a day or two from year to year, and why a conversion has to be looked up rather than calculated in your head.
The twelve months
| Month | Roughly | Usual length | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baisakh | Mid-April to mid-May | 30 to 31 days | New Year on the first. Warm, clear, wedding season |
| Jestha | Mid-May to mid-June | 31 to 32 days | The hottest weeks in the Tarai. Pre-monsoon storms |
| Asar | Mid-June to mid-July | 31 to 32 days | Monsoon arrives. Paddy planting. Asar 15 is National Paddy Day |
| Shrawan | Mid-July to mid-August | 31 to 32 days | Heaviest rain. Fiscal year begins on the first |
| Bhadra | Mid-August to mid-September | 31 to 32 days | Monsoon tailing off. Teej falls in this month |
| Ashwin, also called Asoj | Mid-September to mid-October | 30 to 31 days | Rain ends, skies clear. Dashain usually falls here |
| Kartik | Mid-October to mid-November | 29 to 30 days | The best trekking weather of the year. Tihar |
| Mangsir | Mid-November to mid-December | 29 to 30 days | Rice harvest and threshing. Cold, dry, very clear |
| Poush | Mid-December to mid-January | 29 to 30 days | Coldest month. Passes closed, fog in the Tarai |
| Magh | Mid-January to mid-February | 29 to 30 days | Maghe Sankranti on the first. Winter loosening |
| Falgun | Mid-February to mid-March | 29 to 30 days | Holi. Rhododendron starting low down |
| Chaitra | Mid-March to mid-April | 30 to 31 days | Spring. The last month of the year |
Why Asar matters more than the other eleven
Asar is the month the year turns on for anyone farming, which for most of Nepali history has been almost everyone. The monsoon breaks, the paddy fields flood, seedlings raised in nurseries are pulled and transplanted by hand into the mud, and the work is intense, communal and done to a deadline set by the rain rather than by anyone.
The fifteenth of Asar is marked as National Paddy Day, and it falls at the end of June. People plant rice, throw mud, sing the planting songs, and eat curd with beaten rice. It is one of the few Nepali festivals with no religious content at all: it celebrates work. We have written about the day itself in Asar 15 and National Paddy Day, and about what rice means more broadly in what paddy means to Nepali culture.
Two calendars running at once
Bikram Sambat sets the civil year, but most religious festivals are fixed by the lunar calendar, which is why Dashain, Tihar and Holi move against the BS dates as well as against Gregorian ones. Dashain usually falls in Ashwin and Tihar in Kartik, but usually is doing real work in that sentence.
The exceptions are the festivals pinned to a solar entry point. Maghe Sankranti is the clearest case: it is always the first of Magh, which means it always falls around the middle of January, and we have covered it in the Maghe Sankranti guide. The full year of movable and fixed dates is laid out in our Nepal festival calendar.
Nepal also has other calendars in active use. Nepal Sambat is the historic Newar era calendar of the Kathmandu valley, and Tibetan Buddhist communities in the northern districts keep their own. Bikram Sambat is the one on the paperwork.
Using it as a visitor
The practical value is that Nepali months describe the weather far better than Gregorian ones do. Kartik means clear, cold, dry and the best mountain views of the year. Asar and Shrawan mean rain and leeches. Poush means the high passes are shut. If someone tells you a road is fine after Ashwin, that is a more useful piece of information than a date, and it maps onto our West Nepal seasons guide almost exactly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the meaning of Asar in Nepali?
Asar is the third month of the Bikram Sambat calendar, running from about mid-June to mid-July. It is the monsoon month and the rice-planting month. The fifteenth of Asar is National Paddy Day.
What is paddy called in Nepali?
धान, dhaan. That is the growing rice plant and the unhusked grain. Husked uncooked rice is चामल, chaamal, and cooked rice is भात, bhaat. Nepali distinguishes all three where English uses rice for everything.
What year is it in Nepal?
Bikram Sambat runs about 56 years and 8 months ahead of the Gregorian calendar. The BS year that began in April 2026 is 2083. The new year starts on the first of Baisakh, in mid-April.
Why do Nepali months change length?
Because they are tied to the sun entering each zodiac sign rather than to a fixed count of days. The earth moves at slightly different speeds through its orbit, so months run between 29 and 32 days, with the summer months longest.
When does the Nepali fiscal year start?
On the first of Shrawan, which falls in mid-July, and it ends at the end of Asar the following year. Government budgets, tax years and contract dates all follow it.