Why Sunday Became Holiday Across The World?Discussion with Raktim

Why Sunday Became Holiday Across The World?

~~ Raktim Bar

ETYMOLOGY:

The name "Sunday", the day of the Sun, is derived from Hellenistic astrology, where the seven planets, known in English as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day. During the 1st and 2nd century, the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day.

Germanic peoples seem to have adopted the week as a division of time from the Romans, but they changed the Roman names into those of corresponding Teutonic deities. Hence, the dies Solis became Sunday (German, Sonntag).

The English noun Sunday derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which itself developed from Old English (before 700) Sunnandæg (literally meaning "sun's day"), which is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunnandei, Old Saxon sunnundag, Middle Dutch sonnendach (modern Dutch zondag), Old High German sunnun tag (modern German Sonntag), and Old Norse sunnudagr (Danish and Norwegian søndag, Icelandic sunnudagur and Swedish söndag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis ("day of the sun"), which is a translation of the ancient Greek heméra helíou.^[3] The p-Celtic Welsh language also translates the Latin "day of the sun" as dydd Sul.

In most Indian languages, the word for Sunday is Ravivāra or Adityavāra or its derived forms — vāra meaning day, Aditya and Ravi both being a style (manner of address) for Surya i.e. the Sun and Suryadeva the chief solar deity and one of the Adityas. Ravivāra is first day cited in Jyotisha, which provides logical reason for giving the name of each week day. In the Thai solar calendar of Thailand, the name ("Waan Arthit") is derived from Aditya, and the associated colour is red.

In Russian the word for Sunday is Воскресенье (Voskreseniye) meaning "Resurrection".

The Modern Greek word for Sunday, Greek: Κυριακή, is derived from Greek: Κύριος (Kyrios, Lord) also, due to its liturgical significance as the day commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, i.e. The Lord's Day.

In Korean, Sunday is called 일요일 Il-yo-Il, meaning "day of sun". In Japanese, Sunday is 日曜日 Nichiyōbi, which translates to "sun day".

The Arabic word for Sunday is الأحد (Al-Ahad), which means "The first". Usually it's comes after the word يوم (Youm or Yom) which means day. Which translates as "The first day" when combining them.

After working hard for all week long, we all keenly wait for Sunday. Because it is the day when all the offices, schools, colleges are closed. But have you ever guys thought why Sunday is celebrated as a public holiday?Today we will take a look at the interesting reason behind why Sunday is declared a public holiday all across the world as well as India.

History:

Sunday Holiday In India

When India was under the British rule, the mill workers in India had to work hard for all seven days of a week. They didn’t get any holiday or any kind of leave to get rest. The British officials and workers would go to church every sunday and offer their prayers while there was no such tradition for the Indian mill workers.

At the point of time, Narayan Meghaji Lokhande was the leader of the mill workers, he presented a proposal of a weekly holiday in front of the Britishers. He said, “After working hard for six days, the workers should get a day to serve their country and society. Sunday is the day of the Hindu deity ‘Khandoba’. Hence Sunday should be declared as a holiday”. But the British officials rejected his proposal.

Lokhande didn’t accept the defeat, he continued his struggle. After a 7-year long struggle, on 10th June 1890, British Government declared sunday as a holiday. What’s surprising is that Indian government never issued any orders regarding this holiday.

Sunday Holiday Across The World:

According to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8601, Sunday is the 7th and also the last day of the week. In 1844, the governor general of British, introduced the provision of ‘Sunday Holiday’ for the school going students. The reason behind it was to allow students to engage in some creative activities on this day and take a break from the routine academics.

Sunday officially became an off day since 1843 . It took the British government a decade long on making Sunday an official holiday in India as was the case in Britain.

The story behind it is - According to Christianity God created the world in 6 days and on the 7th day he took rest i.e. Sunday .

In Mughal Period Friday was the Holiday in India from 1530 to 1707 as they had mosk sessions on Friday.

But even it didn’t declare Sunday as a holiday. Back in 1840, Sunday officially became an ‘off day’ by the British Government to give rest to the working officials and employees.

Significance Of Sunday In Hinduism

According ot the Hindu Calender, the week starts with Sunday. It is the day of the ‘Surya Devta’, as per the Hindu tradition, it is the day when Surya and all the other gods and goddesses are worshipped. By doing so, it is believed that peace and prosperity comes in life. And to make sure that the worshippers don’t face any problems in following their tradition, the day Sunday has been considered a holiday.

In Other Countries Around The World

In most of the Muslim countries, the day of worship is Friday. And hence, there is a holiday on Friday. But in many countries, Sunday is declared as a Holiday. The reason behind is since Sunday is the last day of the week. People need a day off to get rest and offer their prayers.

	Polish	Slovak	Czech	Ukrainian	Bulgarian	Russian	literal or derived meaning
Monday	poniedziałek	pondelok	pondělí	понеділок	понеделник	понедельник	(day) after not working
Tuesday	wtorek	utorok	úterý	вівторок	вторник	вторник	second (day)
Wednesday	środa	streda	středa	середа	сряда	среда	middle (day)
Thursday	czwartek	štvrtok	čtvrtek	четвер	четвъртък	четверг	fourth (day)
Friday	piątek	piatok	pátek	п'ятниця	петък	пятница	fifth (day)
Saturday	sobota	sobota	sobota	субота	събота	суббота	sabbath
Sunday	niedziela	nedela	neděle	неділя	неделя	воскресенье	not working (day)

CONCLUSION:In the light of the above i tried to describe shortly about "Why sunday became a holiday?"Thank you for reading my Article...

References:I am greatly acknowledged to Wikipedia,BBC newspaper,Quora,Thehumornation.org etc.

Written by:Raktim Bar

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