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PDFNepal is one of the very few countries that have Saturday as holiday and Sunday as working day. Another country would be Israel where Sabbath is observed on Saturday. According to some sources, Saturday became official rest day during Rana Dynasty, under the order of Shrī Tīn Bhim Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana in the 1930s. But why Saturday and not Sunday as rest day? Some of my Nepalese friends jokingly suggested that because Saturday is astrologically inauspicious (śanaiścara) so it is better not to work. Some sources claimed that it is a Vedic convention, which is certainly groundless because the concept of week is not found in the entire Vedic corpus. While Saturday as a rest day is unheard of in India and other neighboring countries, the reason is probably more straightforward. In the Indian astral tradition, the seven planets always begin with the Sun. The week begins therefore with Sunday and end in Saturday. Placing the Saturday as the weekend, literally end of the week, makes perfect sense and Sunday is of course the first working day. Nepal was simply faithful to the original design of the concept of the week, although technically speaking, the planetary week should start with Saturn and not the Sun!
The Newari saptavāra deity for Saturday is Grahamātṛkā and is paired up with Uttaraphalgu(nī) as shown here in the woodcarving in Chusya Baha, Kathmandu.
