स्वागतम्

तत्त्द् गतिवशन्नित्यं यथा दृक्-तुल्यतां ग्रहाः।
प्रयान्ति तत्प्रवक्ष्यामि स्फ़ुटिकरणमादरात्॥
सुर्य सिद्धान्त ॥

यस्मिन् पक्षे यत्र काले येन दृग्गणितैक्यम्।
दृश्यते तेन पक्षेण कुर्यात्तिथ्यादिनिर्णयम्॥
वशिष्ठ॥

यात्राविवाहोत्सवजातकादौ खेटैः स्फुटैरेवफलस्फुटत्वम्।
स्यात्प्रोच्यते तेन नभश्चराणां स्फुटक्रिया दृग्गणितैक्यकृद्या॥
भास्कराचार्य॥

तिथिर्विष्णुस्तथा वारो नक्षत्रं विष्णुरेव च।
योगश्च करणं चैव सर्वं विष्णु मयं जगत्॥


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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Muhurtham

People search internet to find auspicious times to perform their grahapravesham, weddings, etc….. This is because in Indian printed panchangam there are muhurthas printed for general purposes on the back page. People use that thinking they will be applicable to them. However, most of them forget to read the fine print that these are general purposes only. That means it’s there and you have to verify that they are good for you or not. Why do we need verification?

Muhurtham has several check list items:

  • First panchang shuddhi needs to be there. Panchang shuddi means the day is free from all effects of day, nakshatra, yoga, karana and tithi. After having panchang shuddhi and the day is good for that grahapravesham or wedding, it goes to general purpose good day for grahapravesham or wedding.
  • Second, that day needs to be good for you, for example you and your spouse’s stars (nakshatra, rasi) needs to be matching or favorable for that day, if it is it’s good if not it’s not good for you. Simply picking date from panchang and fixing your event of function doesn’t make sense.

Once again, picking that day and using it in another city or region or country altogether is wrong thing. Muhurtham can’t be transferred from one location to another location. The term muhurtham implies local sunrise and hence it can’t be transferred or used in another geographic location.

To find out today's star or looking for a panchangam? visit http://www.mypanchang.com and click on panchanga and select the city you want.

Mahashivaratri and beautiful Mauritius 2008

Mahashivaratri not exactly 14th day of Magha krishna paksha. It is 14th tithi. Hindu tithis are not exactly 24 hours long. Their duration varies from 17 to 28 hours. A hindu day doesn't begin at midnight. It starts from sunrise to sunrise.

Now let's get to basics:


  1. There are two siddhantas that decides shivaratri.
    According to dharmasindhu, madhava and hemadris, and other great rishis. The chatrudasi tithi needs to be visible during the nissheta kala (8th/15th part of ratrimana), some say madhya ratri kala (3rd/5th) part of ratrimana.

    What is nishita kala?

    The 8th muhurtha of the night.

    Example of Mahashivaratri calculation date:
    Get the ratrimana and nishita kala, check if chaturdashi prevails during that time.

    For example of 2008 Mahashivaratri in Mauritius:
    (You can perform the same calculations for any city. We just picked one. Note: I don't even live in Mauritius).

    A) Subract sunrise of 6th - sunset of 5th = 11 hours and 41 minutes.

    B) Now divide that by 15 as each muhurtha is of 2 ghatikas and there are 15 muhurthas in day and 15th in night. That gives you 46 minutes and 44 seconds.

    C) Now 8th muhurtha is nishitha kala, means multiply that value by 7 giving you, 5 hours 27 minutes and 8 seconds.

    D ) Add that to the sunset of 5th which is 18 hours 31 minutes.... giving you the start of nishitha kala. giving you 23 hours, 58 minutes and 7 seconds...

    E) Now add 46 minutes and 44 seconds to that...... that's the total time of nishitha kala.

    F) Now chaturdashi starts on march 5th at 24:01 midnight.... now this means chaturthi definately prevails during this time.

    G) If you perform the same calculations for march 6th and march 7th, you'll observe that chaturdashi doesn't prevail during nishitha kala of march 6th, hence according to dharmasindhu school of thought (widely prevailing in india to 80%) Mahashivaratri is on March 5th in Mauritius. Even if you take the madhyaratri kala which is 3rd/5th of the ratri mana 11 hours and 41 minutes and adding to the sunset, it doesn't fall on March 6th. It clearly falls on March 5th according to 'ekadesha' vyapini rule.

  2. Nirnaysindhu school of thoughts: They endorse pradosha kala. means chaturdasi has to be prevailing 6 gatika after sunset, and that is 6 ghatika * 24 = 144 minutes. If it prevails during this time, take this day, otherwise take the previous. They don't give importantance to madhyaratri principle. According to this principle, in Mauritius it is not prevailing on March 5th during pradoshakala but it does prevail during the pradosha kala of march 6th, hence you can take the march 6th as a mahashivaratri. Remember, this rule is not widely used my most panchangkarta in india. Even Govt. of India's rastriya panchanga takes the 1st rule as i have explained before.... 90% of panchangkarta takes the first rule i have exaplained before.


Indian festivals are never observed according to indian dates. They are always regional like many rishies including surya siddhantakar himself has written into his books. According to me, If i was in mauritius i'll peform on March 5th, Not march 6th. Hindu panchangam is rather complex subject. Certain festivals are observed based on tithi prevailing during sunrise, and certain festivals are observed when certain tithi is seen during given kala. Another example: Karwa chauth is observed when the chaturthi tithi is seen during the moonrise, so even if tritiya is in morning but during the night at the time of moonrise, if chaturthi prevails, that's the day of kawa chauth, likewise same rule apply for samkastha chaturthi. For ganesh chaturthi the rule is chaturthi needs to visible during madhyahna kala (midday), Same rule is applicable for ramanavami.

Most websites that displays muhurtha or festivals (like wheniswhat, blah...blah....) they display festival dates for india only, and that also using the panchang they are located at. That's why when website says Ugadi (New year) is on April 6th, another one (whose location is in chennai) will proudly declare Ugadi is on April 7th. None of the printed panchang maker will say or ever say that their panchang and festivals are applicable to all the places in the world.

Note: By the way I have seen pictures of the beautiful temple in Mauritius. Here is the link http://www.abhivyakti-hindi.org/parva/alekh/2003/shivratri.htm. Beautiful temple isn't it? I wish I want to visit this beautiful place one day.

Pandit Mahesh Shastri
Seattle, WA, USA


Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Telugu Panchangam and Tamil Panchangam and Panchangam Concept

One day I was sitting in temple, temple has published their new 2008's calendar / hindu panchangam. I was asking people If they had a chance to get their 2008 copy. I asked same question to one fine gentlemen, he quickly asked, "Is this telugu panchangam?". This question was asked in one of the american city.

Panchangam contains five limbs:
  • Vaar
  • Thithi
  • Nakshatra
  • Yoga
  • Karana

Additionaly It contains following information:

  • Hindu Lunisolar Month name
  • Hindu Solar month name
  • Festival information
  • Muhurtham information.

These information is fairly consitent among panchangams. However they could be using ganitha panchangam (surya siddhantam) or Drika gantitha panchangam (precise ephemeries). If it's telugu panchangam or non-telugu panchangam the basic data it contains are same as mentioned above. A Telugu person doesn't have more than seven days in a week. They are seven only(Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). Similarly, Tithiis presented in panchangam are thirty only. In shukla paksha prathama, dwitiya (vidiya), tritiya (tadiya), chaturthi (chavathi), panchami, shasthi, ... to poornima. Like wise amavasya.

Similarly nakshatras are also 27 (sometimes people say 28 including abhijit nakshatram, but it is part of 27 nakshatras only). I don't think telugu people invented new nakshatras or new tithis or new yoga or new karana. The telugu panchangam might contain names of this tithi or vaara names in telugu language nevertheless information produced is the same.

The real question comes is this. If you get telugu panchangam from india is it valid here in america?

The answer to this question is NO. The panchangam and tithi-nirnay and other important festival observance days are determined if tithi is visible at sunrise, sunset, moonrise or different times of the day. These times can change depending on sunrise and sunset times. The sunrise time varies from place to place depending on longitude and latitudes. For example: Hindu New Year (Yugadi, Ugadi or Gudi Padwa, or Vikram New Year) is observed when chaitra shukla paksha pratipada is visible during sunrise. If it's not visible during sunrise then take the previous day (when pratipada is kshaya tithi). Here important rule is tithi needs to be visible during sunrise. There are other rules for other festival.

Now let's take an example: April 6th 2008. Sunrise for Hydrabad city: 6:10 AM, Tithi Amavasya ends at 9:25 AM, and right after chaitra shukla paksha starts till 6:09 AM. Just at the time of sunrise of next day 6:09 AM. In such case there is no proper spersha, hence Yugadi needs to be celebrated on April 6th, 2008.

Similarly, down the road in Rajahmundry sun rises on April 7th at 5:56 AM. Which clearly means Tithi pratipada is visible during sunrise, Hence they will be celebrating Yugadi, Ugadi on April 7th 2008. If you take two drika panchanga from two different cities in andhra pradesh they might give different yugadi timings. We are not talking surya siddhanta panchangam here, as they can be off by couple of hours if proper bija samskaras are not applied.

It is clear from above example that there can't be one telugu panchangam for entire Andhra Pradesh how can you use the same panchangam in the united states? Alternatively people can argue that they can subtract the time different from indian panchang and decide tithi, but what about proper observance of festival? How many people are panchang siddhanti? A very few.

Additionaly whenever temples publishes panchangam in the united states they try to provide information for telugu, tamil, malayalam, hindi, gujarati speaking people, and they are published in english. I should warn that not all temples publish their calendar using longitudes and latitudes, some temples do copy ditto from the indian calendar published in india.

To find out your son's star or looking for a panchangam? visit http://www.mypanchang.com/ and click on panchanga and select the city you want.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

When is Mahashivaratri in 2008

Source: http://www.mypanchang.com/

  1. USA / Canada: March 5th
  2. Europe: March 5th
  3. Gulf countries: (DharmaSindhu): March 5th
  4. Gulf countries: (NirnaySindhu): March 6th.
  5. Mauritius: (Same Gulf Countries rule apply): March 5th (As per Dharmasindhi), March 6th (As per Nirnaysindhu).
  6. India, China, Japan,
  7. Australia, Newzeland, Fiji: March 6th

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