[*Apologies for a click-bait headline, but couldn’t find a better way to emphatically get my point across. I might either be arrogantly condescending, or just trying to jolt you—reading this post should convince you it is the latter.
Also, I presume that you know the fundamental aspects of Panchāngas, if you are reading this; For the interested but uninitiated, please check out some of the YouTube videos at the end of this article.]
What is a Panchānga?
Surely you know this. It’s more than a calendar, or even an almanac, and presents a detailed reckoning of various astronomical events/festivals/observances. Oversimplifying, it’s just a way to sync the celebration of various festivals to the movements of the Sun and the stars, and of course, the literal “pancha” angas1 themselves denote/capture a somewhat specific point in the continuum of time.
History
Recent civilisations/religions have developed their own calendaring; time-keeping syncing seasons and equinoxes with dates has been the driving force. The Julian calendar (Julius Caesar, 46 BCE), lunar Hijri calendar (622 CE), Gregorian calendar (Pope Gregory XIII, Feb 1582). Most people do not know the travails of syncing the Julian/Gregorian calendars to the equinox by repeatedly fixing leap year reckoning (culminating in the deletion of Oct 5–14, 1582, or Sep 3–13, 1752 when Britain finally decided to switch to the Gregorian calendar!). Thus, while the Gregorian calendar has emerged as a de facto international standard, it has enough flaws and historical idiosyncrasies.
The Sanātana Dharma/Hindu calendar is lunisolar and has a much longer vision of time, reckoning it from the start of the present Brahma (155,521,972,949,121 years and 11 days, as of today). But that is for a different time, and I point the interested reader to this nice page. There are different schools of reckoning a year, based on solar (Sauramāna), lunar (Chāndramāna), Nakshatra-based (Nakṣatramāna), etc. Tamil Nadu follows the solar Sauramāna system, while Andhra follows the lunar Chāndramāna system.
The Drik vs. Vākya debate
While this is not the central thread of this article, a major point of contention is the school of computation. While Vākya follows Vararuchi’s “vākyas” capturing the motion of celestial bodies, Driggaṇita is observational1. Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Pitham follows Drik (since 1877-12-13, i.e. कलि ४९७८ वृश्चिकः ३०) — 65th Shankaracharya Sri Sri Sudarshana Mahadevendra Saraswati Swamigal. While Vararuchi’s vākyas and treatises like Surya Siddhanta are a testimony to the mathematical and astronomical prowess of ancient India, the lack of revision of these vākyas have rendered the Vākya panchānga inaccurate in the present day.
Most people seem to follow the panchānga their family has been following, somewhat dogmatically. While I genuinely appreciate their staunch faith, I see most people do so more out of ignorance (of both the source of differences between the computations, and also the 1877 resolution by Sri Sri Periyava). I am yet to meet a scholar who adheres to Vākyam for its superior accuracy.
Yet, my major peeve in this article is NOT about Drik vs. Vākya, but rather, the prime importance of Panchānga location, and the “sensitivity” of observances, festivals and practically every aspect of a Panchānga to location.
Why do I argue that your Panchānga is wrong?
Traditionally, it used to be that every locality would have the resident expert astronomer/astrologer (panchānga-kartā) who would compute the location-specific panchānga. This is now long lost, and we have people (my knowledge is somewhat limited to South Indians from Tamil Nadu/Andhra) in every nook and corner of the country (why, world!) using Srirangam Vākya Panchānga, or Kanchi Matha Panchānga, which have been carefully and accurately calculated for Srirangam and Kanchipuram, respectively! Unless you live in Kanchipuram, or Chennai (that’s basically not far enough for festival observances to change), your Panchānga is wrong you are using the wrong Panchānga.
The fact that you intend to check a (your family’s traditional) Panchānga for performing a sankalpa, muhūrta, an auspicious day, a shrāddha tithi, or a festival observance implies that you are interested in following the tradition / dharma sincerely. Yet, you must understand how many festivals can change in a year, within a few longitudes (even within Bhāratam, not just outside of it!), as I discuss below.
What can go wrong?
Sunrise, sunrise, sunrise …
Most panchāngas use udayādi-ghaṭikā (ghaṭikās elapsed since sunrise). Sunrise changes from location to location, and quite drastically across latitudes and longitudes, and this is THE primary source of the error I am trying to belabour about. While all astronomical/astrological calculations employ the ghatikā/palam/vipalam sexagesimal system, we don’t have clocks or apps that make it accessible enough (yet). Note that all the angas are the same at every location on the planet (save for vāra, which begins and ends with sunrise) at a given point in time. Therefore, if Dwādashi starts at 1-11 (1 ghaṭikā, 11 palam, i.e. ~28 minutes) on a day when the sunrise is at 6:11 AM in the location, it ends at 6:39 AM IST in Chennai (and 01:09 GMT in the UK), which would be before the sunrise on that day at Mumbai (6:49 AM), and ultimately changes the observance of Ekādashi vratam on the day3!
Typically, Panchāngas list sunrise/sunset timings once in 10 days or so, and for the location for which the panchānga was computed! You really need to translate the udayādi ghaṭikās to IST for the location for which the panchānga was originally computed, and then if you live outside India, even adjust for the time zone! Another side note is that the “newspaper” sunrise timings are typically off the shāstric sunrise/sunset timings by a few minutes (middle of the disc at horizon describes the shāstric sunrise/sunset, and refraction in the atmosphere is ignored).
Shrāddha tithi!
This might come as a rude shock to many, but the reality is that even shrāddha tithi can change, especially from Kanchipuram to Mumbai. For instance on 5122 Plava-Vrishabha-27 (June 10, 2021), the shrāddha tithi for Chennai is Amavasya, but for Mumbai, it actually occurs the previous day! This is because the tithi is decided based on its prevalence during aparāhṅa, the 4th part of the five-fold division of a day (the period from sunrise to sunset), which obviously is affected severely by both latitude and longitude. Forget Mumbai, even Coimbatore, that’s less than 500 km from Kanchipuram has a different shrāddha tithi, twice a year:
As an extreme example, it is possible that the (Sauramāna shrāddha) tithi advances by nearly a month even, when it is close to a sankrānti day. For instance, Kaṭaka Shukla Navami shrāddha is on 16th August 2021 in most places, but on 17th July 2021 in Mumbai!4
Relative ghaṭikās determine various timings, e. g. birthdays/wedding days/Rahukāla
Well, this is not so much as location issue (it is), but more of a fundamental understanding of the daily divisions of time. 6 AM IST is no logical reference point for any panchānga. Yet, a number of people erroneously calculate that the Sangava kāla starts at 8:24 AM (true, only if sunrise and sunset are at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM respectively; this never happens in most places, even on the equinoxes, except if your time zone is “perfect”), or that Rāhukāla is from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM on Mondays! One must always remember that 6:00 AM IST is contingent on the Indian time zone. If (God forbid) India chooses to implement daylight saving at some point in time, does it make sense to shift the Rāhukāla by one hour, over just a span of one week? Rāhukāla on Mondays is the second eighth part of the day (daylight hours = interval from sunrise to sunset), and not 7.30-9.00 AM!
Similarly, if a Nakshatra is not present for at least 6 ghaṭikās on a day, the birthday/wedding day falling on that Nakshatra is to be celebrated on the previous day! 6 ghaṭikās is further not 144 minutes, but 1/5th of the time between sunrise and sunset on that day, in that place! Again, many differences will be seen between Mumbai and Kanchipuram, for example.
Other very important timings like dinānta, important for reckoning the start/end of āshaucham etc., are again based on relative ghaṭikās only, and therefore completely contingent on sunrise/sunset, i.e. location!
Why must festivals in the West be celebrated a day early, even though they are behind IST?
This is by the same extension of the Mumbai logic above. Sunrise and sunset times are hours behind India, in the West. Therefore, if a tithi must be present at sunrise on a day for a festival to be reckoned, the tithi may have completed well before sunrise in a Western country, and it might be present at sunrise only on the previous day. Thus, even though the tithi ends at the same time all over the planet, its intersection with sunrise varies, and consequently, festival observances can fall a day earlier in the west compared to the east. Extrapolating the same argument to Australia, the day of observance of a festival could be a day later than what it is, in India.
What is the solution?
Try to use a location-specific panchānga. If you follow the Drik panchānga (why not?), there are apps and websites that can come to your rescue. I can also help—see, I am not just an armchair critic, but would really like to help people surmount this problem. The jyotisha Github repository has codes that will let you generate a panchānga for your own location, replete with various festival observances and shrāddha tithis, something that looks like the image you see below on the right. Alternatively, fill out this form and I am happy to generate a PDF and send it across, when I find the time!
If you insist on following Vākya, try and re-calibrate it to your location (yes, a bit of effort!). Bharath Ganita Panchangam is an interesting Drik panchānga that (curiously) gets its name from using IST for showing ending times of the various angas. This can be remarkably helpful for at least performing sankalpa etc. in any part of India. Yet, it does not list when festivals might change (I believe that there are some lovely panchāngas from Maharashtra that draw a line in a map and say that West of this line, a Sankatahara chaturthi observance happens on a different day!).
Possible Practical solution?: Panchānga makers must list key dates with changes in festivals (e.g. Ekādashi, Shrāddha tithi) as an Appendix5, and note the day with a * in the main page to alert users.
Summary/tl;dr
- Use a location-specific panchānga to reckon festivals/birthdays/shrāddha tithis! Whether you use Drik/Vakya panchānga, figure out a way to re-calibrate it to your location!
- If you are in Mumbai, really watch out! Ekādashis and shrāddha tithis change at least a few days in the year!
- Relative times are important for nearly all observances, e.g. dinānta
- Rāhukāla etc. do not start at 7:30 AM or end at 9:00 AM; they are dependent on both sunrise and sunset timings!
Acknowledgements
- Brahmashri Shriramana Sharma (Nerur Shankara Matham) for a lot of valuable comments/pointers/Shāstra vākyas, and for extending me an invitation to attend the Panchānga Sadas organised by Sri Maṭham!
- Brahmashri Bharaneedhara Shastrigal (Kanchi Matham, Asthika Dharmam) for a lot of valuable discussions, including the only practical solution listed above
- Shri Saketha Nath J (Github:adyatithi), for sharing a truckload of festival observance days/rules
- Shri Vishvas Vasuki (Github:jyotisha), for doing a terrific clean-up of the clunky codes I wrote more than a decade ago, in a pre-app era, when I needed a location-specific panchānga for Zurich!
- Shri Ramanathan V (IIT Varanasi) for catching typos, and useful suggestions.
Resources
- Panchangam Calculations, by Shri Karanam Ramkumar (A nice and easy introduction to Panchānga)
- https://github.com/jyotisham/jyotisha (Python codes for generating panchānga)
- https://github.com/jyotisham/adyatithi (Repository with rules for determining festivals)
- https://youtu.be/BVB-PtAspvc (A rundown of some of the features of the daily panchānga, whose image I showed above)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSKz7ySWB3w (My introduction to Panchānga, for some children)
- YouTube video: Swadharmaa
- YouTube video: The Celestial Quest
- YouTube playlist: Introduction to Indian Astronomy – by Prof. K. Ramasubramanian, IIT Bombay
Footnotes
1The five angas of the Panchanga include Tithi, Vara, Nakshatra, Yoga and Karana.
तिथेश्च श्रियमाप्नोति वारादायुष्यवर्धनम्।
नक्षत्राद्धरते पापं योगाद्रोगनिवारणम्॥
करणात् कार्यसिद्धिः स्यात् पञ्चाङ्गफलमुत्तमम्।
एतेषां श्रवणान्नित्यं गङ्गास्नानफलं भवेत्॥
Knowing the Tithi, one obtains ‘riches’, [knowing the] Vāra (day), one’s lifespan increases. [Knowing the] Nakshatra destroys papa, [knowing the] Yoga relieves from ailments, [knowing the karana] one achieves success in his/her endeavours—such is the lofty fruit of listening to the Panchānga (every day). By listening to all of these every day, one accrues the merit of bathing in the Ganga!
2Drik computations have been rendered easy through ephemerides; an ephemeris is a tabulation of calculated positions of a celestial object at regular intervals—has enabled the democratisation of Panchānga calculations!
3This exact example is of November 15, 2021, which is a Sarva Ekādashi in Chennai/Kanchipuram and only a Vaishnava Ekādashi in Mumbai. Smārta Ekādashi in Mumbai (or UK) occurs on November 14, 2021!
4This extraordinary difference is because Simha māsa starts at 00:49 IST on 17th August 2021, which is past ardharātra (mid part of the night) in most places in the East of the country, but during the very early part of ardharātra in Mumbai, rendering the last day of Kataka māsa unsuitable for performing the shrāddha!
5Here’s a possible Appendix of shrāddha tithi variations:
p.s. I have tried to take a balanced approach with respect to IAST diacritics, sacrificing correctness for readability. In my experience, the ā is perhaps the most important, and I have tried to capture it correctly AFAIK. Characters like ś ṣ ñ ṛ are somewhat more confounding to new readers, and I have eschewed them.
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