[Advaita-l] Maha-Sivaratri Date for 2007

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Ravishankar Venkatraman wrote:

>
>>
>> What is the correct date for Maha-Sivaratri this year? There is a
>> conflict among US-based (Feb. 15th) and India-based sources (Feb.
>> 16th). Does it mean that US and India adopt different dates for this
>> festival?
>>
>
> Some of the temples in the US celebrate festivals based on adjusted
> panchangam published primarily for the US. This takes the tithi in India and
> sees how long the tithi is available on the previous day here to decide
> whether the festival should be celebrated the previous day or the next day.
> Some times it follows the Indian calendar also.
>
> This has been going on for some time, at least I know for the past 2 years. I
> understand from a friend in Chicago that the temples in Chicago do not bother
> about this adjusted calendar. They follow the Indian panchangam along with a
> time lag for the US.
>

In the days before there were accurate scientific instruments for
measuring these things, many places in India did this.  However proper
determination of tithis requires adjust for latitude, longitude, as well
as timezone.

The former method is not wrong but the latter is more right.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>