Can I use Indian Panchang / Hindu Panchangam (published in
India) outside India?
The short answer is No.
Maharishi Vashistha, Surya siddhanta, Bhaskaracharya, and Tithi
Chinatamani all says one thing. Wherever you are, according to the time
of that place, take the panchang as seen by Drishya ganitha as per that
place. Indians are living in different parts of world like USA, UK,
Canada,
Europe, Gulf Countries, Australia and other places. They observe
festivals / muhurthams according to the calendar / panchang which they
used back in India. Most of time using the same Panchanga time found in
the almanac or calendar prepared using the longitude and latitude of
the Indian town. They do all the important functions like
graha-pravesha, marriage, ayushya homam, shraadha tithi, ekadasi and
all major Hindu festivals in their life observing the almanac of India.
The world is divided in many time zones and the
earth is not flat. The length of day could vary from one place on earth
to another. If you are more towards north pole and south pole your days
and nights will be longer and sometimes, six months of day and six
months of night. The Hindu festivals and tithis are observed according
to different parameters such as local sunrise, sunset and they are
different for every city. The festivals and certain tithis are observed
on when the tithi prevails at certain time or duration of the day. The
other factor will be the time zone.
There are two things: Panchang Elements and local elements. local elements will depend on sunrise and hence festivals could change depending on the local elements with reference to the panchang elements -- as panchang elements end at the same instance all over the world, and hence time difference is applicable there but not to the local elements ... See Morelike sunrise, sunset, moonrise, lagna. These local elements govern 60% of the muhurtha and festivals. Panchang elements help us decides days as they can span over one or two days. but local elements helps us to narrow down. Even after subtracting the timezone difference, the tithi of the day is usually decided depending on the tithi prevailing at the sunrise. Hence local parameter is in place. This tithi of the day is important in festivals consideration, consideration for birthdays etc... same goes for nakshatra. The nakshatra and the day combination governs anandadi yoga, which inturn governs amritha, marana, siddha yoga. If nakshatra at the time of sunrise is different we will see Amrutha yoga in india, and Marana yoga in america. etc....
India is relatively smaller country then United
States, The difference between sunrise and sunset times from one place
to another is minimum hence the calendar / panchang prepared for one
location in India can be used for the entire India (in most situations,
but subtle differences in certain situations may arise between
panchangam of Bombay and Kolkata) but not for outside geographic
boundaries of India. This requires us to prepare the calendar/almanac
for different cities in the world.
Let's take an example: The
sunrise in Bombay on March 17 let's say will be at 6:36AM Indian
Standard Time (IST), and the Hindu month Phalguna Amavasya on that day
ends at 5:35PM IST, so the new Hindu month Chaitra will start on March
18th. The beginning of chaitra month also indicates the new year for
most regions of India, as well as starting of new samvatsara. The
observance of new hindu month Chaitra will be same for entire India but
not for other parts of the world. The Sunrise in Seattle on March 17th
is 7:17AM in the morning. The difference between Indian Standard Time
(IST), and Pacific Daylight-Saving Time (PDT) is 12 hours 30 minutes.
If we subtract the IST/PST time zone difference from amavasya ending
time from 5:35PM IST gives us 05:05AM PDT in Seattle, WA USA. The
sunrise on March 17th is at 7:17AM so amavasya ends before the sunrise
and prathama prevails during the sunrise, hence Hindu month Chaitra in
Seattle will start from March 17th not March 18th. This requires us to
make panchangam for every major cities to observe festivals and other
muhurthas correctly. Please also read
this article.
Muhurtham:
People search panchangam for wedding muhurtham and
other muhurtham, let me
tell you one thing clearly. The wedding muhurtham and other good days
found in panchangam are general good days. It doesn't mean they are
good for you.
You have to check if that day is good for your star. If housewarming
then position
of sun or moon in reference to your door's direction is also important.
So, don't just
blindly use good days found anywhere. Contact your local astrologer,
and request to use the our drishya panchangam published here (We have separate
panchangam
for 310+ cities around the world), or you can drop us an email
at muhurtham at mypanchang dot com. We'll try to help you as per our
bandwidth.
People always ask me about using muhurthams they
get from India to use in Seattle, for performing their house warming
and other things. I ask them further questions. How did you get it? How
did they arrive it? They simply say they have subtracted appropriate
time difference and we have the time. I say you cannot simply transfer
from Indian muhurtha to here, and they want me to explain. Here is the
explanation I give.
Transferring muhurtham from India:
I get this question quite often from various
people who contact me to perform pooja in their homes:
Question: Even though
I don't live in India, can I use muhurtham prepared in India
by my family astrologer/sastrigal? I have also been told its the most
auspicious muhurtham according to mine and my wife's stars.
Muhurtham calculated in Chennai based on Chennai's
longitude, latitude can't be used in New Delhi. Using them out of India
will not work. The following example will explain why:
Muhurtham depends on panchangam that is five limbs: Tithi, Vaar,
Nakshatra, Yoga, Karana.
Additionally it also depends on solar month name and lunar month name,
As major solah samsakar (16 rites) are performed according to the solar
calendar and graha pravesha and other muhurthas are prepared using
lunisolar month.
The auspicious day needs to be found from the
local calendar not from Indian calendar if you live outside India, as
we have explained before in previous example. Once we fix the good day,
we need to drill down to find most auspicious time. This time can be
found by using hora, rahu kalam, lagna, chogadia and other factors.
Most common practice is to use sthira lagna -- vrishabha, simha,
vrischika, kumbha lagna. Now hora, rahukalam, and lagna are always
dependent on local sunrise, not from Indian sunrise. for example sun
will be always in ascendant during sunrise's chart, and during the
madhyahana it will be always in the 10th house, during sunset it will
be in 7th house, and during midnight it will be always in 4th house, in
any part of the world. Most people use fixed rahukalam like on every
saturday rahukalam willbe from 9:00 to 10:30 AM which is also
completely wrong as sun never rises at 6:00 AM and sets at 6:00 PM on
everyday.
Now let's say vrishabha lagna on April 7th in India (Bangalore) starts
around 8:30 AM (Anuradha nakshatram), now if you subtract 12:30 mins
for Pacific Daylight Saving time (Seattle) you'll get 8:00 PM on April
6th in Seattle. This time it will be Libra (Tula) lagna in Seattle,
which is not sthira lagna or vrishabha lagna. Vrishabha lagna in
Seattle starts around 8:08 AM on April 7th and by, the way at that time
in Seattle nakshatra is jyestha not anuradha nakshatra as our family
astrologer in India suggested a good time in India (Anuradha nakshastra
and Vrishabha lagna combination). Anuradha nakshatra changes at 6:58 AM
in the morning. So this changes the entire ball game. We need another
lagna, may kumbha lagna for Seattle which is very early morning.
Someone argued that with tools available anyone can do the calculation,
but in our experience, the number of calls we are getting every day
even with the tools and knowledge people still have troubles
calculating muhurthams for locations out of India. I am not saying all
of the muhurthams prepared in India for locations outside of India are
wrong, but some of them are. I have seen very good muhurthams prepared
in India when brought to us for verification, and I know so many people
in India who use appropriate tools and fix perfect muhurthams even for
locations out of India. So, there is awareness but we need more, and we
promise that we'll continue to generate more and more awareness about
our rich tradition. We just want to provide tools to astrologers, and a
common man so they can follow our rich tradition. This site is for
everyone free to use.
BTW, we are not charging anything for using our panchangam. We just
want to create awareness. Remember its your muhurthams, your event is
in matter not astrologer's event or muhurthams. If you believe in
muhurtham get the right muhurtham not off by minutes. A couple of
minutes here and there are acceptable but not too much.
Rahu kalam, Yamagandam, Gulika kala timings are not fix like most
panchangam shows. They show assuming sunrises at 6:00 AM and sets at
6:00 PM. They are calculated from sunrise to sunset. Please click here
to learn more about rahu kalam, yamagandam, and gulika kala.
Chogadia, like hora, is also counted from sunrise. We have given the
complete chogadia table on
this page. Please scroll down to the bottom in calendar
section and load calendar and you will find chogadia as a link in those
panchangam.
The muhurthams cannot be transferred to another city from Indian
muhurtham you need to calculate for that place. Transferring is wrong
practice. Always use the panchangam of the local city not Indian
panchangam. That's why always use www.mypanchang.com
to find panchangam of the city you are interested in. We are actively
working to add as many features as possible.
Differences in various panchangam:
Someone brought to our attention about difference in one of the
non-Drishya (vedic--Grahalagava, Surya-siddhanta and other systems)
panchangam and Drishya panchangam including ours. This is because we use
high precision algorithms based on NASA's JPL DE405 ephemeris and most
modern panchangam are based on this technology, and it is very accurate
compared to ancient Grahalaghava and other methods. We can assure you
that the data contained in our panchangam is as accurate as possible
based on modern technology but keeping old tradition alive. The
difference between our high precise panchang and other panchang based
on surya-siddhanta or grahalaghav could go up to couple of hours in the
timings.
The "drishya ganita. means calculations
corresponding to observable reality. If someone is using surya
siddhanta based panchang then their values will be off by 2 hours
comapring to drishya panchang. That is because they have to do observation
and apply bija samskaram due to precession of the equinoxes. These
observation has not been done in centuries and these formulas has
become outdated.
Now a days Vedic panchang-makers don't do
observation
and apply appropriate bija samskar that's why vedic panchangam are way
off compared to drishya ganita panchang. In order to prove they are not
wrong they silently copy the eclipse timings from drishya panchangam,
otherwise eclipse their calculation will be off by several hours, and
you will not be able to observe eclipse using their timings, but you
can observe eclipse correctly with the times specified in drishya
panchang. This really creates confusion in people's mind, about which
panchang to follow? Our shastras are not wrong but people donot observe
sun, moon and planets and do not apply appropriate bija samskara which
creates differences in panchangam and creates confusion. Lokamanya
Tilak advocated for Drishya panchang as he
was scholar and mathematician. Pundit
Dhundiraj Shaastree Date is one of the pioneer in the field
of Drishya ganita panchangam (Date
Panchangkarte Solapur). I have used Date panchang a lot along
with Nirnaysagar panchang, Janmabhoomi panchang etc.
Question: But we are indian, so
Shouldn't we follow indian calender?
A Very short answer. No. Just because you are indian you can't use
indian calender published in india outside of india. The reason.
Location where you are is different. Please read above explantion.
Enough theories. Let's see concrete example for today's panchang for 5 cities in the world. These are the
live data from mypanchang.com's live feed. You can notice the end timings for Tithi, nakshatra, yoga, karana, also sunrise, sunset and other parameters. This explains clearly what we want to say. If you're told your temple prepares calendar
based on your city then you can verify their data with festival information with our website. Please insist them to
use mypanchang.com data. This also means fixed rahukalam timings printed by most panchangams, and newspapers are completely wrong. The cities presented for comparisions are:
- Seattle, WA, USA
- New York, NY, USA
- London, UK
- Hyderabad, India
- Sydney, Australia
Notes:
T: Tithi, N: Nakshatra, Y: Yoga, K: Karana, RK: Rahukalam, YM: Yamagandam, GK: Gulikai, AJ: Abhijit Muhurtha, DM: Durmuhurtha, V: Varjyam, AK: Amritkalam. The Tithi, Nakshatra, Yoga, and Karana timings are end timings means they end at the time specified next to them. When the time is more than 24:00 hours it means they end after midnight. This is because the indian day doesn't end at midnight but from one sunrise to another. Hence 25:00 means 1:00 AM of the next date and 29:00 means 5:00 AM of next date but before the sunrise of the next date. The day -- Monday, Tuesday etc... changes at the sunrise as per the hindu calenderic system.
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