Panchangam
Anand Vasudevan
From: o.v. srinivasan <ovs...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 8:56 PM
Subject: Sradha tithi
To: anand.va...@gmail.com
Cc: udai...@googlegroups.com
I was speaking to a ready reckoner maker of Mumbai where he has taken a lot of trouble to tabulate the festivals and functions and naturally sradham tithi (S) as well. I spoke to him at length and I thought that I should share some thoughts as this is of prime importance in our MUST DO karmas.
Different places have different Sun rises and also Sunsets. Thus the length of the day will vary from place to place.
Most of us follow Smruti Muktaphalam or what is more commonly known as Vaidyantha Dikshiteeyam. The following is based on this well accepted treatise.
The day is to be divided into 5 parts and they are named as pratah, Sanghava, madhyanha, aparanha (A), sayankalam,. The length of these will remain equal in a day, but they will increase or decrease depending on the length of the day increasing or decreasing.
Sradham is to be performed during A. Thus it is necessary to know the period during which A exists. Sradham is performed in the month and the tithi in which the relative has departed. Thus we need to know the tithi and the month to decide the day. That is not adequate. The tithi must be present in A and only that tithi is chosen for sradham. It is here some thought has to be applied.
There are many panchangas in vogue and each Panchanga has been prepared for a PARTICULAR place. NO PANCHANGA (P) can BE USED UNIVERSALLY ALL OVER India, if so where is the question of doing so abroad. Whether sradham can be performed abroad is not in the ambit of this article.
Different families are using different P. Originally people were living in villages and the P was relevant. Now people have moved out to various places. It should also be noted that people use a particular P traditionally, meaning I am using this P because my father was using it. There are problems in this usage. As we have shifted from the place for which the P that we are using is calculated, there is loss of accuracy.
I MUST MENTION THAT P DO MENTION WHAT CORRECTION SHOULD BE MADE TO GET THE CORRECT PICTURE FOR THE NEW LOCATION, but , MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, IT IS NOT DONE.
Thus it is quite possible that we may be performing the sradham on the wrong day. I shall detail later.
It must also be added that there are many cases when only a hiranya sradham is done for their dear parent, Again the reasons why this is done is beyond the current discussion. This is also done during Pratah kalam or Sanghava kalam. It can well happen that the tithi at that time may as well be one tithi before what is actually needed.
Here is an example. Pl refer to madathu P which is Sri Kanchi based. 9 July 2015 Ashtami is there till 12:56 pm. The tithi mentioned is Navami, because Navami is there in aparanham. It is till 11:10 on 10th July. As S is to be done during A, Ashtami S cannot be done on 9th and has to be done on 8th. Further Navami vyapti is fully there on 9th. Thus if someone has to do Ani Navami S he will see P and say it is to be done on 9th and rightly so. But if he does hiranya S then will not the tithi be wrong that time. Some thought has to be applied. During hiranya S time, it is Ashtami tithi ruling!
In the above we did not talk about the place and assumed that the P is OK for that place.
If the SUNRISE is 6 am and SS 6:30 then Pratah will be 6:00 to 8:30, Sanghava 8:31 to 11:00, madhyahnam 11:01 to 13::30, aparanham 13:31 to 16:00 and Sayankalam 16:01 TO 18:30 and so on for other timings.
There will be substantial change in Sunrise and Sunset between places like extreme West and extreme East of India and then the 5 kalams will change considerably. Thus one has to be careful in this matter.
Thanking you
With warm regards,
Yours sincerely,
O.V.Srinivasan
501, Flora, Opp Axis bank
10th road, Near Post office
Chembur, Mumbai 400 071
Ph: 98699 83728 / 2529 6297