Soneone was kind enough to mail me list of festivals annouced by sanatan dharma society. I do find some errors in some festivals: Here they are:

2008 Mauritius public calendar

7 Apr Ougadi. Wrong…. rediculous This date should be April 6th, Chaitra padyami doesn’t prevail at the sunrise of mauritius on 7th (Some parts of india like bombay, and delhi will celebrate on 6th April, Where as Tamilnadu, orrisa, bengal, Bihar will celebrate on 7th Apr).

14 April Ram Navami Ramanavami should be April 13th as per shaivite principle or smartha principle, April 14th as per true vaishnavite principle.

15 August Krishna Janmashtami Wrong…. rediculous This should be 23rd August 2008 (This falls on August 24th for India, 23rd for Mauritius)

4 Sep Ganesh Chathurthi. WRONG rediculous. This should be September 3rd in Mauritius (Even India Doesn’t celebrate on 4th September)

I would really like to know their reasoning about adjusting their festivals. When they can celebrate Mahashivaratri on right date why not other fesivals?

Can safely, but wasn’t supposed to :p and it will not be a raatri, instead, some hours if we were to go for the 5th, hence the mistake.

Now let’s get to basics:

There are two siddhantas that decides shivaratri.

1) 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.

a) What is nishita kala? 8th muhurtha of the night.
so subract sunrise of 6th – sunset of 5th = 11 hours and 41 minutes. 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. Now 8th muhurtha is nishitha kala, means multiply that value by 7 giving you, 5 hours 27 minutes and 8 seconds. 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… now add 46 minutes and 44 seconds to that…… that’s the total time of nishitha kala.

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

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 said…

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.

Hindu Calendar is once again local. However, i would like to know reasoning of your local organisation why have they decided on March 5th although according to me it’s the right date but I am just curious.

It is not the mistakes. Hindu calendar is regional. Even the calendar made for one city in india can’t be applied to entire state we are talking about antoher country. Most websites mentions festival dates for india. Sometimes for given city, attimes they might not be applicable another town 50 miles down the road. For example you’ll see another round of hot debates in india for yugadi (hindu new year). As certain panchang mentions April 6th certain says April 7th. Both are right because they are based on their own town’s longitude and latitudes…

If you have more questions, please feel free to email me directly at the email mentioned on my website. I might not monitor all blogs on day to day basis. I will be glad to help you with any of the questions. However, i am curious to know all festivals they have laid down for mauritius, do you have the list and dates? My interest is just curiocity…. nothing more…

for more details:
http://www.mypanchang.com
http://hindupanchang.blogspot.com/

Yours Truely
Pandit Mahesh Shastri.
Seattle, WA.

Mahashivaratri is celebrated during Magha masa, krishna paksha chaturdasi. When It’s visible during midnight.

Here is the panchanga for the Port Louis, Mauritius for March 5th: (Source: http://www.mypanchang.com)

Sunrise:06:12
Sunset:18:31
Moonrise:03:41
Magha
Krishna Paksha
T:Trayodashi 24:01:06+
N:Shravana 16:14:40
Y:Parigha 14:00:16
K:Garaja 12:19:30
K:Vanija 24:01:06+
SN: Kumbha
MN: Makara
RK:12:21-13:54
YM:07:44-09:17
GK:10:49-12:22
DM:11:48-12:37
V: 20:13- 21:48
AK:29:43-31:18

On March 6th in your place it’s visible till 22:54. Madhyarati is the third part of ratrimana. Ratrimana equal to (sunrise of march 6th – sunset of march 5th) / 5. and the third part added to the sunset of march 5th gives you the time, and add that duration of that kala to that time, and if tithi is visible during that time, It is mahashivaratri.

It is not the mistakes. Hindu calendar is regional. Even the calendar made for one city in india can’t be applied to entire state we are talking about antoher country. Mauritius can safely celebrate Mahashivaratri on 5th as per dharmasindhu it is nishitha kala vyapini.

for more details:
http://www.mypanchang.com
http://hindupanchang.blogspot.com/
Pandit Mahesh Shastri.
Panchanga Siddhanti and Panchang karta
mypanchang.com
Seattle, WA.

My Good God, I fear a chaos before the fastival. At Uni itself I heard someone speaking that this is unacceptable and thinking about “organise kitsoz pou met tout dan lordre ki bzin”

:/