14 January 2009
Budhvar
Makar Sankranti
The Sun turns north. Of every festival in the year this is the one fixed to the sky itself rather than to the moon, which is why it lands on nearly the same date each January while everything else moves. The cold has not broken yet — the turn is announced before it is felt.
The actGive away something warm to someone who is cold, today, while it still matters. Til and gur to a neighbour is the old form; a blanket to someone sleeping outside is the same act.
Matched by the Sun's entry into Makara, not by a lunar month. Regional almanacs may place the observance a day either side.
Sankashti Chaturthi
The fourth tithi after the full moon, for Ganesha — the day for obstacles specifically.
The actName one obstacle plainly. Do the smallest possible thing about it today rather than the largest.
Matched in Pausha. Both reckonings name this month alike, so there is nothing to choose between them here. A krishna-paksha day carries two month names — purnimanta runs a month ahead of amanta — so each festival is matched by the reckoning its own name uses. This is shown so you can check it.
The sky over this day
This moment
25 ghati and 37 pala have passed since sunrise.
The 13th muhurta of thirty is running.
The 4th prahara of eight.
The sun is in Uttarayana — the northward half, the sun climbing.
Kali Yuga, year 5109.
Of this kalpa, 1,97,29,49,109 years have passed.
out of 4,32,00,00,000 · 45.67%
A ghati here is a fixed twenty-four minutes — one sixtieth of a mean day, which is what the ladder below defines. The other tradition divides the actual daylight into its own proportional parts, and that is what the muhurta page computes for Brahma and Abhijit. Two conventions, both true, and VEDAUM will not quietly mix them.
Time, as Sanatan measured it →A guide to the rhythm of the year, not a replacement for your family's own panchang. Where a tithi spans two sunrises, regional convention decides which day keeps the festival, and VEDAUM shows the day its own reckoning gives.