11 November 2015
Budhvar
Deepavali
The darkest night of the year, and the tradition's answer to it is not to wait for light but to make it. A row of lamps against an amavasya.
The actLight a lamp for someone who is sitting in the dark. Not metaphorically — find the person and do something.
Matched in Kartika, by the purnimanta reckoning. 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.
Amavasya
The new moon. The month's lowest point and the day given to the ancestors.
The actOffer water to the pitris with their names said aloud. Rest. Begin nothing; the tradition asks for silence here rather than effort.
Matched in Ashvina. 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
27 ghati and 4 pala have passed since sunrise.
The 14th muhurta of thirty is running.
The 4th prahara of eight.
The sun is in Dakshinayana — the southward half, the sun withdrawing.
Kali Yuga, year 5116.
Of this kalpa, 1,97,29,49,116 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.