[Advaita-l] shivaraatri dates this year

[Anand Hudli]

>The kanchi mutt is following the कालमाधवीयं and sringeri mutt is following
धर्मसिन्धु...

>Former is celebrating on 14th and the later on 13th !!

Dear Shri Sriramji,

I looked at both the (Kannada) Sringeri and (Telugu version) Kanchi Matha
Panchangas. First of all, the tithi ending times are telling us that
Sringeri uses (the ancient) Surya Siddhanta method of determining tithi
ending times, while Kanchi uses dRg-gaNita. The starting and ending time
for Chaturdashi tithi are 1) 10:15 PM on Feb 13 and 12:11 AM on Feb 15 as
per Surya siddhAnta and 2) 10:34 PM on Feb 13 and 12:46 AM on Feb 15 as per
dRg-gaNita. Now, the rule for mahAshivarAtri states that Chaturdashi should
prevail during the nishItha kAla of the day when we observe it. The
nishItha kAla is obtained by dividing the duration of the night (i.e. from
sunset to sunset the next day) into 15 parts and taking the eighth such
part. The sunset times at Sringeri and Kanchi differ too, since Sringeri
sunset is at 6:33 PM and Kanchi sunset is at 6:16 PM. Taking the duration
of the night as approximately 12 hours (this is sufficient for this
instance, although the actual duration of night is slightly more than 12
hours), each 1/15 part of the night is 48 minutes, which is, by the way,
the duration of a muhUrta. The eighth such part (nishItha kAla) starts 5
hours 36 minutes after sunset. In Sringeri, this would be 12:09 AM on Feb
14 and in Kanchi it would be 11:52 PM on Feb 13. On the next day, the start
of nishItha kAla is about the same in the two places. The ending time for
the nishItha kAla would be 12:57 AM on Feb 14 in Sringeri and 12:40 AM on
Feb 14 in Kanchi. The interesting point to note is that the vyApti of
Chaturdashi is kArtsnyena (complete, as dharmasindhu puts it) in Sringeri
on Feb 13-14 night and ekadeshena (partially) on Feb 14-15 night as per
Sringeri's method, ie. sUrya siddhAnta. When this happens, the rule for
shivarAtri states that the first night, i.e. Feb 13-14, should be selected
for observing shivarAtri (paredyuH nishItha-ekadesha-vyAptau pUrvedyuH
saMpUrNatadvyAptau pUrvaiva). Hence Feb 13-14 is the shivarAtri date for
Sringeri. The same would have been the case for Kanchi, had it not been for
the dRg-gaNita method which makes the ending time of Chaturdashi 12:46 AM,
beyond the ending of nishItha kAla at 12:40 AM. As an interesting twist,
there is not ekadesha-vyApti but saMpUrNa-vyApti even on the second night,
i.e. Feb 14-15 *and* saMpUrNa-vyApti on the first night , i.e. Feb 13-14 in
Kanchi! When this happens, another rule applies which says the majority of
the dharmashAstra-kAras recommend the second night, i.e. Feb 14-15 in this
case, while Hemadri and those who follow Hemadri recommend the first night.
It appears that Kanchi has taken the majority opinion, which includes
weighty granthas such as nirNyaya-sindhu, kAlamAdhava, and puruShArtha
chintamaNi. Hence, Feb 14-15 is the shivarAtri date for Kanchi.

Anand