Monday, December 31, 2012

Astrological significance of New Year in Gregorian calendar


Gregorian calendar is followed for most civil purposes throughout the world. India, where various regional calendars are followed for religious activities, also follows Gregorian calendar for most civil activities.

1st January which marks the beginning of the New Year is also celebrated by Hindus. Many of them visit temples on the eve of New Year. However, astrologically this day has no significance. Visiting temple on New Year day is as good as visiting it on any other day.

In most traditional or religious calendars, the first day of the year is decided based on some celestial event. These calendars use new moon day, full moon day or the transition of the Sun from one zodiac to another to mark the first day of the year. Few traditional calendars also consider Equinox or Solstice to mark the first day of the year. Gregorian calendar which is solely based on human convenience has no such strings attached.

In India the first day of the year, in various regional calendars, is significant because it is based on some celestial event. The first day of the year based on lunar calendars, including Marathi New Year (Gudi Padwa), Telugu New Year (Yugadi) and Gujarati New Year starts with the new moon. Similarly, the first day of the year based on solar calendars, including Tamil New Year (Puthandu), Malayalam New Year, Bengali New Year (Pohela Boishakh or Naba Barsha) and Sikh New Year (Vaisakhi), starts when the sun transits from one zodiac to another i.e. on the important day of Sankranti.

In religious towns like Mathura and Vrindavan tourists throng temples on New Year eve. However this day has no religious significance according to Hindu calendar. If you miss it then you should not regret it as you can visit the temple on the next day.

2013 Kumbh Mela

Churning of milky ocean was an uphill task. It was not possible to perform it without the help of Demons (Asurs). Hence Gods reached for an agreement with Demons to accomplish this task and it was decided that all perks coming out from the milky ocean would be shared equally including the nectar of immortality. During churning of milky ocean when the pot (Kumbh) of nectar came out, a fight broke out between the Gods and the Demons to get it completely without sharing it with the other.

According to Hindu mythology the fight between the Gods and the Demons continued for twelve years. During the fight the pot of nectar was shifted from place to place to keep it safe from demons. During this time few drops of nectar were spilled at twelve different places. Out of those twelve locations four were on the Earth and remaining eight were on the heaven.

Due to spilling of nectar drops, four places on the Earth, Allahabad, Nasik, Haridwar and Ujjain became sacrosanct. Hence Kumbh Mela is held only at these four locations.

Based on the astronomic positions of the Sun, the Moon and the Jupiter (Lord Brihaspati) the Kumbh gets repeated every twelve year. The Jupiter takes approximately twelve years to pass all 12 zodiacs and when it crosses Makar Rashi, which happens once in twelve year, there is Kumbh Mela at Allahabad. Jupiter remains in Makar Rashi for about one year and during this time one complete lunar month, during which Kumbh Sankranti occurs, is considered auspicious to take bath in sacred water of Sangam. Hence whole Magha lunar month becomes auspicious every twelve years to take holy dip in Sangam at Allahabad.

In 2013, due to transition of Jupiter through Makar, Kumbh Mela would be held at Allahabad during Magha month from 27th January to 25th February (both dates inclusive).

Thursday, December 27, 2012

From Editor of DrikPanchang.com




The domain DrikPanchang.com was registered in July 2010 (GoDadddy.com records shows 14th July). According to Hindu Calendar it was Tritiya, Ashadha, Shukla Paksha, 2067 Vikram Samvat. However no serious work was started up to next one year. But we celebrate the anniversary of DrikPanchang.com on the day when it was registered with GoDaddy.com.

Some basic work was started in the first half of 2011 with few pages. The team started working on the website in the second half of 2011 and with in one year we made good amount of material available on DrikPanchang.com. The hard work of the team rewarded by improved Alexa ranking. The DrikPanchang rank crossed respected 1,00,000 sometimes in August 2012. At the time of writing this article Alexa rank of DrikPanchang.com is in 40k.

We have started this new channel under news.DrikPanchang.com, so that we can update our readers about the latest religious affairs.

The Editor