Mahashivratri 2008

[vinayak.gokhale]

Please see following:

[vinayak.gokhale]

Namaste Vinayakji,

Yes, temples sometimes create unnecessary confusion about festivals. Many of the dates listed on the second site are clearly wrong for Seattle. The Hindu calendar is region specific and needs to be calculated based on local longitude and latitude. Simply going by dates of celebration in India makes no sense whatsoever.

I did write to that temple, I got following response:

"Namaskar

Thanks for your feedback. I looked into your concern and talked to our Pandit Sanjay Shastri Ji. It is decided to follow the Indian Calendar from now on instead of updating some of the dates based on Seattle (it causes all kind of confusion). We will update our website to reflect the change.

May God bless you and your loved ones!"

It seems that priests are the one who make decisions when to celebrate what festival. Something you don't expect from priest. I am not sure if he has appropriate knowledge in this subject.

[Agnideva]

I did write to that temple, I got following response:

"Namaskar

Thanks for your feedback. I looked into your concern and talked to our Pandit Sanjay Shastri Ji. It is decided to follow the Indian Calendar from now on instead of updating some of the dates based on Seattle (it causes all kind of confusion). We will update our website to reflect the change.

May God bless you and your loved ones!"

It seems that priests are the one who make decisions when to celebrate what festival. Something you don't expect from priest. I am not sure if he has appropriate knowledge in this subject.

Namaste Vinayak,

Again all of this makes no sense. They may get away by saying we celebrate festivals according to the calendar in India, but how do they justify saying that poornima (full moon) occurs on Feb 21, when it occurs at 19:30 PDT (7:30 pm) on Feb 20 in Seattle?

Even in India, calendar for one place is not valid for another. For example, this year, Gudi Padwa/Yugadi/Nav Samvat (Lunar New Year) falls on April 6 if you're in Mumbai, and April 7 if you're in Hyderabad. Even though both cities are in the same time zone, there is a 22 min difference in local sunrise times, and that makes all the difference.

[vinayak.gokhale]

Namaste Vinayak,

Again all of this makes no sense. They may get away by saying we celebrate festivals according to the calendar in India, but how do they justify saying that poornima (full moon) occurs on Feb 21, when it occurs at 19:30 PDT (7:30 pm) on Feb 20 in Seattle?

Even in India, calendar for one place is not valid for another. For example, this year, Gudi Padwa/Yugadi/Nav Samvat (Lunar New Year) falls on April 6 if you're in Mumbai, and April 7 if you're in Hyderabad. Even though both cities are in the same time zone, there is a 22 min difference in local sunrise times, and that makes all the difference.

Namaste Agnidevaji

I think more and more people write to temples like this then their eyes will open.

[vinayak.gokhale]

I just found another temple in texas, celebrating mahashivratri on wrong day.

http://www.hsbv.org/2008/calender_2008_balaji.pdf

The weird thing is they put the newmoond and fullmoon dates correctly, but observing festivals that falls on those days on wrong days...

http://www.hsbv.org/

I think we can create another thread to maintain this list. Someday they will search internet, and finds this thread and learn from their mistakes......

[Agnideva]

I think we can create another thread to maintain this list. Someday they will search internet, and finds this thread and learn from their mistakes......

Namaste Vinayak,

Yes, that's a great idea. Go ahead and create a thread and we can discuss further. Perhaps the moderator can also move the relevant posts to the new thread.

[vinayak.gokhale]

Namaste Vinayak,

Yes, that's a great idea. Go ahead and create a thread and we can discuss further. Perhaps the moderator can also move the relevant posts to the new thread.

I have added the new thread under jyotish.

http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2666

[shian]

Om Mahesvaraye Svaha
in Sivaratri, all the Shaivism is vegetarian?

[shian]

this for you all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jugiG...eature=related

[sarabhanga]

In Shivaratri, all the Shaivism is vegetarian?

Namaste Shian,

At Shivaratri, it is proper to fast, either not eating anything or taking only fruit and milk. And most Shaivism normally assumes a vegetarian diet, although Shaktism may be non-vegetarian.