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The Five Properties Of The Hindu Calendar Day
http://www.faithinreligion.net/articles/2527/1/The-Five-Properties-Of-The-Hindu-Calendar-Day/Page1.html
Victor Epand
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By Victor Epand
Published on 01/15/2009
 
Understanding the five properties that consists of the Hindu calendar day can help you better understand the aspects of the Hindu calendar.

The Hindu calendar that was used in ancient times has undergone many changes in the process of regionalization, and today there are several regional Indian calendars, as well as an Indian national calendar.

Most of the Hindu calendars are inherited from a system that was first enunciated in Vedanga Jyotisha of Lagadha, which was a late BCE adjunct to the Vedas. It was standardized in the Surya Siddhanta during the third century and subsequently reformed by astronomers such as Aryabhata, Varahamihira, and Bhaskara. There are differences and regional variations that abound in these computations of the Hindu lunisolar calendar.

The Hindu calendrical day starts with local sunrise. It is allotted five properties, which are called angas. These properties are the tithi active at sunrise, the vaasara or weekday, the nakshatra in which the moon resides at sunrise, the yoga active at sunrise, and the karana active at sunrise. Together these are called the panchangas, where pancha means five in Sanskrit.

The tithi, which is active at sunrise, is the angular distance between the sun and moon, which is measured from the earth along the ecliptic, which when the circle on the sky in which the sun, moon, and planets seem to move, can vary between 0 degrees and 360 degrees. This is divided into thirty parts, and while each part ends at 12 degrees, 24 degrees, etc. The time spent by the moon in each of these parts, which is the time that it takes for the angular distance to increase in steps of 12 degrees starting from 0 degrees, is called one tithi.

The vaasara is also known as the weekday and is often often abbreviated as vaara in the Sanskrit derived languages, and refers to the days of the week, which are possibly of Sumerian and Babylonian origin, and bears striking similarities with the names in many cultures. Sunday is known as ravi vaara, Monday is known as som vaara, Tuesday is known as mangal vaara, Wednesday is known as budh vaara, Thursday is known as guru vaara, Friday is known as shukra vaara, and Saturday is known as shani vaar. There are many variations of these names in the regional languages, mostly using alternate names of the celestial bodies involved.

The nakshatra is when the moon resides at sunrise. The ecliptic is divided into twenty seven nakshatras, which are variously called lunar houses, which are known as asterisms. These reflect the moon's cycle against the fixed stars, twenty seven days and seven and three fourths hours, which is the fractional part that is being compensated by an intercalary twenty eighth nakshatra. Nakshatra computation appears to have been well known at the time of the Rig Veda.

The yoga is active at sunrise and is the first one that computes the angular distance along the ecliptic of each object, taking the ecliptic to start at Mesha or Aries, which is called the longitude of that object. The longitude of the sun and the longitude of the moon are added, and can be normalized to a value ranging between 0 degrees to 360 degrees. If the value range is greater than 360, then you subtract 360, which the sum is then divided into twenty seven parts. Each part will now equal 800', where ' is the symbol of the arcminute that means one sixtieth of a degree. These parts are called the yoga-s.