If 18.12 is margazhi 13th, that means Margazhi started on 6th December.
1. In the Solara Calender we follow today, Margazhi starts on 13/14/15 Dec. But in Lunar calender Margazhi can start any time upto one month before Dec 13/14/15.
2. Considering the Tamil word Thingal for Month , it is possible that we may have follwoed Lunar calender.
Was it possible that during Andal's period, we followed Lunar calender.
Request the members both the clear my above doubt from Literary / Historical sources.
On Pongal day, I happened to watch a program in jaya plus - an interview with a scitinst couple - who were talking about India's astronomical prowess.
They said that, the earth axis changes 1 degree every 72 years and there is provision in our custom to change the calendar accordingly. But we stopped doing that in recent times. After Indepence, the Vikram samvat calendar was created based on all these astrological calculations.
Thai 1 - supposed to be the longest night in the year and was celebrated earlier. But due to the shift in earth's axis - 1 degree in 72 years, the longest night is now Dec 21st.
If we take this as base - during Andals time, marghazhi could have very well started in the first week of Dec or even late Nov. So Dec 6 being Marghazhi 1 could be very much possible.
Yes, that's true, at least upto a point: The "Indian National Calendar" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_national_calendar ) is actually nothing more than offset dates from the Gregorian calendar, and not calculated according to the older texts.
But the Panchangams don't use this one, I think...
Hi, The Calendar that we know as of now and following now (the correction for Leap year) is the Gregorian calendar and we started following that only from 1582. Hence it is not possible to correctly say December such and such date for Marghazhi. Marghahi could be in July :( as per the Julian calendar since there was no leap year correction !
Arvind venkataraman is kind enough to forward this mail on the subject :
Subject: Re: [ponniyinselvan] Re: Period of Azhwars :: Sri Aandal - Lunarmonth? Dear Arvind:
The attached will give you an idea of what we are pleading for.
The Union Government's 1955 calendar reforms committee report has also accepted that Sayana is the correct system which is based on the 4 cardinal points equinoxes and solstices. All Indian panchangas today take the data from NASA and Swiss ephemeris and work out to a wrong and imaginary point called ayanamsa. There are half a dozen ayanamsas like Lihiri, Raman, Krishnamoorthy etc which will give different results.
And from wrong data our Jyotishis produce excellent predictions.
This is happening despite the fact that they knew the system is incorrect.
The Calendar reforms committee said" " in continuing to follow the nirayana system the Hindu calendar makers are under the delusion that they are following the path of Dharma. They are actually committing the whole Hindu society to Adharma"
By professing to produce a sayana national calendar by beginning the year on 22nd March the Rastriya Panchanga which is produced by the Government of India"s positional astronomy centre in Calcutta have included the nirayana system throughout shows it prominently for what it calls for "uniformity"-- of what we do not understand. Probably perpetuating "Adharama".
I do not know much about Andal. But that is all in ninth (later) century.