ಸಂಕಷ್ಟಹರ ಚತುರ್ಥಿ | Sankashti Chaturthi

Sankashti Chaturthi, in full Sankatahara Chaturthi, the fourth that removes difficulty, is the monthly vrata of Ganesha kept on the fourth tithi of the dark fortnight. It comes round twelve times in an ordinary year, thirteen when there is an intercalary month.

The one observance timed by moonrise

Almost every other day in the panchanga is settled by a moment that is the same for everybody in a region: sunrise, midday, dusk, the middle of the night. Sankashti is settled by moonrise, and moonrise is not the same for everybody. This is the only observance in common use whose hour genuinely belongs to the place the reader is standing in.

The day that carries the vrata is the day on which chaturthi is running at moonrise. The fast is kept through the day and broken only after the moon has been seen and arghya offered to it, with the Ganesha puja done before that.

Why an almanac prints a different time for Bengaluru and Mumbai

Two things differ between one town and another, and they do not add up to a fixed offset.

The first is longitude. Indian Standard Time is reckoned from a meridian at 82 degrees 30 minutes east, which passes near Mirzapur. Bengaluru stands near 77 degrees 35 minutes east and Mumbai near 72 degrees 50 minutes east, so Mumbai runs roughly nineteen minutes behind Bengaluru in local solar time. Everything in the sky rises later there by the clock, the moon included.

The second is latitude, and this is the part that surprises people. Bengaluru is near 13 degrees north and Mumbai near 19 degrees north. How long a body stays above the horizon at a given latitude depends on its declination, and the moon changes declination faster than anything else in the sky, running from far north to far south and back within a single month. So the extra delay contributed by latitude is different at every Sankashti. In one month Mumbai may be twenty-five minutes behind Bengaluru, in the next it may be twelve. There is no constant to add.

A printed almanac has to choose a city, and most choose the city they are printed in. Using a Bengaluru moonrise in Hubballi, or a Mumbai moonrise in Belagavi, will have someone eating before the moon is up. Anudina computes moonrise for the coordinates of the reader, which is the only way the timing can be right.

What is done

The fast is usually a phalahara one, fruit and milk during the day, with no grain until the moon is seen. In the evening Ganesha is worshipped with twenty-one blades of durva grass, red flowers and modaka or kadubu. The Sankashtanashana Ganesha Stotra is recited, and in many Karnataka households the fast is kept every month for years together, more steadily than any annual festival.

A Sankashti falling on a Tuesday is Angaraka Sankashti. Tuesday belongs to Mangala, who is Angaraka, and the combination is held to be worth many ordinary ones. It occurs only once or twice a year and draws a much larger crowd to Ganesha temples.

Not the same as Vinayaka Chaturthi

Each lunar month has two chaturthis, and they are different observances. The dark fortnight one is Sankashti and it is kept at moonrise. The bright fortnight one is Vinayaka Chaturthi and it is kept at midday. The contrast is sharper still: on Sankashti the moon must be seen before the fast ends, while the great Vinayaka Chaturthi of Bhadrapada is the one day of the year on which the moon is deliberately not looked at.