When is Mesha Sankranti?

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Timings on this page are computed for Sydney.

The whole table below is recomputed for the city you pick. That is not cosmetic: an observance decided at moonrise, such as Karwa Chauth, can genuinely fall on a different day in two cities, and the moment the fast ends differs by more than an hour across India.

Computed for Sydney

The date in Sydney

Thursday, 15 April 2027

Sun enters Aries

14 Apr, 19:58

Observance kept on

Thursday, 15 April 2027

The ingress falls after sunset. The rule used here is the widely-published one: punya kaal belongs to the day of the ingress unless the Sun crosses after sunset, in which case it is kept the following day. That is why the date above is a day later than the instant.

Regional almanacs apply the punya-kaal rule differently, and the Punjabi and Tamil solar calendars fix their own new-year dates. The computed instant above is the astronomy; the day is an interpretation of it.

Mesha Sankranti across five years

Two years back, this year, and two ahead. Past years are kept rather than dropped so you can check the engine against a calendar you already have.

Every row is computed for Sydney from the same ephemeris, not looked up. Sunrise decides which day a tithi names, and sunrise differs across India by more than an hour, so a date computed for Delhi can be a day out elsewhere.

Why calendars disagree about this date

There is no single authority that settles a Hindu festival date, and the divergence is genuine rather than sloppy. Three causes account for almost all of it.

1. A tithi rarely starts at sunrise. One that is running at the deciding moment on two days — or on none — is claimed by both days under different rules.
2. Month reckoning. North India runs purnimanta, the south and west amanta. The same dark fortnight carries different month names in the two, so an observance defined as "krishna X of month Y" can land a full lunation apart.
3. Which moment decides. Most vratas belong to the day whose sunrise carries the tithi, but not all: this one is decided at the solar ingress. Almanacs that apply the sunrise rule to everything move several festivals by a day.

So this page shows its working. If your pandit or your family almanac gives a different day, the instants above will usually show you exactly why — and that is more useful than a date asserted without one.

Related timing

• The full vrat and tyohar calendar
• Panchang for your city — tithi, nakshatra, yoga, karana
• Choghadiya windows for the day
• Free kundli — see what this period touches in your own chart