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Dates of Sankrant on Gregorian Calender; Why they change;

Acharya Sudhakar V.Rao MD

Will Sankrant be always on Jan 14th? We presented these facts in power point in
our temple a few years ago. The answer is “no, it will change. The reasons are based
on the movement of Rasis and their effects on the Gregorian calender, which has leap
years. The Gregorian calender was founded by Julius Ceaser, who rounded up the time
delays and incorporated them into the annual calenders. This is not done in panchangs.

The data seem very daunting at the first reading but with a little patience, the
reasons become clear. Let us try to understand the astronomy behind that festival.

For Sankranti, Capricorn or Makara Rasi is important. Since it is the 10th zodiac sign,
its starting point is 9×30=270 degrees from first point of Aries (Indian). When Sun
arrives at this point, it transitions into Capricorn. This means, Sun blocks the view of
Capricon and we cannot see it.

The date of the festival is not a problem for panchang because in panchang we go by
actual transition times and tithis. But it is different on Gregorial calender.
Conventionally, on the Gregorian calender, it is on 14th Jan. or 15th jan.. But sometimes it
may be pushed forward to 16th or later. This is because this depends on the exact time of
transition of Sun to Makara Rasi, converted to the rounded up dates on the Gregorian
calender. It depends on whether the transit occurs before or after Sunset. If the transit
occurs after the Sunset (even a minute later!), the celebration is done the next day.

Look at the table below for variaton of dates of Sankrant:

Year. Date of Sankranth Time of Sun Transit to Makara Rasi.

2001 14th Jan 5:10am 14th Jan
2002 14th Jan 11:19 am 14th Jan
2003 14th Jan` 5:30 pm, 14th Jan
2004 15th Jan 11:43 pm 14th Jan
2005 14th Jan 5:41 am 14th Jan
2006 14th Jan 11:54am 14tj Jan
2007 14th Jan``` 6:07 pm, 14th Jan
2008 15th Jan 12:07 am 14th Jan.
2011 15th jan. 7:09 pm 14th jan
2015 15th Jan 1 am 15th Jan

The obvious conclusion from the above data is that perhaps the date is pushed forward by
one day during any leap year. But this is not true. Because in 2015, which was not a
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leap year, the Sankranth occurred on 15th Jan. Therefore there is more to this issue
than meets the eye.
Let us see how.
Now take a close look at column 3. You will find that the transition into Capricorn occurs
6 hours 9 minutes* later every year. This surplus of 9 minutes is very important. In 4
years Sankranti moves forward by 24 hours 36 minutes, but the leap year pulls it
backwards by only 24 hours. (Because of extra day taken in leap year, Sankranti gets
pulled into previous day.) These surplus 36 minutes slowly keep pushing Sankranti
forward.

Now again look at the 3rd column in table no 1. Look closely at 2004 and 2008. Why was
Sankranti celebrated on 15th Jan in those years? Because transition into Capricorn was
after Sunset. So we found one more rule that – “If transition into Capricorn occurs
after sunset, Sankranti is celebrated on the next day”.

To understand it better, let’s take a look at the graph for those 8 years. Y-axis shows the
year and X-axis shows the time of day. The forward motion of Sankranti is clearly visible
in it. The dotted line on the graph represents the sunset at Mumbai on 14th January (6:19
pm). One can easily see that in 2007, the entry into Capricorn was just before sunset. In
2011, it happened after Sunset and so Sankranti was celebrated on 15th Jan. In short, the
pattern of Sankranti which previously was 14-14-14-15, changed to 14-14-15-15 in the
period 2009-2012. Few years later it will become 14-15-15-15; few years later it will be
15-15-15-15; it will keep shifting forward like that. But in exactly how many years? It
takes about 40 years to change Sankranti pattern. If the sunset is just missed by 1-2
minutes, it can get delayed to 44 years. On the other hand if it can catch up with sunset
a little early, it changes in 36 years. common.

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