How we verify every date
A wrong date means a vrat kept on the wrong day. That is the reason for everything on this page: where our dates come from, what has to pass before they are published, and why they change with your city.
The method
- Two independent sources, never one. Every date is taken from an authoritative Panchang source and then checked against a second, independent reading. Where the two disagree, the date does not get published until the disagreement is resolved by hand.
- A gate that must pass before any new year is trusted. Before a new year of dates is accepted, the same source must first reproduce the dates of a year we have already verified. A source that cannot repeat known-correct data is not used for unknown data.
- City by city, because the sky is not the same everywhere. A tithi begins and ends at a moment in time, not on a calendar square. Whether that moment falls before or after your sunrise decides your date. So the corpus stores dates per city: 64 cities for Karwa Chauth, 64 for Diwali, and 9 reference cities across the ekadashi, purnima, amavasya and pradosh cycles.
- Nothing is typed by hand into a page. Every date, weekday, count and timing you read is generated from the verified corpus at build time. Even sentences about the data, such as whether a date matches India or falls a day earlier, are computed rather than written, so a page cannot quietly keep an old claim after the data changes.
- The app carries the same corpus. The Bhakti Angan app ships the same verified dataset the website is built from: 84 entries across 2026 and 2027, of which 26 carry a verified regional date. App and website cannot disagree, because they are built from one source.
What this catches, in practice
Karwa Chauth 2026 falls on October 29, 2026 in India. In the United States and Canada the moonrise that completes the fast arrives on October 28, 2026, the previous calendar date. A calendar that prints one date for everyone sends someone to the wrong day.
Our pages, and the app, carry both dates and apply the one that belongs to where you are.
What we do not claim
We do not claim to settle differences between sampradayas, and we do not replace your family purohit. Panchang traditions differ honestly, and a household that has kept a festival a certain way for generations is not wrong because a table says otherwise. Where traditions differ, we try to name the difference rather than hide it.
Frequently asked questions
Which Panchang tradition do you follow?
Dates follow the widely used Drik (observation based) reckoning, with the North Indian Purnimanta and the Southern and Western Amanta month systems noted where they differ. Where a festival is kept on different days by different regions, the page says so rather than choosing one silently.
Why does my festival date differ from my family calendar?
Most often because of location: a tithi that ends soon after sunrise in India may end before sunrise where you live, moving your observance by a day. Family and sampradaya traditions also differ legitimately. Our pages give the verified date for your region and name the Indian date alongside it, so you can follow your own tradition knowingly.
Do you correct mistakes?
Yes, and the gate exists precisely to catch them before publication. Corrections found after publication are made at the corpus level, so every page and the app update together on the next build.
Should I still ask my panditji?
For a vrat, a wedding, a griha pravesh or any personal muhurat, yes. These pages are a careful, verified reference, not a substitute for your family purohit or your own tradition.
The counts on this page are generated from the corpus each time the page is rebuilt, so they describe the data as it actually stands.