Vedic astrology guide
Why the Same Festival Slips a Day Abroad
A tithi is judged at local sunrise, and Karwa Chauth ends at local moonrise. Delhi and New Jersey can both be right on different civil dates.
By Avinash ChandanPublished Updated
Karwa Chauth 2026 is Thursday 29 October in India and Wednesday 28 October for many families in the US and Canada. Both are keeping the chaturthi and the moon they can see. The Moon does not punch a time clock in IST for a woman standing in New Jersey.
The rule is dull and sufficient. A tithi festival is the tithi at local sunrise. A moonrise festival ends when the Moon rises locally. A sankranti is a solar instant, converted into local time, which can change the civil date without changing the astronomy. WhatsApp fights start when someone screenshots an Indian calendar and calls a diaspora rite wrong.
One sky, many sunrises
Jyotish was always local. The lagna of a birth is the horizon of a city. A festival uses the same horizon. If you are fasting, fast on the sunrise where you woke. If you are tying a rakhi on a video call across a date line, say which sunrise you each used, and do not let the argument become the rite.
The mechanics are in why festival dates move.
Questions people keep asking
Should I follow India time if I live abroad?
Follow local sunrise for a tithi vow, and local moonrise for a fast that ends at the Moon. IST is the clock of India, not of your horizon.
Are both families correct?
Often yes. They are correct for two horizons, not wrong for one.