Sivakasi town is located in the Virudhunagar district of the state of Tamil Nadu in India and Pongal is celebrated as the main festival here. The city is situated on the Western Ghats and is mostly composed of plainlands with red and black soil and almost no water bodies making this a very dry area. The origin of Sivakasi can be dated back to the Fifteenth Century when it was founded by King Harikesari Parakkirama Pandian of the Pandya Dynasty to build the iconic Kasi Viswanathar Temple. The important shrines of Sivakasi are the Kasi Viswanathar Temple, the Badhrakali Amman Temple, the Arulmigu Viswanatha Swamy Temple, the Arulmigu Shenbaga Vinayagar Temple, the Periya Palli Vasal Mosque, the Chinna Palli Vasal Mosque and the CSI Regland Memorial Church. Sivakasi earns its revenues from the manufacture of firecrackers and matchboxes as well as from the printing industry while there are also other factories and mills here.
About the Panchang
The Panchang (Panjika) is the Hindu almanac. It is used to choose auspicious times (shubh muhurat) for important events
— marriage, naming a baby, starting a business or entering a new home — and to identify inauspicious periods
that are best avoided. Festivals and pujas are also scheduled by it: Lakshmi Puja falls on Purnima tithi, for example,
and Durga Puja on Saptami.
The name means “five limbs”: Tithi, Vara (weekday), Nakshatra,
Yoga and Karana. This page calculates them for the chosen city and date, together with
sunrise, sunset and the Moon's phase. Timings depend on the location, so they differ from city to city.
Tithi and Paksha
A tithi is the time it takes for the Moon to move 12° ahead of the Sun, so there are 30 tithis in a lunar month:
Pratipada, Dwitiya, Tritiya, Chaturthi, Panchami, Shashthi, Saptami, Ashtami, Navami, Dashami, Ekadashi, Dwadashi,
Trayodashi, Chaturdashi and Purnima in the bright half (Shukla Paksha), and the same fifteen ending in Amavasya in the
dark half (Krishna Paksha).
Karana and Yoga
Each tithi has two karanas: the movable Bava, Balava, Kaulava, Taitila, Gara, Vanija and Vishti (Bhadra), and the fixed
Shakuni, Chatushpada, Naga and Kimstughna. There are 27 yogas, found by adding the longitudes of the Sun and Moon and
dividing by 13°20′: Vishkambha, Priti, Ayushman, Saubhagya, Shobhana, Atiganda, Sukarma, Dhriti, Shoola,
Ganda, Vriddhi, Dhruva, Vyaghata, Harshana, Vajra, Siddhi, Vyatipata, Variyana, Parigha, Shiva, Siddha, Sadhya, Shubha,
Shukla, Brahma, Indra and Vaidhriti.
Before starting a journey or anything important, prefer the auspicious times above and avoid Rahu Kaal,
Yamaganda, Gulika Kaal, Dur Muhurta and Mrityu periods.