Vacoas Phoenix town is situated in the Plaines Wilhems and Moka districts in Mauritius and is also called Villes Jumelles while being looked after by the Municipal Council of Vacoas Phoenix. The town rests on a hilly terrain very near to the capital city of Port Louis and is very near to the coastal regions of the Indian Ocean. Vacoas Phoenix was originally divided into two separate villages Vacoas and Phoenix which merged together in 1963. Hinduism is the prevalent religion in the town with the major holy places being the Kailaasa, the Clairfonds Shiv Mandir, the Masjid e Munnawar, Ste Helene Church, the Lawkwanthion Pagoda, the Hari Har Kchetra Mandir & Shivopasack Sabha, the ISKCON Temple, the Mahant Kabir Mandir, the Breakthrough City Church, Ste Therese Church, the Sockalingum Meenatchee Ammen Kovil and the Mont Roches Mariamman Kovil. Vacoas Phoenix has an industrial economy with beer brewing, vegetable canning and cosmetics and clothes manufacturing being the chief sectors.
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.