Corrections
A site that computes thousands of dates and timings will sometimes get one wrong, and the honest response is to say so in public. This page sets out how we handle a reported error and lists, with dates, every correction of substance we have made.
How we handle a correction
Anyone can report an error, by email to info@redlapdigital.com or through the 'Report it' link at the foot of festival, vratam, reference and guide pages, which fills in the page address for you. Tell us what the page says and what you believe is right, and, if you can, which panchangam or text you are comparing it with.
We check every report against the computation and against the source the page relies on. If the page is wrong, we correct it in the next build of the site and write back to tell you what we changed. If we think the page is right, or that the difference comes from a convention rather than an error — amanta against purnimanta months, a different city, a different time-of-day rule — we write back to explain that instead.
A correction of substance is one that changes what a page tells a reader: a date, a timing, a tithi or month name, a ritual detail, a factual claim about the site itself. Each one is listed below with the date the corrected page was published, what was wrong, and what it says now. Typing and layout fixes are not listed.
Known limits of the method that are not yet fixed — the 06:00 reading of the day's tithi, festival time-of-day rules, leap months — are described on the methodology page rather than here, because nothing has been corrected yet. When one of them is changed, the change will be listed here.
Corrections log
Pages overstated how dates are checked and computed
The methodology and About pages, the footer, the panchangam pages and one guide said that festival dates were validated or cross-referenced against published panchangams, that the formulae were VSOP-derived and used by observatories, that the day is named for the tithi at sunrise, and that slokas come in six scripts. None of that was accurate. They also promised a rebuild at 04:00 IST every day, while the scheduled rebuilds had been failing since mid-August. Those pages now say what the site actually does: festival dates are computed from tithi rules and have not yet been checked by a qualified reviewer, positions come from the compact series in Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms, the day's tithi is read at 06:00 local time, slokas are in Telugu script with IAST transliteration, and every page shows the date it was computed on.
Amavasya festivals showed the tithi as "Krishna Pournami"
The quick-facts box on the Deepavali and Mahalaya Amavasya pages labelled the tithi "Krishna Pournami", a name that does not exist: the fifteenth tithi of the waning fortnight is Amavasya, the new moon. Both pages now show Amavasya. The dates themselves were not affected.
Pages: Deepavali, Mahalaya Amavasya
The Amavasya tithi page carried the full moon's details
The reference entry for Amavasya shared its Sanskrit name, presiding deity and traditional uses with Purnima, so it listed Chandra and the full-moon observances alongside the ancestors. Amavasya and Purnima now each show their own entry. The Telugu name on the Amavasya entry is also corrected.
Pages: The 30 tithis
Deepavali and Naraka Chaturdashi were placed in the wrong month and paksha
Several pages said Deepavali falls on the Kartika amavasya in the amanta reckoning, and the chaturdashi entry placed Naraka Chaturdashi in the shukla paksha of Kartika. In the amanta reckoning this site uses, Deepavali is the amavasya that closes Ashwina (Ashwayuja), and Naraka Chaturdashi is the krishna chaturdashi the day before it; purnimanta calendars call the same days Kartika. The Deepavali and Kartika Pournami guides, the Ashwina and Kartika month pages, the Amavasya vratam page and the chaturdashi entry now say so. No festival date changed.
Pages: Deepavali, Kartika Pournami, Ashwina, Kartika, Amavasya vratam
The home page could list a date that had already passed
The home page's festival and vratam lists were worked out once, for the day the site was built, so a reader arriving on a later day — or in a city where the date had already turned — could see an "upcoming" date that was already over. The lists now follow the current date in the reader's selected city.
Pages: Home