Annamalai Deepam (Smartha) 2021

Annamalai Deepam is the Smartha tradition's observance of Karthigai Deepam — a festival of lights marking the day Krittika nakshatra is present at sunset during the Sun's transit through Vrischika (Scorpio) rasi. Lamps are lit at dusk in homes and temples, continuing the same Karthikai masam tradition of light shared across Tamil Nadu.

Because the moon's roughly 27.3-day cycle through the nakshatras doesn't divide evenly into the Sun's roughly 29-30 day transit through a rasi, Krittika nakshatra can occasionally touch sunset twice within the same Vrischika transit — once shortly after the Sun enters Vrischika, and again shortly before it leaves. The Smartha tradition resolves this by preferring the day nearer the Sun's departure from Vrischika, unless that day carries its own affliction, in which case the earlier, unafflicted day is kept instead.

This determination is independent of the Vaishnava Karthigai Deepam calculation elsewhere on this site — the two traditions can, in some years, fall on different civil days.