Aashaada (lunar version of solar month Mithuna) or Aadi (Karkataka): Inauspicious? Gimme a break!

Why is the lunar month of Aashaada (despite beginning this year on Shiva’sauspicious dual of Monday <soma-vaara> & ardra nakshatra), considered by many Indians in the last few decades as an ‘inauspicious’ month, so much so that most businesses have to provide major discounts to entice customers, without which they’d have zero sales!? Let’s explore the background.

It’s a fact that many important festivals for Devi, Guru, Vishnu & Shiva actually occur in this month every year (which we’ll discuss in detail as & when they occur). So it’s obvious that the month by itself isn’t a really an outcast that it’s made out to be amongst the dozen in a year.

There are instead many practical reasons which have made people avoid initiating major endeavours in this month. Let’s explore a few possibilities & check out their relevance for the current age:

1. Aashaada is the first of the two months of southeast monsoon, called Varsha Ritu, as we discussed during our entry into the corresponding solar month Aani/Mithunarecently. Rainy 🌧 season makes outdoor activities ☔️ & 🧭 travel 🧳 uncomfortable. Hence avoiding parties, weddings etc. so as not to inconvenience the guests, even if they have access to cars 🚘 & quality public transport, as the last yard connectivity could still be messy. But today we’ve reliable weather predictions, albeit the weatherman still being a worldwide favourite soft target for many memes & ridicule! Moreover, the next month is also a monsoon month but considered very auspicious! So this apparent reason can by far be eliminated for treating the entire month/season as an outlier.
2. Agricultural season requires the farmers & their families to be fully focussed on their work, leaving insufficient time, energy & funds for anything else. But today the fraction of our population, which is directly involved in agriculture is coming down drastically. Offscouring the full month for all other non-farming communities thus makes no sense again!
3. If a child 👶🏻 happens to be conceived during this month, it’ll typically be born in peak summer next year, inconveniencing itself & its guardians due to both health & weather conditions. With climate changes due to global warming causing seasons to go haywire & the greater ability today of many parents to provide conducive healthcare & room temperature 🤒 for the upbringing of their wards, (though many family environments are far worse than they ever were, but that’s a story for another day!), once again debarring a specific month is out of tune with ground realities.

While most of what we’ve inherited from our ancestors is undoubtedly scientific, we should also care to see if there have been unwarranted modifications over time & if those changes still make any sense. That’s an essential difference between two bodies of wisdom that we’ve been bestowed with: the eternally-valid shruti/Vedas & the temporarily-valid smriti. Let’s keep reinventing the latter to sustain the spirit of the former, that’s true Sanatana Dharma here & now. In fact, dharma is all about sustainability, the portfolio of omnipresence <Vishnu>, as we shall discover in future posts. Keep engaged.