Aṇṇāmalai Dīpam (Smārtha) 1920: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Aṇṇāmalai Dīpam is the Smārtha tradition's observance of Kārttikai Dīpam: a festival of lights marking the day Kṛttikā nakṣatra is present at sunset during the Sun's transit through Vṛścika (Scorpio) rāśi. Lamps are lit at dusk in homes and temples, continuing the same Kārttikai māsam tradition of light shared across Tamil Nadu.

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

This determination is independent of the Vaiṣṇava Kārttikai Dīpam calculation elsewhere on this site: the two traditions can, in some years, fall on different civil days.