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Panchang today, for your city

The five limbs of the day with exact transition times, plus rahu kaal, choghadiya and hora. Computed from an ephemeris for each city and date, never looked up from a table.

What the five limbs mean

Vara

Weekday

The solar day, ruled by one of the seven classical planets. It sets which hora opens the day and where rahu kaal falls.

Tithi

Lunar day

One thirtieth of a lunation — the Moon gaining 12° on the Sun. Tithis are unequal, running from about 20 to 27 hours.

Nakshatra

Lunar mansion

One of 27 segments of 13°20′ the Moon moves through, each with a ruling graha and four padas.

Yoga

Sun–Moon sum

One of 27 divisions of the combined longitude of Sun and Moon. Distinct from the yoga of practice.

Karana

Half tithi

Sixty per lunar month but only eleven names — seven that repeat in a cycle and four fixed.

Panchang questions

What is a panchang?

A panchang is the Hindu almanac for a day, made of five limbs: vara (weekday), tithi (lunar day), nakshatra (the Moon's constellation), yoga and karana. Every limb is derived from the positions of the Sun and Moon, so it changes continuously and has exact transition times rather than lasting a whole calendar day.

Why does the panchang differ between cities?

Because the limbs are quoted from sunrise, and sunrise depends on longitude and latitude. Kolkata sees sunrise about 50 minutes before Rajkot, which moves rahu kaal, every choghadiya boundary and every hora with it. A panchang that gives one set of times for all of India is wrong for almost everyone reading it.

Which ayanamsa do you use?

Lahiri, the Indian government standard, by default. KP, Raman and Yukteshwar are available in the workbench. The choice matters: near a boundary a different ayanamsa moves the Moon into a different nakshatra or pada and changes the whole reading, so every page states which one produced its figures.

Is this calculated or looked up?

Calculated. Every value is computed from an ephemeris for that city and that date at page build time. Nothing is read from a fixed table, which is why dates years ahead are available and are as accurate as today.

About these timings

The figures on this page are astronomical calculations: positions of the Sun and Moon worked out for your city and date. Those are measurements, and they are as exact as the ephemeris behind them.

What the traditions take each one to MEAN — auspicious, inauspicious, favourable for a particular act — is tradition, recorded here as tradition. Nothing on this page is a prediction, and nothing on it is financial advice.