For generations, Indian families have checked the panchang before a puja, a journey, a big purchase or a housewarming, and the dates of Hindu festivals come from it. You don’t need to be an astrologer to use it. A few minutes with the day’s panchang tell you what kind of day it is, and which hours to keep free of anything new.
Our panchang page shows each day’s panchang. Here is how to read it.
The five limbs
Panchang means “five limbs”, and each limb is a different way of dividing time:
- Tithi: the lunar day, set by the angle between the Moon and the Sun.
- Vaar: the weekday, each ruled by a planet.
- Nakshatra: the lunar mansion the Moon is passing through.
- Yoga: one of 27 combinations formed by the Sun and the Moon together.
- Karana: half a tithi.
The panchang day runs from sunrise to sunrise, not from midnight to midnight. So 2 am on a Wednesday night still counts as Wednesday, or Budhvar.
Tithi: the lunar day
Each time the Moon moves another 12 degrees ahead of the Sun, a new tithi begins. There are 30 in a lunar month: 15 in Shukla paksha, the bright half, as the Moon waxes from Amavasya (new moon) to Purnima (full moon), and 15 in Krishna paksha, the dark half, as it wanes again. The Moon’s speed varies, so a tithi can be shorter or longer than a day, and it rarely begins at sunrise. For most purposes, the tithi running at sunrise names the whole day.
Most festivals are fixed by tithi. Ram Navami falls on the ninth tithi of the bright half of Chaitra, Ganesh Chaturthi on the fourth tithi of the bright half of Bhadrapada, and Holika Dahan on the Purnima of Phalgun. A few festivals look at the tithi at another hour: Diwali’s Lakshmi puja looks for Amavasya in the evening, and Janmashtami for Ashtami at midnight. That is one reason two calendars can give the same festival different dates.
Tithis also fall into five groups that repeat through each half of the month: Nanda (the 1st, 6th and 11th), Bhadra (2nd, 7th and 12th), Jaya (3rd, 8th and 13th), Rikta (4th, 9th and 14th) and Purna (5th, 10th and 15th). The Rikta, or “empty”, tithis are traditionally avoided for new beginnings, and so is Amavasya.
Nakshatra: the Moon’s star
The Moon moves into a new nakshatra roughly once a day. In muhurta, the tradition of choosing good times, each of the 27 nakshatras has a nature that suits certain kinds of work:
- Fixed (Rohini and the three Uttaras): things meant to last, such as foundations, planting and long-term plans.
- Moving (Punarvasu, Swati, Shravana, Dhanishta and Shatabhisha): travel, vehicles and making changes.
- Swift (Ashwini, Pushya and Hasta): quick tasks, trade, learning and short trips.
- Soft (Mrigashira, Chitra, Anuradha and Revati): friendship, romance, music and the arts, and wearing something new.
- Mixed (Krittika and Vishakha): routine work and everyday tasks.
- Fierce (Bharani, Magha and the three Purvas): bold or competitive work, but not auspicious beginnings.
- Sharp (Ardra, Ashlesha, Jyeshtha and Mula): endings, research and hard decisions, but not new beginnings.
Our daily horoscopes name the day’s nakshatra and its nature in every reading. The day’s star also matters personally: count from your own birth star to the day’s star, counting yours as one, and divide by nine. A remainder of 3, 5 or 7 marks a day to treat with care for anything important. This is called tara bala, and it is the same count used in the tara koota of kundli matching. The nakshatra calculator finds your birth star.
Rahu kaal, and the other hours to avoid
Rahu kaal is a period of about an hour and a half each day, ruled by Rahu, that is traditionally kept free of new beginnings: signing papers, setting out on a journey, a first day at work, a big purchase. Work you have already started can carry on.
It is worked out from sunrise and sunset. The daytime is split into eight equal parts, and Rahu kaal takes a different part each weekday. On a day with sunrise at 6 am and sunset at 6 pm, each part is 90 minutes, and Rahu kaal falls at these times:
- Monday: 7:30 to 9:00 am
- Saturday: 9:00 to 10:30 am
- Friday: 10:30 am to 12 noon
- Wednesday: 12 noon to 1:30 pm
- Thursday: 1:30 to 3:00 pm
- Tuesday: 3:00 to 4:30 pm
- Sunday: 4:30 to 6:00 pm
Many people remember the order with the line “Mother Saw Father Wearing The Turban Suddenly”. Real days are rarely exactly twelve hours long, so the actual times shift through the year.
Yamaganda and Gulika kaal are worked out the same way, and they too are kept free of new beginnings. On the brighter side, Abhijit muhurat, a window of about 48 minutes around local noon, is one of the most auspicious times of the day. The panchang page also lists the day’s choghadiya, eight periods by day and eight by night: Amrit, Shubh, Labh and Char are good for starting work, travel and purchases, while Udveg, Rog and Kaal are best avoided.
Times depend on where you are
The panchang on our site is worked out for Jalandhar. Tithi and nakshatra change at the same moment everywhere, although the clock time depends on your time zone. Sunrise and sunset, and with them Rahu kaal and the other periods, depend on where you are, so if you live far from Jalandhar, use a panchang for your own city. It is also why a festival can fall on a different date in London or Toronto than in India.
Yoga and karana
The last two limbs matter most when an astrologer chooses a muhurta. Of the 27 yogas, a few, such as Vyatipata and Vaidhriti, are traditionally avoided. Of the karanas, the one to know is Vishti, also called Bhadra, which is avoided for auspicious work. It is why families wait for Bhadra to end before tying rakhi on Raksha Bandhan.
Using the panchang on an ordinary day
You don’t need to plan your whole life around the panchang. For everyday decisions, a simple routine is enough:
- Look at the tithi and the nakshatra, and see whether the day suits what you have planned.
- Keep new beginnings out of Rahu kaal.
- If you can choose the hour, pick Abhijit muhurat or a good choghadiya.
- For something big, such as a wedding, a griha pravesh or opening a business, have a muhurta chosen for the people involved, from their own charts.
And keep it in proportion. The panchang is traditional guidance for choosing good times. Never delay medical care, miss an exam or let a legal or financial deadline pass because of a tithi or Rahu kaal. For questions about timing in your own life, a kundli reading looks at your dashas and what they mean for the years ahead.