Panchang means five limbs — tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga and karana. Together they describe the quality of a day, and every muhurta in the Vedic tradition is chosen from them. This guide covers what each limb measures, the periods a panchang marks as favourable or otherwise, how a muhurta is actually assembled, and why two almanacs can list the same day differently without either being wrong.
A panchang is an almanac of the day’s five qualities, and it exists to answer one practical question: is this a suitable moment for what I intend to do. Every auspicious timing in the tradition — for a marriage, a housewarming, a child’s first letters, the lighting of a homa fire — is chosen from it.
It is also, uniquely among the things on this site, entirely local. Almost every value in a panchang derives from sunrise, and sunrise differs by city. A panchang printed for Chennai is approximate in Coimbatore and simply wrong in Toronto — which is why any tool that does not ask your location is showing you somebody else’s day.
The five limbs are not interchangeable. Tithi governs fasts and observances; nakshatra governs muhurta above all else; yoga gives a general reading of the day; karana refines the timing within it; and vara carries the character of its ruling graha. A day can be strong in one and weak in another.
All five limbs with their end times, sunrise and sunset, the inauspicious periods and the auspicious windows — calculated for your own city.
This is the first thing to understand, and it explains a great deal of the confusion people meet.
A panchang day runs from sunrise to the next sunrise, not from midnight to midnight. So the hours between midnight and dawn belong to the previous panchang day. A reading published before dawn describes yesterday, which is correct rather than a delay.
It also explains why a festival can appear to fall on the wrong date. The tithi named for a day is the one running at sunrise — even if it ends an hour later and a different tithi occupies most of the daylight. Where an observance depends on a tithi being present at a particular moment, the rules become specific, and the section on disagreement below covers what follows from that.
Each limb measures a different relationship between the Sun and Moon. Taken together they describe the day.
A tithi is the time the Moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the Sun. Because both move at varying apparent speeds, it runs anywhere between about nineteen and twenty-six hours — never a neat twenty-four, which is why it rarely aligns with sunrise.
Thirty tithis make a lunar month, fifteen in the waxing fortnight — shukla paksha, ending at the full moon — and fifteen in the waning, krishna paksha, ending at the new moon. So most tithis occur twice a month and are read differently in each half.
Tithis are grouped into five classes of six: Nanda (1, 6, 11), Bhadra (2, 7, 12), Jaya (3, 8, 13), Rikta (4, 9, 14) and Purna (5, 10, 15). The Rikta tithis — the name means empty — are avoided for beginnings.
The simplest of the five, and the oldest in an unexpected way. Each weekday belongs to a graha — Sunday to Surya, Monday to Chandra, Tuesday to Mangal, Wednesday to Budha, Thursday to Guru, Friday to Shukra, Saturday to Shani — and takes its character from that lord.
The seven-day week itself came out of the hora system: assign the first hour after sunrise to a planet, run the Chaldean sequence through twenty-four hours, and the next day begins three places along — which produces exactly the order we use. Every language naming its weekdays after planets is preserving that calculation.
Which of the twenty-seven divisions the Moon occupies. The Moon crosses one in about a day, so the day’s nakshatra changes roughly daily, and a panchang gives the time at which it does.
This is the limb that matters most for muhurta. Each undertaking has nakshatras that suit it: Rohini, Mrigashira, Magha, Uttara and Hasta among those favoured for marriage; Chitra, Anuradha and Revati for travel; Pushya for almost anything except marriage. The selection of an auspicious time begins here and is refined by the others.
The least understood of the five. A yoga is derived from the sum of the Sun’s and Moon’s longitudes, divided into twenty-seven parts — so it is not a position at all but a combined measure, and it has no visible counterpart in the sky.
Most yogas are unremarkable. What a panchang is really reporting is whether one of the difficult ones is running: Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are avoided outright for auspicious undertakings, and Parigha, Vajra, Vishkambha, Shula, Ganda, Atiganda and Vyaghata are treated with caution.
Each tithi divides in two, so a lunar month contains sixty karanas — but only eleven types. Seven of them are movable and repeat eight times each through the month; four are fixed and occur once each, around the new moon.
The one that matters is Vishti, also called Bhadra. It is avoided for beginnings of any auspicious kind, and because it occupies half a tithi it can rule out part of an otherwise suitable day. A panchang gives the hours it runs.
Beyond the five limbs, a panchang divides the day into named stretches. Most are derived by splitting daylight into eight equal parts and assigning them by weekday — so all of them move with your local sunrise and sunset.
An eighth of daylight, at a different hour each weekday. Nothing new is begun during it in southern practice — no journey started, no purchase made, no agreement signed. Work already underway continues, and it does not apply to worship.
Derived the same way and treated much as Rahu Kalam is. Some families observe it as strictly, others only for matters of consequence.
Derived identically but read as auspicious. Things begun during it are said to recur or endure, which is why it is chosen deliberately for matters one wants repeated. Very commonly mislisted as inauspicious.
Roughly forty-eight minutes around solar noon, and the most reliably auspicious window of most days — said to overcome many other defects in the panchang. The standard fallback when nothing better is available. Not taken on Wednesdays in several traditions.
A window derived from the nakshatra running, generally about ninety minutes. Treated as broadly auspicious and used where Abhijit does not suit.
A period to be discarded, also derived from the nakshatra. Short, and specific to the star running, so it moves considerably from day to day.
One or two short stretches each day, varying by weekday. Avoided for beginnings but narrow enough that they rarely obstruct planning.
Not a division of daylight but half a tithi, so it can run for many hours and cross midnight. Avoided for auspicious beginnings; the panchang gives its span.
Two systems layer on top of these. Choghadiya divides daylight into eight named periods and night into eight more, used mainly in western and northern India. Hora divides day and night into twelve each, ruled in turn by the seven visible grahas. Neither overrides the panchang; both narrow within a day it has already judged suitable.
Choosing an auspicious moment proceeds in layers, and knowing the order explains why a free calculator can take you part of the way and no further.
The excluded months — Margazhi entirely, Aadi and Purattasi in most southern families. The combustion periods, when Venus or Jupiter is too close to the Sun to be seen. Rikta tithis, adverse yogas, Vishti karana. None of this depends on who you are, so it can be computed for any city and date range.
For a marriage in a given year, this alone typically removes more than half the calendar.
Each undertaking has stars that suit it. This narrows the remainder to a handful of dates in most months, and it is still computable without knowing anything about the person.
Here it becomes personal. Is Guru Bala present? Is the tithi favourable counted from the janma nakshatra? Does the date fall on the person’s Chandrashtama? Is a difficult dasha running? For a marriage, both charts are needed, and what suits one may not suit the other.
The final layer is not a date but a time — choosing the lagna rising at the ceremony, placing benefics in kendras, avoiding the eighth house from it, and steering clear of Rahu Kalam. This is calculated to the minute from the charts involved.
No automatic tool does the fourth layer responsibly, and we would not claim otherwise. A calendar narrows the field honestly. Choosing the moment is a reading.
The Muhurat Finder applies the exclusions and the nakshatra rules for a specific undertaking, and tells you plainly where it stops.
This is the question we are asked most about panchang, and the answer is almost always one of four things — none of which is an error.
Everything derives from local sunrise. Rahu Kalam in Delhi is not Rahu Kalam in Coimbatore, and neither matches Toronto. An almanac printed for one city is approximate elsewhere and badly wrong abroad. This accounts for most disagreements.
The offset between the sidereal and tropical zodiacs. We use Lahiri, the Indian government standard; Raman and KP place planets slightly differently. Where the Moon sits near a nakshatra boundary, this can change the star named for the day.
Different observances are fixed by different moments. Ekadashi goes by the tithi at sunrise; Pradosham by the tithi at sunset; Sankashti by the tithi at moonrise. Where a tithi begins or ends near one of those moments, the rule decides the day — and applying one rule to all of them is the commonest error in published calendars.
Smarta and Vaishnava Ekadashi dates differ deliberately: where the eleventh tithi is touched by the tenth at sunrise, Vaishnava practice defers the fast by a day and Smarta practice does not. This is a settled difference of observance, not a mistake in either calendar.
Where a date here differs from what your family or temple keeps, follow theirs. A calendar cannot know which tradition you belong to, and the one your family has always used is the one your rituals have been performed on.
All five limbs and every period, calculated for your own city.
Auspicious dates for a specific undertaking, with the exclusions applied.
Ekadashi, Pradosham, Amavasya and Pournami dates ahead.
The solar side — twelve month changes and the festivals attached.
For a marriage, a griha pravesh or a business opening, the moment is calculated from the charts of everyone involved as well as from the almanac. Our astrologers do that individually — and where you book a ritual with us, the muhurta for it is calculated from your own chart as a matter of course, at no extra charge.