The month is a sequence of local sunrise snapshots
A Panchanga combines one local calendar label with four measures derived from the Sun and Moon. The India Meteorological Department’s Positional Astronomy Centre names these five limbs as vara, tithi, nakshatra, yoga, and karana. Its national panchang presents daily information at sunrise and the ending moments of the angular limbs. Drik Panchang’s monthly table makes the same practical comparison possible across dates, with location-sensitive sunrise and columns for the changing limbs. This site computes its own values rather than copying either publisher’s timetable.
Each row in our calculator begins with a civil date at the entered location. We find a sunrise on that date, then evaluate the angular positions at that instant. The weekday name, or vara, follows that sunrise day. If you inspect a clock time after civil midnight but before sunrise, the traditional sunrise-to-sunrise day may still be the preceding vara. The month selector itself is Gregorian; it does not claim to identify an amanta or purnimanta lunar month.
How the five limbs are measured
| Limb | Rule used in this calculator |
|---|---|
| Vara | Weekday of the selected local civil date, beginning at its local sunrise for this daily row. |
| Tithi | Moon minus Sun apparent geocentric ecliptic longitude, divided into thirty 12° segments. |
| Nakshatra | Moon’s sidereal longitude, divided into twenty-seven 13°20′ segments. |
| Yoga | Sum of sidereal Sun and Moon longitudes, divided into twenty-seven 13°20′ segments. |
| Karana | Moon–Sun difference, divided into sixty 6° half-tithi segments with the traditional recurring and fixed names. |
The Rashtriya Panchang name table records the tithi, nakshatra, yoga, and karana names. A tithi and a karana use the Sun–Moon difference, so the same ayanamsa cancels from both positions. Nakshatra and yoga do depend on the chosen sidereal offset. Our calculation uses this site’s approximate Lahiri ayanamsa, and small differences from a specialist ephemeris can move a boundary.
Reading the “until” time
For each sunrise value, the table searches forward to the next boundary for that limb and shows the ending instant in the entered fixed local offset. For example, a tithi named at sunrise may end in the afternoon, after local midnight, or even after the following sunrise. “Until” means the first change after the row’s sunrise; it does not mean that every later change before the next sunrise is displayed. A short tithi can arise and disappear between two sunrises and never appear in the sunrise column. The tithi transition calendar lists those events separately.
Vara has no angular ending time in this table. Its next traditional boundary is the following sunrise. This matters if you compare the table against an almanac that prints a midnight-based weekday or a local clock time. Both can be internally consistent while answering different questions.
Location, clock and limits
Sunrise depends on latitude, longitude, date, and the solar-rise model. The bundled Astronomy Engine 2.1.19 finds the apparent sunrise for entered coordinates. The resulting Sun and Moon positions are geocentric, so their angular change instants are shared worldwide; only the local clock labels and the time at which each sunrise samples them vary. Near the poles a date can have no sunrise. The calculator reports that case instead of assigning a made-up sunrise value.
The user supplies one UTC offset for the whole month. This is a fixed arithmetic offset, not a legal time-zone identifier or daylight-saving database. A region that changes clocks during the month needs two different offsets for faithful local times; the page does not silently guess them. It also does not calculate festival observances, fasting rules, regional lunar-month naming, or muhurta choices. Those decisions often depend on more than one sunrise snapshot and on local tradition.
Compare a published almanac carefully
Match the coordinates, calendar date, time offset, ayanamsa, and rise convention before judging two times against each other. The Rashtriya Panchang method note says its printed angular times are ending moments and its sunrise includes atmospheric refraction and the Sun’s apparent upper limb. Our ending times are located by numerical search in the bundled engine and rounded to the nearest minute. Even if two almanacs agree on the limb name, nearby end times can differ because their ephemeris and ayanamsa choices differ.
Questions readers ask
Why does a limb repeat on two dates?
Its period may cover two consecutive local sunrises. The table samples the value twice, once at each sunrise.
Can a tithi be missing from the month table?
Yes. A tithi can start and end between sunrises. Use the transition calendar when every tithi ending matters.
Why can yoga and nakshatra differ between calculators?
Both use sidereal longitudes. A different ayanamsa or apparent-position convention can change a result near a segment boundary.