How we calculate the panchang

यह पेज बताता है कि हमारा पंचांग कैसे बनता है: खगोलीय गणना (NASA JPL से जाँची गई), लाहिड़ी अयनांश, सूर्योदय की परिभाषा, हर राज्य की परंपरा और व्रत-मुहूर्त के नियम। कोई भी समय हाथ से नहीं लिखा जाता।

Every time on this site comes from one calculation record per city and day. Nothing is typed by hand and nothing is copied from another panchang. This page lists every convention we use, so you can compare our numbers with your family’s printed panchang and see exactly why any difference exists.

Astronomy

• Positions. Apparent geocentric longitudes of the Sun and Moon (true equinox of date), computed with the open-source Astronomy Engine library (MIT licence).
• Validation. Before release, every sunrise, sunset and tithi, nakshatra and yoga end time for 2026–2027 is checked against NASA JPL’s DE440s ephemeris through the Skyfield library, for Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai plus a stress set (Leh, Kanyakumari, Port Blair, Itanagar, Bhuj, Puri). The release gate is ±60 seconds for sunrise and sunset and ±120 seconds for limb end times. The current engine is within 2 seconds for sunrise/sunset and 12 seconds for tithi, nakshatra and yoga across all 9,490 city-days checked.
• Ayanamsa. Lahiri (Chitrapaksha), the standard used by the Government of India’s Rashtriya Panchang, with the Swiss Ephemeris definition of its epoch value. Sidereal longitude = tropical longitude − ayanamsa.
• Sunrise and sunset. The moment the upper edge of the Sun touches the horizon, with standard atmospheric refraction, at sea level for the city’s coordinates. Coordinates come from GeoNames.
• Time zone. All times are Indian Standard Time (UTC+5:30). Times after midnight carry the next date.

The five limbs

• Tithi: every 12° of Moon–Sun elongation. The day’s tithi is the one at local sunrise (udaya tithi). A tithi that begins and ends between two sunrises (kshaya) or covers two sunrises (vriddhi) is flagged on the page.
• Nakshatra: the Moon’s sidereal longitude in 13°20′ divisions. Yoga: the sum of the Sun’s and Moon’s sidereal longitudes in 13°20′ divisions. Karana: half a tithi (6°), 60 per lunar month.
• End times are found with a root finder to under a second, then shown to the minute.

Timings derived from sunrise and sunset

• Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda, Gulika: daytime in eight equal parts; the weekday picks the part (Rahu Kaal: Mon 2, Sat 3, Fri 4, Wed 5, Thu 6, Tue 7, Sun 8).
• Choghadiya (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi pages): day and night each in eight parts; the first day choghadiya belongs to the weekday’s lord and the sequence follows the traditional order. Telugu, Kannada and Tamil pages do not show choghadiya, because panchangs in those languages do not use it.
• Muhurtas: day and night each in 15 muhurtas. Abhijit is the 8th of the day (not shown on Wednesdays); Brahma Muhurat is the 14th of the night before sunrise; Vijaya the 11th of the day; Nishita the 8th of the night.
• Durmuhurtam (Telugu, Kannada, English pages): day muhurtas by weekday — Sun 14th; Mon 9th and 12th; Tue 4th, plus the 7th muhurta of the night; Wed 8th; Thu 6th and 12th; Fri 4th and 9th; Sat 1st and 2nd (shown as one period).
• Varjyam and Amrit Kalam: a four-ghati window (1/15 of the nakshatra’s length) that starts a fixed number of ghatis into each nakshatra, from the standard 27-row table (Ashwini 50, Bharani 24, Krittika 30 … Revati 30; Mula has two Varjyam windows, at 20 and 56). Amrit Kalam uses the companion table. Both scale with the nakshatra’s actual length, as Telugu panchangams print them.
• Nalla Neram (Tamil pages): the two one-hour windows per weekday that Tamil daily calendars print from the Pambu Panchangam table (Sun 7:45–8:45 & 3:15–4:15; Mon 6:15–7:15 & 4:45–5:45; Tue 10:45–11:45 & 4:45–5:45; Wed and Fri 9:15–10:15 & 4:45–5:45; Thu 10:45–11:45 & 12:15–1:15; Sat 7:45–8:45 & 4:45–5:45, for a 6 AM sunrise). We fit the table to the city’s real sunrise and sunset, as for Rahu Kalam; near a 6 AM sunrise it matches the printed times within a few minutes.
• Gowri Panchangam (Tamil and English pages): day and night each in eight parts named by the Pambu Panchangam weekday table (Amirdha, Uthi, Laabam, Dhanam and Sugam are good; Rogam, Soram and Visham are avoided). Gowri Nalla Neram is the good parts until midnight that do not touch Rahu Kalam, Emagandam or Kuligai.
• Disha Shool / Soolam: the direction to avoid travelling towards — Sun west, Mon east, Tue and Wed north, Thu south, Fri west, Sat east — with the traditional remedy (Tamil parikaram: jaggery, curd, milk or oil).
• Bhadra (Vishti karana), Panchak and Vinchhudo: Bhadra is shown whenever the Vishti karana falls in the day; Panchak while the Moon is in Kumbha or Meena (Dhanishtha second half to Revati); Vinchhudo (Gujarati) while the Moon is in Vrishchika.
• Ayana and Ritu: Uttarayana while the Sun is sidereally between Makara and Karka sankranti. Ritu follows the lunar month (Chaitra–Vaishakha = Vasanta) on most pages and the solar month on Tamil pages.

Each language shows the timings its own printed panchangs carry: Hindi and Gujarati pages lead with Choghadiya, Bhadra, Panchak and Disha Shool; Marathi pages follow the Kalnirnay layout (Shaka and samvatsara first); Telugu and Kannada pages lead with Durmuhurtam, Varjyam and Amrit Kalam; Tamil pages lead with Nalla Neram, Gowri Panchangam and Soolam, alongside the Tamil solar date.

Months, eras and regional traditions

The calendar tradition follows the city’s state, not the language of the page. A lunar month is named after the sign the Sun occupies at the new moon that opens it; a lunation with no sankranti is Adhik. North India names months Purnimanta (the dark half belongs to the next month); Maharashtra, Gujarat and the South use Amanta. Tamil Nadu also shows the solar month, which opens on the day of the sankranti if it falls before sunset and otherwise the next day.

Kerala, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab and the North-East use solar calendars or print traditions that need their own module; those states show the universal timings now, and their regional month names will follow in a later phase.

Festival rules

Festival dates are computed, never typed in. Each festival is an Amanta month and tithi plus the part of the day (karmakala) in which the tithi must prevail, with a rule for the day to pick when it prevails on two days or on neither:

• Windows. Sunrise (udaya tithi); purvahna (first half of daytime); madhyahna (third fifth of daytime — Ganesh Chaturthi, Rama Navami); aparahna (fourth fifth — Dussehra, Raksha Bandhan); pradosh (three muhurtas after sunset — Diwali Lakshmi Puja, Holika Dahan, Dhanteras); nishita (8th night muhurta — Janmashtami, Maha Shivratri); moonrise (Karwa Chauth, Sankashti, Sharad Purnima).
• Bhadra. Holika Dahan moves to the next day when Bhadra covers pradosh past midnight and Purnima lasts at least three prahars after the next sunrise; Raksha Bandhan moves to the next day when Bhadra blocks most of aparahna and Purnima lasts at least three muhurtas after the next sunrise.
• Solar festivals. Makar Sankranti and similar are observed on the day of the sankranti if it falls before sunset, else the next day. Tamil festivals tied to a solar month (Pongal = Thai 1, Tamil New Year = Chithirai 1) follow the printed Tamil calendar’s month start.
• Regional sets and names. Each tradition gets its own list: Gudi Padwa and Kojagiri in Marathi, Uttarayan and Bestu Varas in Gujarati, Ugadi, Varalakshmi Vratam and Vinayaka Chavithi in Telugu, Swarna Gowri in Kannada, Pongal and Karthigai Deepam in Tamil.

Vrat and muhurat rules

• Ekadashi. Smarta: the first day with Ekadashi at sunrise (a kshaya Ekadashi is listed on the day it occurs). Vaishnava: the next day when Dashami touches arunodaya (96 minutes before sunrise), or the second day of a vriddhi Ekadashi. Parana: the next day after sunrise and Hari Vasara (the first quarter of Dwadashi), within Dwadashi, preferably in the first fifth of the day.
• Purnima. The vrat day is the first day on which Purnima prevails at local moonrise; the list also shows the sunrise day and exact tithi times.
• Vivah muhurat. Excludes Adhik months, Chaturmas (Devshayani Ekadashi until Devutthana Ekadashi), Kharmas (Sun in Dhanu or Meena), Holashtak, Tuesdays, and Jupiter or Venus combust (within 11° and 10° of the Sun). Keeps windows of at least one muhurta where an auspicious nakshatra (Rohini, Mrigashira, Magha, Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Swati, Anuradha, Mula, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada, Revati) and tithi (not Rikta — Chaturthi, Navami, Chaturdashi — nor Amavasya or Shukla Pratipada) coincide, without Bhadra, Vyatipata or Vaidhriti. Lagna and the couple’s horoscopes are not considered: a family priest still fixes the exact lagna.
• Griha pravesh. Vaishakha, Jyeshtha, Kartika (after Devutthana), Margashirsha, Magha and Phalguna; auspicious nakshatras Rohini, Mrigashira, Uttara Phalguni, Chitra, Anuradha, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada, Revati; no Tuesdays or Sundays; the same exclusions as above.

How the output was validated

• Astronomy against NASA JPL DE440s, as described above.
• Festival dates for 2026 and 2027 against published festival lists for Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai (Drik-style panchangs, Prokerala, onlinejyotish and printed regional calendars). Holika Dahan (3 March 2026), Raksha Bandhan (28 August 2026), Pongal (15 January 2026), Ganesh Chaturthi, Navaratri, Dussehra and Diwali all match.
• Regional timings against published daily pages: Durmuhurtam, Varjyam and Amrit Kalam against Prokerala and onlinejyotish (September–October 2026); Nalla Neram, Gowri Panchangam and Soolam with parikaram against the Oneindia Tamil, Prokerala and Golden Chennai daily sheets for every weekday (24–30 September 2026).
• Rule sets: festivals validated 2026-09-24 · ekadashi validated 2026-09-24 · purnima validated 2026-09-24 · vivah validated 2026-09-24 · griha validated 2026-09-24.

Known convention differences

Where respected panchangs disagree, we follow the more classical rule and say so here:

• Makar Sankranti 2027. The sankranti falls after sunset on 14 January 2027 in most of India, so we list 15 January; lists that use the civil day of the sankranti show 14 January.
• Saturday Durmuhurtam. We use the classical 1st and 2nd muhurtas; some websites show a different Saturday period.
• Vivah muhurat lists vary between publishers because each applies extra restrictions (lagna, Guru–Shukra orbs). We show the dates where the general conditions hold; a family priest confirms the lagna.
• Venus combustion uses a 10° orb; some almanacs use 8° or 9°, which opens or closes a few days around the edges.

Versions

Engine 1.0.0, rules 2026-09-24. Changes to any published date are listed on the corrections page.