The word Panchang literally means “five limbs” (panch = five, ang = limb). Every day of the Vedic calendar is described by these five elements working together. If you’ve ever opened a Hindu calendar and seen a wall of Sanskrit terms next to each date, those terms are the five limbs.

The five limbs, briefly

  • Tithi: the lunar day, formed from the angular distance between the Sun and Moon. There are 30 tithis in a lunar month (15 in the waxing half, 15 in the waning half). A tithi can start and end at any point during the solar day, which is why a single calendar date sometimes shows two tithis.

  • Vara: the day of the week, each with its own planetary ruler. Sunday belongs to the Sun, Monday to the Moon, Tuesday to Mars, Wednesday to Mercury, Thursday to Jupiter, Friday to Venus, Saturday to Saturn. The planetary ruler affects what activities are considered favorable. For example, Thursday (Guruvar, Jupiter’s day) is traditionally preferred for starting education, while Tuesday (Mangalvar, Mars’s day) is avoided for new purchases in many families.

  • Nakshatra: the Moon’s current position among 27 lunar mansions, each spanning 13 degrees and 20 minutes of the zodiac. The Moon moves through roughly one nakshatra per day. Your birth nakshatra is determined by where the Moon was at your exact birth moment, and it forms the basis of your kundli and rashifal.

  • Yoga: calculated by adding the Sun’s and Moon’s longitudes and dividing the result into 27 equal parts. There are 27 yogas, each lasting about a day. Some yogas like Siddha and Amrit are considered highly favorable, while others like Vishkumbha and Vyaghata are considered unfavorable for starting new work.

  • Karana: half a tithi. Since there are 30 tithis, there are 60 karanas in a lunar month, but only 11 distinct types (4 fixed and 7 recurring). Karanas are the shortest-lived of the five limbs and are mainly used for fine-tuning muhurat calculations.

How they work together

Each limb answers a different question about the day’s quality. Tithi tells you the lunar phase. Vara tells you the planetary ruler. Nakshatra tells you the Moon’s position in the sky. Yoga tells you the Sun-Moon relationship from a different angle. Karana gives you the finest time division.

For any auspicious activity, a wedding, a housewarming, starting a business, or even a mundane decision like buying a vehicle, all five limbs are checked together. No single limb gives the full picture on its own. A day might have a great tithi but a difficult yoga, or a favorable nakshatra but an inauspicious karana. The pandit weighs all five.

Here’s a practical example: say you’re looking at a date for griha pravesh. The tithi is Dwitiya (generally good), the vara is Thursday (Jupiter’s day, favorable), the nakshatra is Rohini (one of the best for moving in), but the yoga is Vyatipata (considered inauspicious). A simple tithi-only check would greenlight the date. A full panchang reading would flag the conflict and suggest a different date or at least a time window where the yoga transitions.

Why the location matters

The panchang isn’t universal. Tithi, nakshatra, yoga, and karana all shift continuously through the day, and the exact values at any moment depend on precise astronomical positions. Sunrise time, which differs by city, determines when the vara starts. So a family in Mumbai and a family in Melbourne will have slightly different panchang readings for the same date. This is why generic printed calendars can only approximate, and why a location-specific calculation matters.

Check today’s panchang

Use the panchang tool to select your city and see all five limbs for today, computed with precise astronomical calculations tied to your location’s coordinates and time zone.