What is Panchang?

A panchang (also panchangam) is the traditional Hindu almanac of the day. The word means "five limbs": tithi (lunar day), nakshatra (lunar mansion), yoga (sun–moon combination), karana (half-tithi) and vara (weekday). A daily panchang lists all five together with sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset, so that observances can be dated correctly for one place and one day.

How the five limbs are computed

Tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana are derived from the longitudes of the Sun and Moon. This site uses the ELP-2000/82B lunar series and Meeus solar position with the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, then checks every boundary against the Government of India publication Rashtriya Panchang. A tithi ends when the Moon gains exactly twelve degrees on the Sun; a nakshatra spans 13°20′ of the Moon’s longitude; a yoga is the sum of both longitudes divided into twenty-seven parts.

Which day a tithi belongs to

The Hindu day runs from local sunrise to the next sunrise, not midnight. The tithi shown for a date is the one current at sunrise (Udaya Tithi). Because a tithi lasts between roughly 21 and 26 hours, it can begin after sunrise on one day and end before sunrise on the next — and when that happens, Smarta calendars date the observance to the day the tithi begins, while Vaishnava calendars shift to the following day.

North and South Indian months

North Indian calendars use the Purnimanta month, which ends at the full moon; South Indian calendars (Telugu, Kannada, Marathi) use the Amanta month, which ends at the new moon. Both carry the same month names, offset by a fortnight. The Tamil month is solar instead: a new Tamil month begins when the Sun enters the next zodiac sign.

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