Panchanga — The Five Limbs of the Vedic Day

The panchanga ("five limbs") is the traditional Vedic almanac for any given day at any given place. It encodes the cosmic flavor of the day in five elements: tithi, nakshatra, yoga, karana, and vara. Daily reading of the panchanga is a thousand-year-old practice — it's how Vedic-tradition people know whether today is auspicious for travel, meditation, fasting, or a new venture.

KarmaWheel computes the panchanga for any date and any city. Open the Daily Advisor card on the chart view, or visit Features → Panchang / Calendar for the full overlay.

The five limbs

1. Tithi — the lunar day

The tithi is the angular distance between the Sun and the Moon, divided into 30 segments of 12° each. There are 30 tithis in a lunar month — 15 in the waxing fortnight (Sukla Paksha) leading up to the full moon, and 15 in the waning fortnight (Krishna Paksha) leading up to the new moon.

Each tithi has a name, a presiding deity, and classical recommendations:

• Pratipada (1st) — Brahma's day; new ventures, foundations
• Dvitiya (2nd) — Vidhata; learning, planning
• Tritiya (3rd) — Vishnu; travel, marriage
• Chaturthi (4th) — Yama; obstacles can arise; Ganesha worship
• Panchami (5th) — the Nagas; healing, fertility
• Shashti (6th) — Karttikeya; conflict resolution, courage
• Saptami (7th) — Surya; pilgrimage, vehicles
• Ashtami (8th) — Shiva; spiritual practice, fasting
• Navami (9th) — Durga; warrior practices
• Dashami (10th) — Yamaraja; victory, completion
• Ekadashi (11th) — Vishnu; fasting day for Vaishnavas
• Dvadashi (12th) — Vishnu; ending the Ekadashi fast
• Trayodashi (13th) — Kama; pleasure, romance
• Chaturdashi (14th) — Rudra; intense purification, especially Krishna Paksha
• Purnima (15th, full moon) / Amavasya (15th, new moon) — major milestones

Specific tithis have particular spiritual significance: - Ekadashi (both fortnights) — the principal fasting day in Vaishnava tradition - Purnima (full moon) — auspicious for satsang, mantra, charity - Amavasya (new moon) — ancestor (pitru) rites - Krishna Paksha Chaturdashi — Pradosha and the night before Amavasya; intense Shiva worship

2. Nakshatra — the lunar mansion of the day

The nakshatra is the constellation the Moon occupies on a given day. The Moon moves through one nakshatra per day on average. Different nakshatras have different qualities — some support healing, some learning, some hard work, some fasting.

A few examples of nakshatra suitability:

• Ashwini — fast action, healing, beginnings
• Pushya — generally most auspicious; classical for any major undertaking
• Mula — ending things, root work, but also dissolution
• Hasta — craft, manual work, healing touch
• Revati — gentle endings, completion, journeys

See The 27 Nakshatras for the full list.

3. Yoga — the Sun-Moon angular sum

Different from the yogas in your chart (which are planetary combinations). The daily yoga is a calculation: the sum of the Sun's longitude and the Moon's longitude, divided into 27 parts of 13°20' each.

There are 27 named yogas (Vishkumbha, Preeti, Ayushman, Saubhagya, Shobhana, etc.). Most are auspicious; a handful (Vishkumbha, Atiganda, Shoola, Ganda, Vyaghata, Vajra, Vyatipata, Parigha, Vaidhriti) are classically considered inauspicious for important actions and best avoided for major undertakings.

4. Karana — half a tithi

A karana is half of a tithi. There are 60 karanas in a lunar month, but only 11 named — 7 moveable karanas (Bava, Balava, Kaulava, Taitila, Garaja, Vanija, Vishti) that rotate and 4 fixed karanas (Shakuni, Chatushpada, Naga, Kimstughna) that occur once per month each.

The most important karana to know is Vishti / Bhadra — classically considered very inauspicious for new ventures. Vedic almanacs explicitly list "no work" hours during Vishti.

5. Vara — the day of the week

Each weekday is ruled by a planet:

The day's planet is favored for activities aligned with that planet's nature. Mars-day for athletic competitions; Jupiter-day for spiritual study; Venus-day for marriage; Saturn-day for sustained labor.

Reading the panchanga

The panchanga is most useful when you read all five elements together for a specific purpose:

• For spiritual practice: Ekadashi tithi + Pushya/Anuradha nakshatra + auspicious yoga = excellent
• For travel: Saptami/Dvitiya tithi + Hasta/Ashwini nakshatra + auspicious yoga + Wednesday or Thursday = excellent
• For starting work: 1st/3rd/5th/7th/10th/13th tithi + Pushya/Hasta + auspicious yoga + avoid Vishti karana
• For marriage: see Muhurta-specific practices, but generally needs all five elements aligned

Holy days, eras, and the Hindu month

KarmaWheel's panchanga also shows:

• Paksha — Krishna or Sukla
• Hindu month in both Purnimanta (North Indian) and Amanta (South Indian) systems
• Eras — Saka, Gaurabda, Vikram Samvat
• Holy day flag — if today is a major holy day (Ekadashi, Janmashtami, etc.)

The Holy Days Calendar (Features → Holy Days) gives a year-long list of festivals and observances, computed against your local sunrise — so each holy day's date is locally correct, not generic.

Brahma Muhurta and Solar Noon

KarmaWheel also computes:

• Brahma Muhurta — the 96-minute window beginning about 96 minutes before sunrise; classically the most auspicious time for spiritual practice
• Solar Noon — the moment the Sun crosses the local meridian; another auspicious window for important undertakings
• Sandhya Kala — the dawn / noon / dusk transition periods, traditionally devoted to mantra and prayer

If you've enabled Gayatri reminders in Settings, KarmaWheel will send you push notifications at these traditional sandhyas.

Daily Advisor

The Daily Advisor card on every chart view gives you a personalized daily reading — it combines:

• Today's panchanga at your location
• Your Tarabala (a 9-day favorable/unfavorable cycle counted from your Moon's nakshatra)
• Your Chandrabala (Moon-sign-based favorability)
• The current dasha
• Any major active transit

This synthesizes the impersonal panchanga with your personal chart context, giving practical guidance: "today is favorable for X, less favorable for Y."

Muhurta Hunter

For finding specific auspicious time windows over a date range — for marriage, travel, starting a business, signing contracts, etc. — open Features → Muhurta Hunter. It scans every minute of the requested window and ranks the times by classical muhurta criteria.

Related articles

• Holy Days Calendar — annual cycle of Vedic festivals
• Sade Sati: Saturn through the Moon
• The 27 Nakshatras