How to read a panchang

A panchang is the traditional Hindu calendar, used to track auspicious timing for everything from festivals to ceremonies. The word itself means five limbs, and those five elements are the key to reading one.

The first limb is the tithi, the lunar day. It is defined by the angle between the Moon and the Sun, in steps of twelve degrees. There are thirty tithis in a lunar month, fifteen in the waxing fortnight and fifteen in the waning, and they do not line up neatly with the solar day, which is why a tithi can begin or end at any hour.

The second limb is the vara, the weekday. This is the familiar seven-day cycle, with each day ruled by a planet, Sunday by the Sun, Monday by the Moon, and so on. It is the one limb that matches ordinary calendars.

The third limb is the nakshatra, the lunar mansion. The ecliptic is divided into twenty-seven nakshatras, and the one the Moon occupies on a given day carries its own character and ruling planet. Nakshatras are central to Vedic timing and to the dasha system.

The fourth limb is the yoga, a value derived by combining the longitudes of the Sun and the Moon. There are twenty-seven yogas, each considered more or less favourable for particular activities. It is easy to confuse this technical yoga with the physical practice of the same name, but here it is purely an astronomical quantity.

The fifth limb is the karana, which is half of a tithi. Since each tithi splits into two karanas, they describe finer divisions of the lunar day and are consulted for the timing of specific tasks.

Put together, the five limbs let a practitioner judge the quality of a moment. Traditional users consult them to choose dates for travel, business, ceremonies, and other undertakings, looking for combinations considered supportive and avoiding ones considered difficult.

You do not need to compute any of this by hand. The point of understanding the five limbs is that the almanac becomes legible. Instead of a wall of unfamiliar terms, you can see that it is simply describing the same day from five complementary angles of lunar and solar rhythm.