Panchang: the five limbs of the day, defined

What the term means

The site's Panchang long-form defines the word as "five limbs": a traditional almanac describes each day by the vara (weekday), the tithi (lunar day), the nakshatra the Moon is passing through, a yoga built from the Sun and Moon together, and the karana. The vara and the tithi are the two limbs the site's Panchang calculator returns.

Where the term comes from

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. II, p. 27) says the almanac "is known as the 'Panchanga'", meaning "having five limbs", and names them as tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga and karana; it adds that tithi and vara are generally used for fixing muhurtas. BPHS and Saravali do not use the word, but they name the limbs. BPHS Ch. 78 Sl. 3-4 lists paksha, tithi and nakshatra among the birth details a query chart can recover. Ch. 85 Sl. 1-4 names Amavasya, a "Bhadra Karan" and Tithikshaya among the circumstances of birth it calls inauspicious. Ch. 27 Sl. 13 and Saravali Ch. 7 Sl. 1-3 give each weekday and each hora a planetary lord.

How this app computes it

• The Panchang calculator reads the tithi, paksha and Moon phase at local sunrise when a place is given, as a printed panchang does. Without a place it reads them at 12:00 UTC on a typed date, or at the moment of asking, and says which.
• It adds the day's choghadiya, horas and Rahu Kaal, cut from true sunrise and sunset, or from a fixed 06:00-18:00 IST clock when no place is given; the result states which frame was used.
• The Kundali shows a birth panchang: the tithi and paksha at the birth instant and the vara in force at birth, counted from sunrise.
• The yoga and the karana are not computed anywhere; the engine's note says it has no astronomy for either yet. The Panchang calculator does not return the Moon's nakshatra either; other calculators do.

A small illustration

For New Delhi on Tuesday 13 October 2026 the engine gives sunrise at 6:21 AM and sunset at 5:54 PM. At sunrise the tithi is 3 of the Shukla Paksha, a waxing crescent. Rahu Kaal runs 3:01 to 4:27 PM, and the first hora, from sunrise, belongs to Mars, Tuesday's lord.

Pages that use this term

• Panchang calculator - the day's tithi and timing windows for a place.
• Muhurat - scores dates using panchang factors and your chart.
• Daily - today's lunar day and timings.
• Rohini nakshatra - one of the nakshatra pages that discuss the panchang.
• Moon phase calculator - the tithi and phase at a birth moment.

Related terms

Paksha, Choghadiya, Rahu Kaal, Hora and Muhurat.