Anyone who has asked an elder when to hold a wedding or move house has met the panchang, the daily almanac of Vedic astrology. Four of its five limbs are calculated from the positions of the Sun and Moon, so they can be checked. Choosing a muhurat from them is a separate, traditional step. This article covers the calculation first and the tradition second.
Want the five limbs for a date without doing the arithmetic? The free Tithi & Panchang Calculator gives them for any date, and Today's Panchang gives them at sunrise for an Indian city.
Panch + Anga: Five Limbs
Panchang means "five limbs" (panch = five, anga = limb). The five are Tithi, Vara, Nakshatra, Yoga and Karana.
The Formulas
All longitudes below are sidereal, and every result is first reduced to the range 0° to 360° (add or subtract 360° as needed):
- Tithi = floor(((Moon − Sun) mod 360) ÷ 12) + 1, giving 1 to 30. Tithis 1 to 15 are Shukla Paksha (waxing, ending at Purnima) and 16 to 30 are Krishna Paksha (waning, ending at Amavasya).
- Karana = half a tithi, 6° of Moon − Sun separation, so 60 per lunar month. Seven movable karanas repeat eight times (56), and four fixed ones (Shakuni, Chatushpada, Naga, Kimstughna) fill the remaining four positions around the new Moon.
- Nakshatra = floor(Moon ÷ 13°20') + 1, giving 1 to 27.
- Yoga = floor(((Sun + Moon) mod 360) ÷ 13°20') + 1, giving 1 to 27, from Vishkambha to Vaidhriti.
- Vara is the weekday, each ruled by a planet: Sunday the Sun, Monday the Moon, Tuesday Mars, Wednesday Mercury, Thursday Jupiter, Friday Venus, Saturday Saturn.
Tithi and Karana use a difference, so the ayanamsa cancels out. Yoga uses a sum, so it does depend on the ayanamsa used.
Worked Example: 8 November 2026, Noon IST
With the Lahiri ayanamsa, this site's ephemeris gives the Sun at 201.64° and the Moon at 189.89° sidereal at 12:00 IST.
- Tithi: 189.89 − 201.64 = −11.75°, which normalises to 348.25°. 348.25 ÷ 12 = 29.02, floor 29, plus 1 = tithi 30: Amavasya, the last tithi of Krishna Paksha.
- Karana: 348.25 ÷ 6 = 58.04, so the 59th karana of the month: Chatushpada, a fixed karana.
- Nakshatra: 189.89 ÷ 13.333 = 14.24, so the 15th nakshatra: Swati (186°40' to 200°00').
- Yoga: 201.64 + 189.89 = 391.53°, which normalises to 31.53°. 31.53 ÷ 13.333 = 2.36, so the 3rd yoga: Ayushman.
- Vara: the date is a Sunday, ruled by the Sun.
The normalisation step matters. Without it, the negative difference in the tithi step and the sum above 360° in the yoga step would both give wrong answers.
The Reference Moment: Why Almanacs Differ
Each limb changes during the day; a tithi lasts roughly 19 to 26 hours and does not line up with the civil day. So every panchang has to choose a moment:
- Traditional printed panchangs name the day by the tithi current at local sunrise (udaya tithi), and count the vara from sunrise to sunrise rather than midnight to midnight. A tithi that starts and ends between two sunrises never names a day (a kshaya tithi), and one that spans two sunrises names both (a vriddhi tithi).
- This site's Tithi & Panchang Calculator uses a single snapshot at 12:00 noon IST for the whole of India, with the civil weekday. It does not take a location.
- This site's Today's Panchang evaluates the limbs at the actual sunrise for the chosen Indian city.
On a day when a tithi changes in the morning, the sunrise and noon answers can differ, and two cities can differ too. Neither is a calculation error. Compare the reference moments before comparing results.
Panchang Yoga Is Not Chart Yoga
Chart-reading articles on this site use "yoga" for planetary combinations in a birth chart, such as Raj Yoga or Gaja Kesari Yoga. The panchang's Yoga is the Sun-plus-Moon calculation above. The two share only the word.
Muhurat: How the Tradition Uses the Limbs
A muhurta is literally a unit of time: one-fifteenth of the daytime (about 48 minutes on an equinox day). In common use, a "muhurat" is a window chosen for starting something, such as a wedding, a griha pravesh or a business. Muhurta texts such as the Muhurta Chintamani combine the panchang limbs with further rules, and practitioners often add checks against the people's birth charts. The rules differ between texts and regions. Some commonly cited examples, as traditional practice:
- Vivah (marriage): particular nakshatras (often including Rohini and Uttara Phalguni), particular tithis and weekdays, and avoiding periods such as Chaturmas in many traditions.
- Griha pravesh: commonly prefers Shukla Paksha and particular nakshatras.
- Business launch: Wednesday (Mercury) or Thursday (Jupiter) is often preferred.
Common Misconceptions
"If no limb is flagged, the day is fine." In muhurta practice the limbs act as a combined filter, and each tradition's rule set decides which combinations it accepts.
"Panchang yoga and chart yoga are the same idea." They are unrelated calculations.
"A muhurat guarantees the outcome." Even classical muhurta practice presents it as choosing a starting time, not as overriding what follows. No study has shown that a chosen muhurat changes outcomes. A reflection drawn from the symbolism, not a prediction.
Sources & References
Astronomical data: Tithi, Nakshatra, Yoga, and Karana are all calculated from real Sun and Moon longitudes via the astronomy-engine ephemeris library with the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, recalculated for each request rather than taken from a fixed table. The Tithi & Panchang Calculator uses a 12:00 noon IST snapshot; Today's Panchang uses local sunrise for the chosen city. See our Methodology for full technical detail.
Astrological tradition: The interpretations above draw on the sources named under Classical references below. Where an interpretation is not tied to a named source, it is AstroMystra's paraphrase of common practice among teachers of the tradition, not a verified rule of prediction. AstroMystra's specific phrasing, examples, and emphasis are its own.
Classical references: Muhurta and matching conventions are treated in classical works such as Rama Daivajna's Muhurta Chintamani, and the general framework of planets and signs in Parashara's Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (English translation by R. Santhanam, Ranjan Publications). These texts show what the tradition teaches. They do not verify that any placement predicts an outcome, this article paraphrases the tradition rather than translating one passage, and texts and commentators differ on details.