Panchanga means five limbs. A daily panchangam is simply those five measurements for one day, in one place. Everything else printed around them is elaboration.
The five
- Tithi is the lunar day: the gap between the Sun and the Moon, divided into thirty parts across a lunar month. This is why the Tithi of your birth rarely lands on your English birthday.
- Nakshatra is where the Moon is sitting among the twenty-seven star groups along her path. The one occupied at your birth is your Janma Nakshatra.
- Yoga is a combined measure of Sun and Moon positions, twenty-seven of them.
- Karana is half a Tithi. There are eleven, seven of which repeat.
- Vara is simply the weekday.
Why the day does not begin at midnight
For most traditional purposes the day runs from sunrise to sunrise, and the Tithi "of the day" is the one prevailing at sunrise. This is why a Tithi can end at eleven in the morning and the whole day still carries its name, and why two almanacs from different towns can disagree by a day.
What it is not for
A panchangam tells you where the Sun and Moon are. It does not tell you what will happen to you. Kāmya publishes these tools as calendar and Dharma information, not prediction, and we will never suggest that an offering here fixes anything in a chart. For personal observances, your family's Purohit and your Sampradaya decide, not a website.
Our workings, in the open
We compute everything in your browser using the Lahiri ayanamsa and Amanta months, taking day values at local sunrise. Nothing you enter is uploaded anywhere. The full methodology is published, including where our figures can legitimately differ from your family almanac.
Utility brings us to Dharma. Dharma brings us back to Seva. That is the whole intention of these pages.