The direct answer: Panchang Meaning, Explained: A panchang is the Hindu almanac built from five daily limbs: tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga, and karana. AskSoma publishes this at asksoma.ai/blog/what-is-panchang as a free Vedic astrology resource using Swiss Ephemeris calculations and classical Jyotish interpretation — not generic sun-sign copy.
A panchang is the Hindu almanac built from five daily limbs: tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga, and karana.
Aaj ka panchang is today's five-limb Hindu calendar for one civil date and one place: tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga, and karana. AskSoma derives those limbs from Swiss Ephemeris longitudes with Lahiri ayanamsa, then prints them in the city's local clock. It tells you what the day is. It does not tell you that the day will make money, clear a visa, or close a marriage.
Pancha + anga: five parts. A printed almanac from Varanasi, a Tamil panchangam, a Gujarati jantri, and a Bengali panjika all start from the same astronomical question — where are the Sun and Moon, in the sidereal frame, at this longitude — and then disagree on language, festival lists, and which overlays to print in the margin.
AskSoma’s daily calendar at <a href="/panchang" target="_blank">/panchang</a> is the five limbs first. Overlays (Choghadiya, Hora, Rahu Kaal, Abhijit) sit under them. Festival and vrat pages are derived from the limbs, not the other way around. If a site leads with “today is lucky” and buries tithi, it is a horoscope wearing a panchang hat.
<strong>Tithi.</strong> Lunar day. The Moon gains twelve degrees on the Sun; that span is one tithi. Thirty tithis make a lunar month: Shukla Pratipada through Purnima, then Krishna Pratipada through Amavasya. A tithi can start at 10:41am and end at 8:05am the next civil morning. That is why “aaj ka tithi” is a time range, not a label glued to midnight. Ekadashi, Purnima, and Amavasya are tithi names people search; they are still just rows in this table.
<strong>Vara.</strong> Weekday. Many panchangs start the vara at local sunrise, not at midnight. Sunday night after sunrise-to-sunrise accounting may still be Sunday in the panchang and already Monday on your phone. If a vrata instruction says “Monday,” ask which clock the instruction meant.
<strong>Nakshatra.</strong> The Moon’s mansion: twenty-seven spans of 13°20′. The Moon stays in one nakshatra for roughly a day. Pada (quarter) matters for namkaran letter and for some electional filters; it does not change the printed star name. Boundary degrees are where cheap lookup tables drift. Lahiri plus an ephemeris is how you stop arguing about whether the Moon had already entered Hasta.
<strong>Yoga.</strong> Sun longitude plus Moon longitude, folded into twenty-seven named combinations. Siddha, Variyan, and a handful of others are traditionally welcomed. Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are the two most widely avoided. Yoga is not “yoga the exercise.” It is a panchang limb.
<strong>Karana.</strong> Half a tithi. Seven karanas rotate; four (Shakuni, Chatushpada, Naga, Kimstughna) appear only near Amavasya/Pratipada. Vishti is Bhadra. When someone says “Bhadra is running, don’t start,” they mean this limb, not a planet.
Read them as a set. A pleasant nakshatra on a Rikta tithi with Bhadra in the afternoon is not “a good day.” It is a mixed row. <a href="/panchang" target="_blank">/panchang</a> should show the mix.
Tithi and nakshatra are functions of celestial longitude and of the observer’s civil clock. Change the timezone and the clock labels move. Change the longitude enough and a boundary can fall on different sides of sunrise.
A family in Ahmedabad and a family in San Jose on the “same” Gregorian date are not looking at the same row. San Jose is roughly twelve and a half hours behind IST. The tithi that ends at 4:10pm in Ahmedabad may have already ended before a California morning puja starts — or may still have hours left. Pasting a Delhi screenshot into a Bay Area WhatsApp group is the most common panchang error AskSoma exists to stop.
Enter the city you are standing in, or the city where the rite will happen. Do not keep New Delhi as a default because the app once guessed it.
“Aaj ka panchang” is the daily view: limbs, sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and the overlays for this civil date. A monthly Hindu calendar is the same engine, scrolled. Festival pages (Diwali, Holi, Janmashtami) are tithi-based observances that have to be computed for a place, which is why “Diwali 2026” still needs a city when the tithi boundary sits near midnight.
Ekadashi lists, Amavasya lists, and Purnima lists are filters on tithi. They are not a second calendar. If you only need “is today Ekadashi in my town,” open <a href="/panchang" target="_blank">/panchang</a> and read the tithi range. If you are planning a month of vratas, use the calendar views linked from that hub.
Four clocks ride on top of the panchang and confuse people who treat them as the panchang.
South Indian panchangam practice also prints Yamaganda and Gulikai/Kuligai. Those are sibling clock tables, not extra limbs. Stacking every overlay until the day has no free minute is a way to never start. Pick the overlays your household actually uses.
Planetary positions come from Swiss Ephemeris. Sidereal conversion uses Lahiri (Chitra Paksha), the ayanamsa most Indian government and Drik-style panchangs use. Sunrise and sunset are computed for the selected coordinates, not copied from a Delhi table. Clock labels use the IANA timezone of that city, including US daylight-saving transitions.
That stack is the same engine behind kundli and muhurat. The difference is the question. A natal chart asks where the planets were at a birth minute. A panchang asks which limbs are running now. See <a href="/methodology" target="_blank">/methodology</a>.
<strong>Open today’s row for your city:</strong> <a href="/panchang" target="_blank">/panchang</a>.
In Pune, people often check panchang after sunrise tea: tithi, whether it is a vrat, whether Rahu Kaal blocks a bank visit, whether the evening looks usable for a small puja. In New Jersey or Texas, the same check happens before school drop-off, and the trap is using an IST widget that has already rolled to the next tithi.
Practical habit:
You do not need a birth time to read aaj ka panchang. You need a place.
It is not a Sun-sign horoscope. It is not a guna milan. It is not a promise that an “auspicious” weekday will land a job, move a file at a consulate, or heal anyone. Soma can narrate the row. The engine computed the row. Narration is not a verdict on your life.
Regional names differ. Tamil panchangam, Telugu panchangam, and Bengali panjika may list the same Lahiri tithi under different festival notes. AskSoma can show the shared limbs. It cannot flatten every regional observance into one banner.
Take Thursday, a civil date in March, in two places: Bengaluru and Fremont, California. AskSoma should compute sunrise at each longitude, then the Moon–Sun elongation at timestamps in each local zone. Bengaluru may show Shukla Chaturthi until mid-afternoon, then Panchami. Fremont on that same civil Thursday may still be on Tritiya at breakfast because the previous tithi has not ended in Pacific time. A printed “India panchang” PDF cannot answer the Fremont morning. The city field can.
If the two engines you compare are both Lahiri and both using an ephemeris, the tithi names at a given instant should match. The clock labels will not, because the zones differ. When they disagree on the name at the same UTC instant, someone used Raman, KP, or a noon-based table.
Today's five limbs - tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga, karana - computed for your city, plus sunrise-based overlays. It is a calendar row, not a prediction.
Because a tithi is twelve degrees of Moon-Sun elongation, not a midnight-to-midnight civil day. Many tithis start or end mid-day.
No. You need a date and a place.
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Written by Savan Vyas, founder of AskSoma.
The astrology is not written from memory: every chart position, dasha period and panchang timing AskSoma shows is computed with the Swiss Ephemeris on the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa. How we calculate.