Today’s Panchang
Tithi
Pratipada
Shukla Paksha
Nakshatra
Chitra
Pada 3 · Mars
Yoga
Vaidhriti
Karana
Bava
Vara
Ravivaar
Sunrise
06:25
Sunset
17:50
Rahu Kaal
16:24 – 17:50
What the video shows
Is today the right day? The app shows the five limbs of the day (Tithi, Vaar, Nakshatra, Yoga and Karana), today’s Tithi (Shukla Chaturdashi, ending at 23:08 before Purnima), when to wait and when to begin with Rahu Kaal and Abhijit Muhurta, and every hour of the day rated in the Choghadiya. Aroha Astrology: today’s Panchang, for your city. Free on Android and the web.
What is Panchang?
Panchang, literally “five limbs”, is the traditional Vedic almanac used to read the character of a day before making a decision: starting a journey, signing a contract, holding a wedding, or planning your morning. It is built from five astronomical measurements and not from a fixed calendar rule: tithi (lunar day), vara (weekday), nakshatra (the Moon's lunar mansion), yoga (a Sun-Moon angular combination) and karana (half a tithi). Each is derived from the actual positions of the Moon and Sun, so their start and end times shift every day. A tithi can begin at any hour and run past midnight.
Why the timings shift by city
Four of the values above (Rahu Kaal, Gulika Kaal, Yamaganda Kaal and Abhijit Muhurta) are not fixed clock times. Each is a fraction of the interval between local sunrise and sunset, so the same day's Rahu Kaal can fall an hour apart in Mumbai and Kolkata, because the Sun rises and sets at different moments in each. Getting these right means computing real sunrise and sunset for the exact latitude and longitude, and not reading them off a printed table made for one reference city.
The Panchang above is computed live from the Swiss Ephemeris, the engine astronomical observatories use, with the Lahiri ayanamsha, the Indian government's reference point for the sidereal zodiac. Open the Aroha app to get every one of these timings recalculated for your own city instead of the New Delhi default shown here.
Questions
Understanding today's Panchang
Panchang (literally "five limbs") is the traditional Vedic almanac used to read the character of a day. It is built from five components, tithi (lunar day), vara (weekday), nakshatra (lunar mansion), yoga and karana, each computed from the real positions of the Sun and Moon and not from a fixed calendar rule.
A tithi is a lunar day, defined by the angular distance between the Moon and Sun advancing by 12°. There are 30 tithis in a lunar month, split into the Shukla Paksha (waxing fortnight) and the Krishna Paksha (waning fortnight). A tithi's exact start and end time therefore shifts from day to day, unlike a fixed calendar date.
Rahu Kaal is a roughly 90-minute window each day that is traditionally considered inauspicious for starting anything new. It is a shadow period ruled by Rahu. Its exact start and end time depends on the day of the week and the local sunrise and sunset, so it shifts by both date and city.
Abhijit Muhurta is the most auspicious window of the day, about 48 minutes long and centred on local solar noon, the midpoint between sunrise and sunset. It is traditionally favoured for starting important work because it is considered auspicious on every weekday.
Sources commonly differ in two ways: the ayanamsha they use (Aroha uses the Lahiri ayanamsha, the Indian government standard) and how precisely they compute sunrise and sunset for the location. Aroha computes yours from the Swiss Ephemeris, the engine astronomical observatories use.
The Panchang shown here defaults to New Delhi. The limbs that depend on sunrise and sunset (Rahu Kaal, Gulika Kaal, Yamaganda Kaal and Abhijit Muhurta) shift with your exact location. Open the app to get every timing computed for your own city.