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 simply planning your morning. It's built from five real astronomical measurements rather than 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). Because each is derived from the Moon and Sun's actual positions, their start and end times shift every single day — unlike a Gregorian date, a tithi can begin at any hour and run past midnight.

Why the timings shift by city

Four of the values above the fold — Rahu Kaal, Gulika Kaal, Yamaganda Kaal, and Abhijit Muhurta — aren't fixed clock times at all. 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 versus Kolkata, simply because the Sun rises and sets at different moments in each. Getting these right requires computing real sunrise/sunset for the exact latitude/longitude in question, not reading them off a printed table computed for one reference city.

The Panchang above is computed live from the Swiss Ephemeris — the same precision engine used by astronomical observatories — using the Lahiri ayanamsha, the Indian government's standard reference point for the sidereal zodiac. Open the Aroha app to get every one of these timings recalculated for your own city rather than the New Delhi default shown here.