Panchang for Monday, 1 March 2027
| Tithi | Navami |
|---|---|
| Paksha | Krishna |
| Nakshatra | Jyeshtha, pada 3 |
| Yoga | Vajra |
| Karana | Taitila |
| Vara | Somavara |
| Sunrise (Ujjain, IST) | 06:48 |
| Sunset (Ujjain, IST) | 18:29 |
Today's tithi is Navami, in the Krishna paksha, the waning half of the lunar month. The Moon moves through Jyeshtha nakshatra, pada 3. The vara is Somavara, and the panchang's remaining limbs are Vajra yoga and Taitila karana.
How do you read a tithi number?
A tithi is the angle from the Sun to the Moon cut into steps of 12 degrees, so the tithi number tells you exactly how far the Moon has travelled since it last stood with the Sun, and therefore how full it looks.
The arithmetic is short. Take the Moon's sidereal longitude, subtract the Sun's, keep the answer between 0 and 360, divide by 12 and add one. Sixty degrees of separation puts you at the start of the sixth tithi, Shashthi. A hundred and eighty degrees is opposition, the full Moon, Purnima. Three hundred and sixty brings the two back together at Amavasya and the count begins again.
The Moon does not move at a constant speed, because its orbit is not a circle, so a tithi is not a fixed length of time. It runs roughly from nineteen to twenty six hours. That is the whole reason a tithi refuses to line up with a calendar date, and the reason a panchang has to name one moment, sunrise, at which to read the label.
The number is also a phase report you can check by looking up. Shukla Ashtami is close to half lit and filling, and it sets around midnight. Krishna Ekadashi is a thin waning crescent that will not rise until well after midnight. If your eyes and the number disagree, you are almost certainly reading a different day's tithi.