Panchang for Friday, 19 March 2027
| Tithi | Dwadashi |
|---|---|
| Paksha | Shukla |
| Nakshatra | Ashlesha, pada 1 |
| Yoga | Sukarma |
| Karana | Bava |
| Vara | Shukravara |
| Sunrise (Ujjain, IST) | 06:32 |
| Sunset (Ujjain, IST) | 18:37 |
Today's tithi is Dwadashi, in the Shukla paksha, the waxing half of the lunar month. The Moon moves through Ashlesha nakshatra, pada 1. The vara is Shukravara, and the panchang's remaining limbs are Sukarma yoga and Bava karana.
Why does the panchang day start at sunrise?
In the panchang a day runs from sunrise to sunrise, so a date is labelled with whichever tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana were running at the moment the Sun came up.
The convention is old and completely practical. Sunrise is visible to everyone and needs no clock, no bell and no agreement between towns. Because the anchor is local sunrise, the same calendar date can carry a different panchang in Ujjain and in Chennai. The figures on these pages follow the Surya Siddhanta convention and are computed for Ujjain, long used as a reference meridian for Indian astronomy.
The five limbs themselves take no notice of sunrise. They change the instant the Moon crosses the next boundary, which can happen at any hour of the day or night. Sunrise is only the moment we look and write the label down. A tithi that begins at ten in the morning and ends near noon the next day belongs to one date on the page, even though it touched two.
Two consequences are worth knowing. A tithi is skipped (kshaya) when it begins and ends between two sunrises, so no date carries its name. A tithi repeats (adhika) when a slow one covers two sunrises in a row, so two dates carry it. Neither is a mistake. That is simply what happens when a moving boundary meets a once a day snapshot.