Type a year from 1900 to 2074 and choose your town or city above, and this free tool says whether that year has an Adhik maas (Adhika masa), the extra lunar month of the Hindu calendar. If it has one, you get its name and its start and end in your local time; if not, the one before and the one after. It also lists every lunar month of the year with the Sankranti inside it, and every Adhika and Kshaya month in the nine years either side.
How it works
A lunar month here runs from one new moon to the next, the amanta way of counting that the festival engine of this site uses. Each month normally holds one Sankranti, the moment the Sun enters a new sign of the sidereal zodiac. If a month holds none, the Sun has stayed in one sign from new moon to new moon; that month is the Adhika (extra) one and takes the name of the month that follows, which is then called Nija (the proper one). If a month holds two Sankrantis, one month name is skipped that year, and the month is called Kshaya. This is the rule of the Muhurta Chintamani (Sankranti prakarana, verse 20): a lunar month in which the true Sun makes no Sankranti is adhimasa, and one in which it makes two is kshayamasa. Pandit Mahidhar Sharma’s Hindi commentary (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas edition, whose verse numbers we give) takes the month from Shukla Pratipada to Amavasya, the amanta month this tool uses. The Adhika masa page explains why the calendar needs this.
The tool takes the new moons and the Sun’s sidereal position (Lahiri ayanamsa) from the NASA JPL DE440 tables on this site. These are the same months the festival dates on this site are built on, so the two always agree. The new moon is one moment for the whole world, so the Adhika month is the same everywhere; your town only changes the local date and clock time.
From 1900 to 2074 there are 66 Adhika months and 2 Kshaya months, in 1963 and 1983. The gap from one Adhika month to the next is 29 or 30 lunar months, or 34 to 36, and 32.5 on average; the two short gaps of 5 months are the pairs of Adhika months either side of a Kshaya month. Every run of 19 years in that span holds 7 Adhika months, or 8 when it takes in the extra ones around a Kshaya month.
Reading the result
The first line gives the answer for the year. The first table lists the lunar months that touch the year, with the new moon that begins and ends each one, the Sankranti inside it and its kind: ordinary (nija), Adhika or Kshaya. The Sankranti times carry the same small correction as the Sankranti calculator, so the two tools show the same moment. The second table lists the Adhika and Kshaya months of the nine years either side of the chosen one.
Where traditions differ
Almanacs that use another ayanamsa can place an Adhika month differently in a year in which the Sun stands very close to the edge of a sign at a new moon. With the Lahiri ayanamsa the closest case from 1900 to 2074 was the new moon of 14 March 1926 (UTC), when the Sun was 83 arcseconds, about half an hour of its motion, from the edge.
A Kshaya month is very rare, and names for it vary. The tool names the lunar month by the Sun’s sign at its start, as the festival engine does: in 1963 the month with two Sankrantis is named Kartika and the name Margashirsha is skipped, and in 1983 it is named Pausha and Magha is skipped.
Some regional calendars count months from full moon to full moon (purnimanta), and solar calendars of the south and east count months by the Sun alone and have no Adhika month. This tool follows the amanta lunar months.
How we checked it
We found every new moon from 1899 to 2075 with the Swiss Ephemeris (pyswisseph, sidereal Lahiri) and applied the rule independently. All 2,168 lunar months the tool builds matched in name, Adhika and Kshaya, with the new moons within 9 seconds, and all 68 Adhika and Kshaya months in the year list matched. The Sankranti times agreed within 9 seconds. The Adhika Jyeshtha of 2026, from 17 May 2026 at 1:31 am to 15 June 2026 at 8:24 am, New Delhi time, is the same as on our Adhika masa page.
What it does not do
It does not list the festivals of the year; for that, use the festival dates for any year. It does not say what to keep or avoid in the month beyond what the Adhika masa page describes. To see how the extra month affects wedding dates, use when weddings pause, and for how months are named in the north and the south, read amanta and purnimanta.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Is there an Adhik maas in 2027?
No. The one before was Adhika Jyeshtha in 2026, and the next is Adhika Chaitra in 2029, from 15 March 2029 at 9:49 am to 14 April 2029 at 3:10 am, New Delhi time.
↳ When was the last Adhik maas?
Adhika Jyeshtha, from 17 May 2026 to 15 June 2026. The ordinary Jyeshtha followed it from 15 June.
↳ How often does Adhik maas come?
From 1900 to 2074 the gap between two was 29, 30 or 34 to 36 lunar months, about 32.5 on average, and every run of 19 years held 7 of them, or 8 near a Kshaya month.
↳ What is a Kshaya masa?
A lunar month in which the Sun enters two signs, so one month name is skipped that year. From 1900 to 2074 it happened twice, in 1963 and 1983, and each time there was an Adhika month before it and one after it.
↳ Is the Adhik maas the same in India and abroad?
Yes. It depends on the new moon and the Sun's sign, which are the same moment everywhere. Only the local date and time change; the tool gives them for your town.
↳ Which Adhik maas come in the next ten years?
Adhika Chaitra in 2029, Adhika Bhadrapada in 2031 and Adhika Ashadha in 2034. Type any year to see the months around it.