What a janma panchang is
A daily panchang describes the day as it stands at sunrise. A janma panchang describes the sky at one moment, the moment you were born. It lists the five limbs that give the panchang its name: the tithi (the lunar day), the nakshatra (the Moon’s star), the yoga (a measure of the Sun and Moon together), the karana (half a tithi) and the vara (the weekday). It adds the lunar month and the years of the Hindu calendars, because families often quote a birth as “Shukla Panchami in Bhadrapada” rather than by the date on the calendar.
The janma panchang is also the starting point for much else. The janma tithi decides the date of a Hindu birthday, the janma nakshatra gives the first sound of a name and the Vimshottari dasha, and the Moon sign is the base of most Vedic readings.
How the result is worked out
Your local birth time is first converted to universal time with the time zone that applied at the birth place on that date, daylight saving included. The Sun and Moon are then read from the Swiss Ephemeris tables on this site and moved to the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa. The tithi is the angle between the Moon and the Sun in steps of 12 degrees, the nakshatra is the Moon’s longitude in steps of 13 degrees 20 minutes, the yoga is the sum of the two longitudes in the same steps, and the karana is a step of 6 degrees of the Moon-Sun angle. For each limb the tool also searches backwards and forwards to give the time it began and the time it ends.
The Hindu month is taken from the new moons on either side of the birth. The tool shows the amanta month, which ends at the new moon, and the purnimanta month, in which the dark half is counted with the following month. The two names agree for the bright half and differ by one month for the dark half. If the birth fell in an extra month, the tool says so; see Adhika masa for what that means.
Reading the weekday and the sunrise
In the Hindu reckoning the day begins at sunrise, not at midnight. A baby born at 3 am on a Thursday is therefore born on a Wednesday by the panchang. The tool shows the weekday of the Hindu day and says plainly when it differs from the calendar day. It gives the sunrise and sunset of that Hindu day for the birth place.
The samvat years
The tool shows three year numbers. The Vikram Samvat in use in most of north India changes at Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, in spring. The Gujarati Vikram Samvat changes the day after Diwali, at Kartika Shukla Pratipada, so for months from Ashwina backwards the two are one year apart. The Shaka Samvat, the national calendar of India, also changes in spring. You can read about them on the Vikram Samvat and Shaka Samvat pages.
Where traditions differ
Several points are matters of custom. Some astrologers use other ayanamsas, such as Raman or Krishnamurti, which can move a Moon near a boundary into the next nakshatra. A birth very close to a change of tithi or nakshatra can fall on either side if the recorded time is a few minutes out, so the tool prints the start and end times for you to judge. And some almanacs name the tithi present at sunrise for the whole day, while the janma panchang names the tithi at the birth moment, which is the usual practice for a horoscope.
What it cannot tell you
It does not interpret the combination, and it does not predict anything about the child or the adult. It also does not draw the chart. For the full chart use the free kundali, and for individual items see the nakshatra calculator, the moon sign calculator and the ascendant calculator. For today’s panchang at your place, see the panchang hub.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is the difference between a janma panchang and a daily panchang?
A daily panchang gives the limbs as they run from sunrise. A janma panchang gives the limbs that were in force at the exact moment of birth, with the time each began and ends.
↳ Why is the weekday different from the calendar weekday?
The Hindu day starts at sunrise. If the birth was after midnight but before sunrise, the vara is that of the day before.
↳ Which Hindu month is mine, amanta or purnimanta?
Both are shown. Many families in Gujarat, Maharashtra and the south use the amanta month, and many in north India use the purnimanta month. For the bright half of the month they are the same.
↳ Why does the tool want the time of birth?
The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, so the tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana can change within hours. Without the time, the limbs of the moment cannot be given with any confidence.
↳ How accurate are the times?
The Moon and Sun positions are within a few arcseconds of the Swiss Ephemeris, and the start and end times follow from them. The result depends on the birth time and place being right.