Enter your birth date, time and place and a year above, and this free calculator finds your tithi pravesh near your birthday in that year: the moment when the Moon stands at exactly the same angle from the Sun as at your birth, in the lunar month you were born in. It casts the chart for that moment, gives its rising sign and navamsa rising sign, and names the lord of the hora running then, which this method takes as the lord of the year.
How it works
The tithi is the angle of the Moon ahead of the Sun, counted in thirty steps of 12 degrees. The tool first reads that angle at your birth from the NASA JPL DE440 tables used across this site, to about a second of arc. It then finds the new moon before your birth. The sign the Sun was in at that new moon names your lunar month, the amanta month that runs from one new moon to the next: a month that opens with the Sun in Simha (Leo), for example, is Bhadrapada.
Around your birthday in the year you choose, the tool looks for the new moon that again has the Sun in that sign, and inside that lunar month it finds the moment the Moon’s angle from the Sun equals your birth angle, to the second. That moment is the tithi pravesh, and it opens your year until the next one. For a birthday close to the turn of the year it can fall in December of the year before or January of the year after. The chart is cast for it at your birth place, with whole-sign houses, unless you choose another place under More choices.
The rule is from P.V.R. Narasimha Rao’s paper “Re-defining Tithi Pravesha Chart” (29 June 2014): the annual chart is cast when the Moon is exactly at the same angle from the Sun as at birth, in the same soli-lunar month as at birth. The same paper names the lord of the hora at that moment as the lord of the year. The hora is worked out as on our hora calculator: the daytime and the night at the place are each cut into twelve equal horas, and the first hora after sunrise belongs to the lord of the weekday.
Rao’s own first worked example is a birth on 12 September 1971 at 8:25 am IST in Guntur, with the Moon 274 degrees 26 minutes ahead of the Sun. With the month read from the sidereal sign he finds the 1992 tithi pravesh at 9:47:45 am IST on 20 September 1992, and with the tropical sign at 12:14:02 am on 22 August 1992. This tool gives both moments within a second of his.
Reading the result
The answer gives the date and time of the tithi pravesh, the angle and tithi it repeats, the month, and the lord of the year. Below it are the chart in North or South Indian style, a table of the planets with their signs, degrees and houses, and a table showing each step of the search: the new moon that opened your birth month and the one that opens the month in the chosen year.
In Rao’s paper the chart is judged like a birth chart, but for one year only, from this tithi pravesh to the next. He gives particular weight to the lord of the year and to the houses it occupies and owns. Read it as the theme of a year, together with your birth chart and the dasha running, not as a forecast.
Some years need a note. When your birth month comes twice in a year, as an Adhika (extra) month followed by the regular one, the same angle occurs in both. The chart shown is in the regular month, as our Hindu birthday calculator does, and the moment in the Adhika month is given beside it. Rarely, a month is skipped altogether because the Sun passes through a whole sign between two new moons. Then there is no tithi pravesh by this rule in that year, and the tool says so. Our check found two such years in the sidereal reading between 1900 and 2074: in 1963 for a month opening with the Sun in Vrishchika (Scorpio), and in 1983 for one opening with the Sun in Makara (Capricorn).
Where traditions differ
The main difference is how the month is read. The usual reading, and the one our calendars use, names the month by the Sun’s sidereal sign at the new moon. In the 2014 paper Rao proposes the tropical sign instead, tied to the seasons, and his first example shows the two readings giving moments a month apart. Both are offered here; the sidereal reading is the default.
When the birth month repeats as an Adhika month, Rao’s paper does not say which of the two moments to use, so both are shown. Rao’s textbook casts the Tajaka annual chart for the birth place wherever the person lives (Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach, ch. 27.1), and this tool does the same for the tithi pravesh by default, with the option of another place. The 2014 paper works with the Pushya-paksha ayanamsa; this site uses Lahiri throughout, and the paper itself says the method worked well for its author even with Lahiri. The angle between the Moon and the Sun is the same in every zodiac, so the ayanamsa can move the date only through the choice of month.
With the sidereal month, the tithi pravesh always falls while your birth tithi is running in your birth month, so it lands on the day our Hindu birthday calculator gives (with the tithi read at the moment of birth) or a day either side of it; in our check of 38 cases it was the same day 27 times and a day before or after 11 times. The birthday is a whole day; the tithi pravesh is one instant within that span.
What it does not do
It does not forecast the year. It draws the rashi chart and names the navamsa rising sign, but it does not draw the other divisional charts or the annual nakshatra dashas that Rao also uses with these charts. It needs the time of birth, since the moment depends on the Moon’s exact place at birth and the chart on the rising sign. Births from 1900 to 2074 can be entered, and any later year up to 2074 can be chosen. Before 1951 the clock of a place comes from your browser’s time zone database, which can hold local mean time rather than the standard time then in use.
For the solar return chart of Tajika astrology, use the Varshphal calculator. For the panchang of your birth moment, see the janma panchang calculator, and for the months themselves, our guides to Adhika masa and amanta and purnimanta months.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is a tithi pravesh chart?
It is an annual chart cast for the moment each year when the Moon is again at the same angle from the Sun as at your birth, in the same lunar month. The tool finds that moment to the second and draws the chart for it.
↳ How is it different from a Varshphal chart?
A Varshphal is cast when the Sun returns to its exact birth position. The tithi pravesh follows the Sun and the Moon together: the angle between them, which is the tithi, in the lunar month of birth. In the 41 cases we checked they fell up to 24 days apart.
↳ Who is the lord of the year?
In Rao's 2014 paper, the lord of the hora running at the moment of the tithi pravesh. The tool works out the hora at the place the chart is cast for and names its planet.
↳ Why does the tool show two moments in some years?
In a year with an Adhika month, your birth month comes twice and the same angle falls in both. The chart is cast in the regular month, and the moment in the Adhika month is given so you can look at both.
↳ Why is there no tithi pravesh in some years?
Rarely, the Sun passes through a whole sign between two new moons, so no month opens with the Sun in that sign. If that is your birth month, the rule has no moment in that year. You can try the tropical reading under More choices.
↳ Which place should the chart be cast for?
The tool uses your birth place unless you choose another, following Rao's textbook practice for annual charts. If your teacher casts it for where you live, choose that place under More choices.
↳ Is the tithi pravesh the same as my Hindu birthday?
They are close but not the same. The Hindu birthday is the day your birth tithi comes round in your birth month; the tithi pravesh is the exact instant within it when the Moon's angle from the Sun matches your birth. With the usual sidereal month it falls on that day or a day either side.