About

panchang.now reports each day's Panchang using the values active at sunrise in your city - the standard Vedic convention. Below are the choices we made that can affect what you see compared to another Panchang.

Ayanamsa

We use the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, the convention most Indian Panchang publishers use, so your tithi and nakshatra here should match what you see in your family priest's calendar.

It is computed from the true position of the star Chitra (Spica), held at exactly 0° Libra, a form known as True Chitrapaksha. The published Lahiri formula approximates the same point and can differ from it by up to about a minute of arc.

Sunrise

"Sunrise" here means the apparent sunrise - when the Sun's upper edge first appears above the horizon. Some publishers use a different reference (centre of the disk, true geometric sunrise) and clock times can differ by a minute or so. Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda, Gulika, Choghadiya and the planetary Hora are all derived by dividing the time from sunrise to sunset (and sunset to next sunrise) into equal parts, with each part assigned by the weekday - the classical method.

Because the Panchang day runs sunrise-to-sunrise (not midnight-to- midnight), the dashboard rolls the displayed day over at local sunrise, not at midnight. If you open the site between midnight and sunrise, you'll see the previous day's Panchang with a small note above the Now card explaining the date shift. The page rolls forward automatically when sunrise arrives.

The "Now" verdict

The "Good / Neutral / Avoid" pill at the top applies a deliberately simple rule:

1. If the current moment falls in Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda or Gulika Kaal → Avoid.
2. Otherwise, if it falls in Abhijit Muhurat → Good.
3. Otherwise, the current Choghadiya's quality applies (Amrit/Shubh/Labh = Good, Char = Neutral, Udveg/Kaal/Rog = Avoid).

This is not a substitute for muhurta consultation for major decisions - it is a quick read on the texture of the moment.

When the verdict rules pick a different quality than the currently-active Choghadiya - e.g. Rahu Kaal (Avoid) lands inside Amrit Choghadiya (Good) - the Choghadiya row gets a small "R" / "Y" / "G" badge so the contradiction is visible at a glance. For more detail, see how the Now verdict works.

Transition times

Tithi, Nakshatra, Yoga and Karana on the dashboard show when each transitions to the next value, to the minute - for example "until 08:31, then Chaturdashi".

Tithi and Karana transition times line up with other modern Indian Panchang publishers to within a few minutes - the small remaining gap comes from differences in how each publisher computes and rounds these times. Nakshatra and Yoga transitions also depend on the ayanamsa; sources using Lahiri can differ by an arc-minute or so, which shifts these times by a few minutes. See the section on disagreement below.

What we do not yet show

• Regional festival dates. Festival pages give the North Indian Smarta date, the convention most modern Indian Panchang publishers print; some pages note where another tradition observes on a different day.
• Chart interpretation. The birth chart page shows the charts, positions and dasha periods, and does not read meaning into them.

Found a disagreement?

Panchang traditions vary in subtle ways, and sources using the Lahiri ayanamsa can differ by an arc-minute or so, enough to move a nakshatra boundary by a couple of minutes. If your trusted Panchang disagrees with ours, tell us - we keep a list of known boundary cases.