panchang.now

The Panchang day

Why a Panchang day begins at sunrise

A Panchang day runs from sunrise to sunrise and takes its name from the tithi at dawn. See how that differs from the clock date and the tithi itself.

01 · Two ways to cut time

The clock date turns at midnight; the Panchang day turns at sunrise.

A Panchang day runs from one local sunrise to the next and is named by the tithi in force at its sunrise. A clock date runs from midnight to midnight. The tithi itself changes at neither, whenever the Moon reaches its next 12°. Move through two days in Delhi.

Clock dates, Panchang days and tithis in Delhi, 2 to 3 October 2026 Three rows on one 48-hour axis. Clock dates change at midnight. Panchang days change at sunrise, 06:14 on 2 October and 06:15 on 3 October, and each is named by the tithi at its sunrise: Shashthi, then Saptami. Tithis change whenever the Moon reaches the next 12 degrees: Shashthi until 10:15 on 2 October, Saptami until 08:00 on 3 October, then Ashtami. 3 Oct, 04:30: clock date 3 Oct, Panchang day 2 Oct, tithi Saptami. Clock date Panchang day Tithi 2 Oct, clock date3 Oct, clock date1 Oct2 Oct · named Shashthi3 Oct · named SaptamiShashthiSaptamiAshtamiSunrise 2 Oct 06:14Sunrise 3 Oct 06:15 00:0006:0012:0018:0000:0006:0012:0018:0000:00 DELHI · TIMES IN IST · 2 OCTOBER 00:00 TO 4 OCTOBER 00:00
3 Oct, 04:30Clock date 3 Oct · Panchang day 2 Oct, named Shashthi · tithi now Saptami
Calculated for Delhi with the site’s Panchang, times in IST.

At 04:30 on 3 October the clock has moved to the 3rd, but the sun has not risen, so the Panchang day is still the 2nd. Its name, Shashthi, is the tithi at that day’s sunrise; the tithi in force at 04:30 is already Saptami.

02 · Sunrise moves

Sunrise drifts through the year, so the day boundary does too.

The Panchang day starts at a different clock time each morning. Over a year in Delhi the start moves by almost two hours.

Sunrise in Delhi through 2026 Sunrise in Delhi moves from about 07:15 in early January to 05:22 in early June and back. Because each sunrise is a little earlier or later than the last, a Panchang day lasts from about a minute less to about a minute more than 24 hours. 05:3006:0006:3007:0007:30 JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec SUNRISE IN DELHI, 2026 · IST
Apparent sunrise, when the Sun’s upper edge clears the horizon, from the site’s ephemeris every seven days.

Three clocks running at once

A day’s Panchang involves three different boundaries:

  • The clock date changes at midnight, by convention.
  • The Panchang day changes at local sunrise. It runs from one sunrise to the next, and its weekday, the vaar, runs the same way.
  • The tithi changes whenever the Moon gains another 12° on the Sun, at any hour of the day or night, as what a tithi is explains.

Sunrise is the boundary a person can see without any instrument. A Panchang names each day by what is in force at that moment: the tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana at sunrise.

One day in Delhi

On 2 October 2026 the Sun rose in Delhi at 06:14 IST with Shashthi tithi in force, so that Panchang day is a Shashthi day. Shashthi ended at 10:15 and Saptami began, but the day keeps its sunrise name. The next sunrise, at 06:15 on 3 October, found Saptami still in force, so the next Panchang day is a Saptami day.

Between midnight and 06:15 on 3 October the clock reads the 3rd, but the Panchang day is still the 2nd. A birth at 04:30 on 3 October therefore belongs to the Panchang day of 2 October, though the tithi at that moment is Saptami. The sunrise guide shows how the dashboard handles those hours.

When a tithi misses sunrise

A tithi lasts about 20 to 27 hours, and sunrises come about 24 hours apart, so a short tithi can fall entirely between two sunrises. In Delhi, Ashtami began at 08:00 on 3 October 2026 and ended at 05:52 on 4 October, 23 minutes before sunrise. No Panchang day in Delhi was named Ashtami: 3 October is Saptami and 4 October is Navami. The same happens with nakshatras, as what today’s nakshatra tells you shows.

What sunrise means here

panchang.now uses apparent sunrise: the moment the Sun’s upper edge first clears a level horizon. Because the atmosphere bends light, the Sun is actually still a little below the horizon then. Other conventions, such as the centre of the disc, shift the time by a minute or two, which matters only when a change falls very close to sunrise. About states the convention.

Sunrise itself moves through the year. In Delhi in 2026 it ranges from 05:22 IST in early June to 07:15 in early January, and because each sunrise is slightly earlier or later than the last, a Panchang day lasts from about a minute less to about a minute more than 24 hours.

Some festivals use a different moment, such as sunset or midnight, to fix their date; the festival pages explain where that applies. Why two cities can show different Panchangs follows the same idea across places.

See today’s sunrise and the values in force then on the Delhi Panchang, or explore another topic in Learn.