Vaar
When does the weekday change in a Panchang?
The calendar changes the weekday at midnight; the Panchang vaar changes at sunrise. See the hours where the two disagree in Delhi, London and New York.
01 · Two day boundaries
The calendar changes the weekday at midnight; the Panchang waits for sunrise.
Between midnight and sunrise the two disagree. The shaded hours belong to Monday on the calendar and to Sunday in the Panchang.
Two places to start a day
A civil calendar starts each day at midnight, by convention. A Panchang starts each day at local sunrise, and its weekday, the vaar (वार), follows: the vaar is the weekday on which that sunrise fell, and it lasts until the next sunrise.
For most of the day the two agree. They differ only between midnight and sunrise. In that stretch the calendar has already moved to the next weekday, while the Panchang is still on the previous one.
How long the overlap lasts
On 21 December 2026, a Monday, the Sun rose at 07:09 in Delhi, 08:03 in London and 07:16 in New York, each in local time. For those seven to eight hours after midnight the calendar said Monday and the Panchang still said Sunday, Ravi. The overlap is longest in winter and at high latitudes, where sunrise is latest; near the June solstice in London it shrinks to under five hours.
The vaar changes for everyone at their own sunrise, not at one moment for the world. That follows from how a Panchang day is defined, as two cities, two sunrises shows for the tithi.
What depends on it
The vaar sets which part of the day Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika occupy, the order of the Choghadiya slots and the planet of the first hora. All of those are read from the Panchang day, so a time before sunrise belongs to the previous vaar’s windows, not the calendar day’s. A birth or event at 03:00 on a Monday morning falls on Sunday in the Panchang.
The vaar guide lists the seven names with their planets.
See today’s vaar on the Delhi Panchang, or explore another topic in Learn.