A Living Instrument

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Five limbs, all born of two lights. Drag the Sun and Moon — the whole almanac re-reads itself.

जातक

Your birth chart

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The almanac of your birth — drag either light to explore from there.

Cast my birth pañcāṅga ↓

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Drag either light around the wheel. The angle between them makes the tithi; the Moon alone makes the nakṣatra; their sum makes the yoga.

This saṃvatsara · the year now running

{{ samvName }} संवत्सर · year {{ samvNum }} of 60

Vāra · the weekday

The Pañcāṅga · five limbs of the day

On the pañcāṅga — {{ trace }}

The finer grain · what the wheel simplifies सूक्ष्म

The star's true hours ऋक्षाद्यन्त

The wheel cuts each nakṣatra an equal 13°20′ of arc — but the Moon's speed varies day by day, so its time in a star stretches and shrinks (the ṛkṣādyanta-kāla). A printed almanac gives each star's entry and exit to the minute, and a daśā balance is properly reckoned from the Moon's actual hours in its star, not from a flat average.

Days that double, tithis that vanish तिथिद्वय

A tithi is an angle, not a clock-day — it runs anywhere from about 19 to 26 hours. So one sunrise-to-sunrise day can touch two tithis (tithi-dvaya), rarely three (tithi-traya); and a short tithi that begins and ends between two sunrises never names a day at all — the kṣaya or śūnya tithi, which almanacs flag and the muhūrta-books set aside for beginnings.