Jain Tithi Today and Parva Days for Any City

What the tool shows

For the city and date you choose, the tool names the tithi at sunrise, says whether it is a parva day, gives the time at which the tithi ends, names the lunar month in both the amanta and purnimanta counts, lists any kalyanaka of the 24 Tirthankaras that falls on that tithi, and then lists the parva days of the following thirty days with the time each tithi ends.

Tithi, and why sunrise names the day

A tithi is the time the Moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the Sun. Thirty tithis make a lunar month, in two fortnights of fifteen: the waxing shukla paksha, ending at Punam (the full moon), and the waning krishna paksha, ending at Amas (the new moon). Because the Moon’s speed varies, a tithi lasts between about nineteen and twenty-six hours, so it begins and ends at odd hours. By the convention almost every Indian calendar follows, the tithi current at that day’s sunrise names the civil day. The tool uses the sunrise of the city you choose, which is why the same date can carry a different tithi in two distant cities.

The parva tithis

Each fortnight has five observance days, and the lunar month adds its two ends:

• Bij, the second tithi.
• Pancham, the fifth. Kartika Shukla Pancham is Gyan Panchami, the day of knowledge.
• Aatham, the eighth.
• Agiyaras, the eleventh. Margashirsha Shukla Agiyaras is Mauna Ekadashi, kept in silence.
• Chaudas, the fourteenth, when pakkhi pratikraman is performed.
• Punam and Amas, the full moon and the new moon.

What is done on them differs between families and sanghs: upvas, ayambil, ekasana, biyasana, avoiding green vegetables, extra samayik, temple visits and quiet charity. The tithi is the occasion and the practice is a personal choice. The tradition treats the smaller vow kept honestly as worth more than the larger one abandoned.

Two ways of naming the month

In the amanta count, used in Gujarat, Maharashtra and the south, a month ends at Amas. In the purnimanta count of north India, and of Hemachandra’s biographies, it ends at Punam. Shukla dates carry the same month name in both. For a krishna-paksha date, the purnimanta name is one month later than the amanta name. This accounts for most apparent contradictions between two Jain calendars. Our kalyanaka calendar uses purnimanta, so the tool looks up the kalyanakas with that name.

When a calendar skips or repeats a tithi

A tithi short enough to begin and end between two sunrises is never current at a sunrise, so no civil day carries its name. A long tithi can be current at two sunrises and name both days. These are called kshaya and vriddhi tithis, and they are ordinary lunar arithmetic, not errors. What differs is how a lost or doubled parva is observed, and Shvetambara, Sthanakvasi, Terapanth and Digambara sanghs do not all agree. The tool reports the astronomical tithi at sunrise; for vrat and pratikraman, follow your own sangh’s published panchang.

How the figures are found

The Sun and Moon positions come from standard astronomical formulae. The tithi is the Moon’s angle ahead of the Sun, in twelve-degree steps, at sunrise; the end time is found by solving for the moment the angle reaches the next multiple of twelve. Sunrise uses the upper edge of the Sun with the usual allowance for refraction. The same working builds the pachkhan times by city, and you can also see the pachkhan times for the same place on the pachkhan time calculator. For the full day, with choghadiya and hora, open the Jain Panchang.

Frequently asked questions