What a Jain Panchang Is
A panchang is a five-limb almanac. The five limbs are tithi (the lunar day), vara (the weekday), nakshatra (the asterism the moon occupies), yoga and karana. Every Indian calendar tradition derives those five from the same astronomy: the angular relationship between sun and moon, measured against the sidereal zodiac. A Jain panchang uses that identical mathematics. There is no separate Jain zodiac, no different nakshatra list, no alternative set of planets.
What makes a panchang Jain is the layer built on top of the five limbs, and the layer deliberately left off.
What is added. The parva tithis of each fortnight, marked as observance days. Pachkhan times, so a person keeping a vow knows when it opens and closes. The kalyanaka days of the 24 Tirthankaras, all 120 of which are compiled on our kalyanaka calendar. And the Vira Nirvana Samvat year, counted from Bhagwan Mahavira’s nirvana in 527 BCE, which is the oldest continuously used era in India and which turns over at Diwali rather than in Chaitra.
What is left off. No planetary propitiation, no gemstone timing, no muhurat for a fire ritual. In the Jain reading a graha indicates the karma a soul already carries; it does not act on anyone. A panchang is therefore a description of conditions, not a list of forces to be managed.
Tithi and Paksha
A tithi is the time the moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the sun. Thirty tithis make one lunar month, divided into two fortnights of fifteen: shukla paksha, the waxing half, ending in purnima; and krishna paksha, the waning half, ending in amavasya. Because the moon’s angular speed varies through its orbit, a tithi is not a fixed twenty-four hours. It runs between roughly nineteen and twenty-six hours, which is why the tithi shown for a given date changes at an odd hour rather than at midnight. By near-universal convention, the tithi named for a civil day is the one running at that day’s sunrise.
There are also two ways of naming the month itself. In the amanta convention used across Gujarat, Maharashtra and the south, a month ends at amavasya. In the purnimanta convention of north India and of Hemachandra’s biographies, it ends at purnima. Shukla-paksha dates are identical in both. Krishna-paksha dates are not: the same day carries a month name one step earlier in the amanta reckoning. Most apparent contradictions between two Jain date sources are this and nothing more.
The Parva Tithis
Each fortnight carries five observance days, and the lunar month adds two more at its two ends:
- Bij, the second tithi
- Pancham, the fifth. Kartika Shukla 5 is kept as Gyan Panchami, the day of knowledge, when manuscripts and books are honoured.
- Aatham, the eighth
- Agiyaras, the eleventh. Margashirsha Shukla 11 is Mauna Agiyaras, kept in silence.
- Chaudas, the fourteenth, on which pakkhi pratikraman is performed
- Punam (purnima) and Amas (amavasya)
What is done on them varies by family and by sangh: upvas (a full fast), ayambil, ekasana, biyasana, abstention from green vegetables, extra samayik, temple darshan, quiet charity. The tithi is the occasion; the practice is chosen by the person, and the tradition treats the smaller vow kept honestly as worth more than the larger one abandoned.
Pachkhan Times, Computed From Your Own Sunrise
Pachkhan (Prakrit pachchakkhana, Sanskrit pratyakhyana) is a vow of renunciation taken for a stated span of time, most commonly about food and water. The everyday ones are all measured as fractions of the local day, starting at local sunrise:
- Navkarsi: two ghadis, forty-eight minutes, after sunrise
- Porsi: one quarter of the day after sunrise
- Sadh porsi: three-eighths of the day
- Purimuddha: half the day, so midday
- Avaddha: three-quarters of the day
- Chauvihar: taken at sunset, renouncing food, water, dry food and taste until the next sunrise. Tivihar is the same vow with water permitted.
Because every one of these is a fraction of the interval between your own sunrise and sunset, they differ between Ahmedabad, Chennai, London and Toronto, and they move through the year in all four. A printed table computed for one city is wrong everywhere else, which is why the panel above asks for your location and derives every time from the sunrise and sunset at your coordinates.
Kshaya and Vriddhi: The Caveat That Matters
Because a tithi is not exactly one day long, two things happen. A tithi that begins and ends between two sunrises is never current at any sunrise: it is kshaya, lost. A tithi that spans two sunrises is counted twice: it is vriddhi, increased. Observance is tied to the tithi, not to the weekday, so every sangh needs a rule for what to do when a parva tithi is lost or doubled, and the rules genuinely differ. The long-standing Ek Tithi and Be Tithi divergence within the Tapa Gaccha is exactly this question, and Shvetambara and Digambara practice differ again.
This page computes the astronomical tithi at your location and tells you which parva it is. It does not adjudicate observance. For vrat, pratikraman, Paryushana and festival dates, follow the published panchang of your own sangh. Where the traditions differ, none of them is wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
↳ How is a Jain panchang different from a Hindu panchang?
The astronomy is the same: the same tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga and karana, computed the same way. The differences are what is layered on top. A Jain panchang marks the parva tithis and the kalyanaka days, gives pachkhan times, and counts the year in Vira Nirvana Samvat from 527 BCE. It also omits what the Jain frame has no use for: planetary appeasement, gemstone timings and fire-ritual muhurats. The planets are read as indicators of karma already bound, never as agents acting on a person.
↳ Which tithi applies to today if it changes at noon?
By the convention almost every Indian calendar follows, the tithi current at sunrise names the whole civil day. A tithi runs between roughly nineteen and twenty-six hours, so its start and end times fall at odd hours. This page shows the tithi at your local sunrise and the exact time it ends, so you can see both the label and the underlying reality.
↳ Why do the pachkhan times on this page differ from my temple's card?
Almost always because of location, and occasionally because of rounding. Navkarsi, porsi, purimuddha and avaddha are fractions of the interval between local sunrise and sunset, so a card printed for one city is simply a different calculation from the one for yours. Some sanghs also round to the nearest five minutes or add a small safety margin. If your upashray publishes its own times, use those: the vow is kept with your sangh, not with a website.
↳ What are the parva tithis, exactly?
Bij (2), Pancham (5), Aatham (8), Agiyaras (11) and Chaudas (14) in each of the two fortnights, plus Punam (the full moon) and Amas (the new moon). That is twelve observance days in an ordinary lunar month. They are days of restraint rather than days for launching things: fasting, ayambil, samayik, pratikraman on chaudas, and abstention from green vegetables in many households.
↳ Why does my panchang skip a date, or show the same tithi twice?
That is kshaya and vriddhi. A tithi short enough to begin and end between two sunrises is never current at a sunrise, so no day carries its name and it appears lost. A tithi long enough to span two sunrises names both of them, so it appears doubled. This is ordinary lunar arithmetic, not an error. What differs between traditions is only how a lost or doubled parva tithi is then observed, and on that question this page defers to your sangh.
↳ Can I use this panchang to choose a date for something?
For daily decisions, the choghadiya and hora sections above are what the Jain and Gujarati trading community actually uses. For a larger undertaking, the Jain Muhurta Finder scans a date range and ranks days by the classical factors, stating the rule behind each judgement. For a diksha or a pratishtha, the muhurta is decided by your acharya, and no tool substitutes for that.
For the doctrine behind all of this, see what Jain astrology actually is. For the 120 kalyanakas with their sources, see the kalyanaka calendar.