Tithi Today — With End Time, Your Janma Tithi and the Month's List

A tithi is a lunar day, and it is defined precisely: the time the Moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the Sun. Thirty of them make a lunar month, fifteen in the waxing half ending at Purnima and fifteen in the waning half ending at Amavasya. These two halves are shukla paksha and krishna paksha.

Because the Moon's speed varies through its orbit, a tithi lasts anywhere from about nineteen to twenty-six hours. It therefore almost never lines up with a calendar day, which is why a tithi today calculator has to give both the tithi running at sunrise and the exact minute it ends.

The tithi end time today is the part most calendars leave out and the part that actually matters. A vrat kept on Ekadashi must fall while Ekadashi is running; a ceremony fixed for Panchami is not on Panchami if Panchami ended at eleven in the morning.

The fifteen names repeat in both halves - Pratipada, Dwitiya, Tritiya and so on through Chaturdashi - closing with Purnima in the bright half and Amavasya in the dark. That is the 30 tithi list with names, and the full table sits in the result above.

More useful than the names are the five groups, which repeat every five tithis and decide what each day suits.

Knowing the group from the tithi today calculator is often enough for everyday planning. A Purna tithi suits completing things and holding ceremonies; a Rikta tithi is best used for clearing, cancelling and removing rather than starting. Jaya tithis genuinely do favour competitive situations, which is why litigation dates are often chosen on them.

Each tithi also has a presiding deity - Ganesha on Chaturthi, Shiva on Ashtami and Chaturdashi, Durga on Navami, Vishnu on Dwadashi - which is why particular fasts attach to particular tithis across the month. The tithi today calculator shows today's deity beside the tithi.

Enter your date of birth in the form and the janma tithi calculator adds your janma tithi - the lunar day you were born on. A janma tithi calculator matters more in Indian practice than many people realise, because the traditional Hindu birthday follows the tithi and not the Gregorian date.

This is why a grandmother's birthday celebration lands on a different date every year while everyone else's stays fixed. The tithi returns roughly every 354 days rather than every 365, so it moves back by ten to eleven days each year, then jumps forward by about twenty when an extra lunar month is inserted.

Finding your tithi by date of birth is useful beyond the birthday itself. Tithi-based observances - a vrat kept on your janma tithi each month, or the tithi used for shradh after a death - all depend on knowing it. The janma tithi calculator also gives your next yearly tithi birthday - the same tithi in the same lunar month as your birth - and the tithi calendar by month shows the days around it.

In south India the equivalent custom uses the birth nakshatra rather than the tithi, and both are given by the Vedic age calculator on this site.

Below the daily card sits the full tithi calendar by month for whichever month and year you choose - every date with the tithi at sunrise, its end time, its group and the day of the week.

Reading the tithi calendar by month at once makes the rhythm visible. The tithis run in order, so a fast or a ceremony fixed to a particular tithi appears exactly twice a month - once in the bright half and once in the dark. Ekadashi twice, Chaturthi twice, Ashtami twice.

Two patterns are worth watching for in the tithi calendar by month. A date that carries the same tithi as the previous day means a vriddhi tithi, stretched across two sunrises. A tithi missing from the list altogether is a kshaya tithi, which began and ended between two sunrises - and in that month, any observance tied to it moves to the adjacent day by rule.

For festivals and fasts specifically, the dedicated calculators on this site - ekadashi, purnima and amavasya, and the festival calendar - apply the full set of rules rather than the tithi alone.

Every lunar month splits into shukla paksha and krishna paksha. Shukla paksha, the bright half, runs from the day after Amavasya to Purnima while the Moon grows; krishna paksha, the dark half, runs from the day after Purnima to Amavasya while it shrinks. Each half holds fifteen tithis, which is why the names Pratipada to Chaturdashi appear twice in every month.

The tradition gives the two halves different characters. Shukla paksha and krishna paksha are not good and bad halves, but they suit different work:

One source of confusion is the month name. North India mostly follows the purnimanta calendar, in which a month ends on Purnima, so krishna paksha comes first; Gujarat, Maharashtra and most of the south follow the amanta calendar, in which a month ends on Amavasya, so shukla paksha comes first. The tithi itself is identical in both - only the month the krishna paksha belongs to differs. That is why the same Janmashtami can be described as Bhadrapada Krishna Ashtami in one region and Shravana Krishna Ashtami in another.

The tithi today calculator above names the paksha with every tithi, and the tithi calendar by month marks where each half begins, so you can see at a glance which half a date falls in.

Most people look at the tithi name and stop. The tithi end time today is the more useful number, because almost every rule about fasts and ceremonies turns on it. Four rules cover most situations:

• Udaya tithi names the day. The tithi running at sunrise is the tithi of that whole civil day for most purposes, even if it ends an hour later. That is the tithi the calendar prints.
• Some fasts follow the evening or the moonrise instead. Pradosh is kept when Trayodashi runs at dusk, and Sankashti Chaturthi and Karwa Chauth are broken at moonrise on Chaturthi. For these, the tithi end time today decides which evening counts.
• Ekadashi is broken on Dwadashi. The fast is ended the next morning while Dwadashi is still running, which is why the end time of Dwadashi matters as much as the start of Ekadashi.
• Muhurat needs the tithi to be running at the chosen moment. A wedding lagna or a griha pravesh window on a good tithi only counts if the tithi has not ended before the window starts.

The tithi today calculator gives the end time to the minute for your own city, and the tithi calendar by month gives it for every day of the month. When two calendars disagree, compare their end times first: the difference usually comes from the city used for sunrise, not from the astronomy.

A janma tithi calculator gives one fact - the lunar day you were born on - but families use that fact in more places than most people expect.

The yearly tithi birthday. Find your tithi by date of birth, and the janma tithi calculator also gives the date of your next tithi birthday: the same tithi in the same lunar month, a little over eleven months or a little under thirteen away. In many north Indian homes that is the day for the temple visit and the elders' blessings.

A monthly observance. Some people keep a simple vrat or light a lamp on their janma tithi every month. A tithi comes twice a month - once in each of shukla paksha and krishna paksha - so check which half you were born in; the observance is kept in the same half.

Shradh and anniversaries. The tithi of a death, not the calendar date, fixes the annual shradh. The same janma tithi calculator works for any past date, so the tithi of a parent's passing can be found from the date and the city, and the tithi calendar by month then shows where it falls this year.

Two practical notes. When you enter a birth time, the janma tithi calculator takes the tithi running at that moment; without a time it uses the tithi at sunrise on the birth date, which is the panchang's name for the day. If a tithi changed on your birth date, enter the time - otherwise the result cannot know which side of the change you were born on.

1. The angle. The Moon's and Sun's sidereal longitudes are computed with the Swiss Ephemeris using the Lahiri ayanamsa, and the difference divided by twelve degrees gives the tithi.

2. At your sunrise. The tithi today calculator takes the reading at your own city's sunrise, which is what determines the day's tithi in panchang.

3. The end time. The moment the angle crosses into the next tithi is refined to the minute and converted to your local time - the tithi end time today you see above.

Most regular Hindu fasts are fixed to a tithi in shukla paksha and krishna paksha rather than to a date, which is why knowing the tithi each morning is so useful. The common ones are worth listing.

Chaturthi. Sankashti Chaturthi in the dark half, broken at moonrise, and Vinayaka Chaturthi in the bright half - both for Ganesha.

Ashtami. Kalashtami in the dark half for Bhairava, and Durga Ashtami in the bright half, most prominently during Navratri.

Ekadashi. Twice a month, for Vishnu - the most widely kept of all the tithi fasts.

Trayodashi. Pradosh vrat, kept at dusk for Shiva, twice a month. On a Monday it becomes Som Pradosh and on a Saturday Shani Pradosh.

Chaturdashi. Masik Shivaratri in the dark half each month, with Maha Shivaratri in Phalguna as the great annual form.

Purnima and Amavasya. The full moon for Satyanarayan katha and the monthly purnima vrat; the new moon for ancestor rites.

The tithi calendar by month above shows where each of these falls in the month you choose, along with the exact minute each tithi ends - which decides whether the fast is kept on one day or the next.

Because a tithi does not match a solar day, two unusual situations arise every month, and they explain most of the disagreements between printed calendars.

A kshaya tithi is one that begins after one sunrise and ends before the next. It never touches a sunrise, so it never names a day, and it disappears from the calendar that month. A fast tied to it has to be moved, and the rule for which way depends on the specific observance.

A vriddhi tithi is the reverse - one long enough to be running at two consecutive sunrises. It names two days in a row. Again, which of the two is used for an observance depends on the rule for that particular fast; for Ekadashi, for instance, Smarta and Vaishnava households may choose differently.

These cases are why two reputable calendars occasionally differ by a day, and why a tithi today calculator that prints the end time is easier to check. Neither is wrong - they are applying different rules to the same astronomical fact. Having the exact end time, as this page gives, lets you check any of them yourself.

These are the questions people ask most after using a tithi today calculator - how the day's tithi is decided, why calendars sometimes differ, and what the janma tithi calculator needs to find your own tithi by date of birth.

How does a tithi today calculator decide the tithi of the day?

By the sunrise rule. The tithi running at your local sunrise names the day, and the calculator then gives the minute that tithi ends. If two tithis touch the same day, the second one belongs to tomorrow's sunrise or, if it ends before then, it is a kshaya tithi.

Why do two panchangs show a different tithi end time today?

Usually because they use different cities or round differently. The moment a tithi ends is the same everywhere; converted to local time it reads differently, and the tithi at sunrise depends on where sunrise is taken. Older printed panchangs that use traditional formulas can also differ by several minutes from modern astronomical ones.

Can I find my tithi by date of birth without the birth time?

Usually. A tithi lasts about a day, so the date alone gives the right janma tithi unless a tithi changed on that day. If it did, the janma tithi calculator needs the time to know which side of the change you were born on.

Does my janma tithi decide my Hindu birthday?

Yes, in most of north India. The yearly tithi birthday is your janma tithi in the same lunar month as your birth, so it moves against the Gregorian date by ten to twenty days each year. In much of the south the birth nakshatra is used instead. The janma tithi calculator above gives the date.

If you came here to check a result from another app, compare the end time, not just the tithi name. This tithi today calculator prints the sunrise it used and the exact end time, so the result can be checked line by line.