बिना शब्दकोश के पंचांग पढ़ना

Panchang means "five limbs". A daily Panchang is those five quantities for one place on one day, plus the timings they imply. Once you know what each limb is, the page stops looking like a wall of Sanskrit.

The five limbs

• Tithi — the lunar day, defined by the Moon gaining 12° on the Sun. Thirty tithis make a lunar month; each lasts roughly a day but varies from about 19 to 26 hours.
• Vara — the weekday, running from sunrise to sunrise rather than midnight to midnight.
• Nakshatra — the Moon's lunar mansion, one of 27, each 13°20' wide; the Moon spends about a day in each.
• Yoga — the sum of the Sun's and Moon's longitudes, divided into 27 parts.
• Karana — half a tithi; eleven names cycle through the sixty halves of a month.

Why the ending time is printed

Each limb ends at a specific clock time and the next begins. A Panchang lists that ending time so you know which tithi or nakshatra governs your appointment. Jyotish Drishti computes the endings from actual Sun and Moon positions for your city, which is why a Bengaluru Panchang and a Delhi Panchang differ by a few minutes.

Choosing a time

Muhurat selection is a large subject, but three checks catch most of it: avoid Rahu Kaal and Yamaganda for beginnings, prefer a tithi and nakshatra considered auspicious for the activity, and check that the Moon is not in the 8th sign from your own Moon (Chandrashtama). The Panchang page surfaces the first and third automatically.