Most Telugu panchangam terms feel familiar in your grandmother's voice, less so on a printed page. This glossary explains the terms shown on the daily calendar — what they mean, how they're calculated, and how Telugu families abroad can use them in everyday life.
Rahu Kalam is one of three daily inauspicious windows in the panchangam tradition, alongside Yamagandam and Gulika Kalam. It is named after Rahu, the lunar north-node "shadow planet" of Vedic astrology, and is regarded as a time when energies are unfavourable for beginnings.
The interval from sunrise to sunset is divided into eight equal slots. Rahu Kalam falls on a different slot each weekday — the 8th on Sunday, the 2nd on Monday, the 7th on Tuesday, the 5th on Wednesday, the 6th on Thursday, the 4th on Friday, and the 3rd on Saturday. Because slot length depends on local sunrise and sunset, the window shifts day to day and city to city.
Tradition holds that Rahu Kalam is unfavourable for starting new things — signing a contract, beginning a journey, opening a business, marriage muhurtam. Work already in progress is fine to continue. Many Telugu families simply note the window in the morning and plan a phone call, a tea break, or routine work around it.
Most printed almanacs and many Telugu websites publish Rahu Kalam timings calibrated to Indian cities — usually Hyderabad or Vijayawada. Those timings are wrong outside India, often by hours, because they assume Indian sunrise and sunset. This site re-derives the window from your sunrise and sunset, so the Rahu Kalam shown is the one that actually applies where you are.
Yamagandam (sometimes Yamaganda) is a second inauspicious window in the daily panchangam, presided over by Yama, the deity associated with mortality and transition. Like Rahu Kalam, its position shifts based on the weekday.
Daylight is divided into eight equal slots. Yamagandam falls on the 5th slot on Sunday, the 4th on Monday, the 3rd on Tuesday, the 2nd on Wednesday, the 1st on Thursday, the 7th on Friday, and the 6th on Saturday. Slot length is determined by local sunrise and sunset, same as Rahu Kalam.
Like Rahu Kalam, Yamagandam is avoided for new beginnings — particularly journeys, since Yama is the deity of transition. Routine activity is unaffected. In a typical Telugu household, Rahu Kalam and Yamagandam together account for most of the daily "avoid starting" guidance.
Same caveat as Rahu Kalam — fixed-Indian-time tables are wrong abroad. The window depends on where the sun rises and sets for you, which is what this site computes.
Gulika Kalam (also Gulika or Maandi) is the third of the daily inauspicious windows. Gulika is regarded as a "son of Shani" (Saturn) in classical astrology, and the window inherits Saturn's stable, slow, persistence-oriented character.
Same eight-slot division as Rahu Kalam and Yamagandam. Gulika Kalam falls on the 7th slot on Sunday, the 6th on Monday, the 5th on Tuesday, the 4th on Wednesday, the 3rd on Thursday, the 2nd on Friday, and the 1st on Saturday.
This is where Gulika differs in character from Rahu and Yama. Classical sources treat Gulika as inauspicious for one-off ventures — new business, signing contracts — but preferred for works of permanence: shraddha (ancestral rites), pithru karyam, foundation-laying, and ceremonies whose effect is meant to endure.
The "Avoid" label on the daily card is a conservative simplification. In practice, Telugu families observing pithru tarpana often choose Gulika Kalam deliberately, because Saturn's stabilising influence is what gives the rite its lasting character.
As with the other Kalams, slot length depends on your local sunrise and sunset, so a fixed-Indian-time table is wrong abroad. The window shown on this site is calibrated to where you actually are.
"Shubha Vela" literally means "auspicious time" in Telugu and Sanskrit. It refers to the auspicious daily windows ruled by benefic planetary horas — typically two during the day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. In Tamil and Malayalam tradition the equivalent is called Nalla Neram; in Sanskrit, Shubha Muhurta.
The interval from sunrise to sunset is divided into 12 horas (each roughly an hour, but variable by season and latitude). Each hora is ruled by a planetary lord in a fixed cycle — Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Horas ruled by Jupiter (Guru) and Venus (Shukra) are considered most auspicious. The first hora of the day starts about 24 minutes (one ghati) after sunrise, and the specific pair shown on the daily card uses the classical hora-by-weekday table that Telugu Siddhantis consult.
Shubha Vela is the positive counterpart to Rahu, Yama, and Gulika — a window people choose deliberately for important new starts. Job interviews, signing a lease, starting a journey, opening a business, are all traditionally aligned with Shubha Vela. Two windows per day means there's almost always a usable slot before sunset.
As with the inauspicious windows, hora length is tied to local sunrise and sunset, so the windows shift across cities and seasons. A Telugu family in London and a Telugu family in Hyderabad will see different Shubha Vela on the same calendar day — both are correct for their location.
Tithi is the lunar day — one of 30 in a synodic month. Each tithi is the time the moon takes to gain 12° of longitudinal separation from the sun. Tithis don't align cleanly with the calendar day: a single calendar day can contain part of one tithi, all of it, or parts of two.
Tithi number = floor((moon longitude − sun longitude) ÷ 12°), with the result wrapped into 1–30. The first 15 tithis (Pratipada through Pournami) make up Shukla Paksham, the bright half of the lunar month; tithis 16–30 (Pratipada through Amavasya) make up Krishna Paksham, the dark half. Pournami (Pūrṇimā) is full moon; Amavasya is new moon.
The tithi shown on the home card uses the Udaya Tithi convention — the tithi prevailing at sunrise of your local calendar day. This is the canonical Hindu calendar convention and is what fixes the tithi name throughout the day even as the underlying tithi rolls over mid-afternoon. Specific tithis carry observances: Ekadasi for Vishnu fasting, Pournami for ancestor remembrance, Chavithi (Chaturthi) for Ganesha worship, Amavasya for pithru tarpana.
Because Udaya Tithi is anchored at your sunrise, two cities can show different tithi names for the same calendar date. If a new moon happens at 10:30 UTC, Hyderabad's sunrise (around 00:25 UTC) sees the previous tithi and the day reads as Amavasya, while a Bay Area sunrise (around 13:18 UTC) sees the next tithi and the day reads as Pratipada. Both are correct for their location — this is exactly why Telugu families abroad sometimes observe Amavasya tarpana on a different date than family back in India.
A nakshatram is one of 27 segments of the ecliptic — the moon's path through the sky — each 13°20' wide. The moon transits all 27 in roughly one sidereal month. Each nakshatram has a name (Ashwini, Bharani, Krittika, ...), a ruling deity, a planetary lord, and is tied to a specific star or asterism in the night sky.
Nakshatram number = floor(moon longitude ÷ 13.333°), modulo 27, applied to the moon's sidereal longitude (Lahiri ayanamsha). The home card shows the nakshatram at your local sunrise, mirroring the Udaya Tithi convention — locked through the day even as the underlying nakshatram transitions.
A child's "birth star" (janma nakshatram) is the nakshatram prevailing at the moment of birth, and is central to Telugu astrology — used for naming, marriage compatibility (kuja dosha and porutham), and birthday observance. The daily nakshatram also matters for muhurtam: certain nakshatrams are favourable for travel, others for marriage, others for medical procedures.
Same Udaya logic as tithi — the nakshatram of the day depends on your local sunrise. A child's janma nakshatram is computed at the moment of birth and is the same anywhere in the world, but the named day a Telugu family might observe a birthday on can differ between India and abroad.
Yogam (in the panchangam sense, distinct from yoga as a practice) is one of 27 daily configurations defined by the sum of sun and moon longitudes. Each yogam has a name and a classical character — auspicious, inauspicious, or mixed.
Yogam number = floor((sun longitude + moon longitude) ÷ 13.333°), modulo 27. Like tithi and nakshatram, the home card pins the yogam at your local sunrise.
Yogam matters most for muhurtam selection. Siddhi, Shubha, and Saubhagya are highly favourable; Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are traditionally avoided for new ventures. For day-to-day life it is secondary to tithi and nakshatram, but knowing the yogam rounds out the daily picture.
Like tithi and nakshatram, the yogam of the day is anchored at your local sunrise, so the named day can differ between cities.
A karanam is half of a tithi — two karanams fall in each tithi, sixty in a lunar month. There are 11 named karanams: seven repeat (Bava, Balava, Kaulava, Taitila, Gara, Vanija, Vishti) and four are fixed (Shakuni, Chatushpada, Nagava, Kimstughna), occupying specific positions around the new moon.
Karanam index is derived from the tithi: each tithi spans two karanams of 6° lunar separation each. Position within the tithi determines which karanam is currently active.
Karanam is used by Siddhantis for fine-grained muhurtam — for example, Vishti karanam (also called Bhadra) is generally avoided for new beginnings. For most Telugu families it's a refinement on top of tithi rather than something to track daily.
As with tithi, the named karanam at your local sunrise can differ between cities.
A lunar month is divided into two pakshams: Shukla Paksham (శుక్ల పక్షం), the waxing half from new moon to full moon, and Krishna Paksham (కృష్ణ పక్షం), the waning half from full moon back to new moon. Each paksham contains 15 tithis, and the two together make a synodic lunar month of about 29.5 days.
Tithis 1–15 (Pratipada through Pournami) are Shukla Paksham; tithis 16–30 (Pratipada through Amavasya) are Krishna Paksham. The sub-line under the tithi name on the home card tells you which paksham you're in.
Paksham matters because many festivals are tied not to a specific calendar date but to a tithi within a paksham. Vinayaka Chavithi is Shukla Chaturthi of Bhadrapada; Krishna Janmashtami is Krishna Ashtami of Shravana; Maha Shivaratri is Krishna Chaturdashi of Magha. Knowing the paksham helps locate festivals in the lunar calendar.
Samvatsaram is a 60-year cycle of named years used across Hindu calendars. Each year has a name (Prabhava, Vibhava, Sukla, ... Akshaya) and a traditional character. The Telugu panchangam additionally counts years from the Shalivahana Shaka era — a continuous count starting in 78 CE. So 2026 CE is Shalivahana Shaka 1948, and the samvatsaram is Parabhava (year 40 in the cycle).
The samvatsaram index for a given year is (year + offset) modulo 60, where the offset depends on the era anchor. Both the Shalivahana Shaka year and the Telugu samvatsaram roll over at Ugadi — Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, around late March. Shalivahana Shaka is computed as Gregorian year − 78.
Samvatsaram names appear on calendar headers, festival invitations, and ritual sankalpa — the spoken declaration at the start of any pooja, where the celebrant names the current year, ayana, ritu, masa, paksham, tithi, and nakshatram. Knowing the samvatsaram lets you read those headers correctly and recite sankalpa accurately.