Karana: The Half-Tithi of the Panchang

A karana is half of a tithi: the time the Moon takes to gain 6 degrees on the Sun. It is the fifth limb of the panchang, the Vedic daily almanac, and its finest grain. Each lunar day, or tithi, splits into two karanas, so a lunar month of 30 tithis holds 60 karana slots. Those 60 slots are filled from a repeating set of just 11 names: seven movable karanas that cycle eight times each, and four fixed ones that appear once each around the new moon. For everyday use, one name matters above the rest: Vishti, also called Bhadra, the karana tradition keeps clear of new beginnings.

This page goes deep on the karana alone: the measurement, the full monthly cycle, and the working rules. For the system the five limbs make together, start at the panchang.

How a karana is measured

The measurement is the tithi's, halved. A tithi covers 12 degrees of the Moon's gain on the Sun; a karana covers 6. Since a tithi runs from just under 20 hours to nearly 27, a karana runs roughly 10 to 13 hours, and the almanac typically lists two or three karanas touching any given civil day, each with the clock time at which it ends. As with the tithi, the karana running at sunrise is the one the day is said to carry, and the printed ending times tell you which hours belong to which name.

The karana exists to sharpen timing. A tithi paints the whole lunar day with one quality; the karana lets the almanac say that the morning and the evening of the same tithi differ. Traders watched the karana closely for the timing of deals, and muhurta work still uses it as the final filter after the coarser limbs have chosen the day.

A worked example ties the two limbs together. Suppose the Moon stands 100 degrees ahead of the Sun. Dividing by 12 degrees gives the ninth tithi, Navami, and the 4-degree remainder says its first half is running. Dividing the same 100 degrees by 6 places the moment in the seventeenth karana slot of the month, which the cycle below names Balava, a favourable one.

The 11 karanas

Eleven names fill the month's 60 slots. The seven movable (chara) karanas rotate in a fixed order; the four fixed (sthira) karanas hold the same four half-tithis every month, clustered around the new moon.

Of the seven movable karanas, the first six are treated as broadly workable to favourable; Vishti is the exception. The four fixed karanas belong to the dark, inward days around the new moon and are left out of muhurta selection for fresh starts, with the amavasya slots traditionally given to rites for the ancestors.

How the cycle fits the lunar month

The fit is exact, and seeing it once makes the whole system click. The month's 60 half-tithis begin with Kimstughna, which takes the first half of the bright first tithi. Then the movable seven, Bava through Vishti, rotate in order eight full times, covering 56 slots and carrying the month all the way to the first half of the dark 14th tithi.

The last three slots close the month: Shakuni takes the second half of the dark 14th, Chatushpada the first half of amavasya, and Naga its second half. One plus 56 plus three is the full 60, and the next month begins the pattern again. The consequence worth remembering: because the movable cycle is seven names long against a 30-tithi month, each movable karana, Vishti included, lands on different tithis and weekdays as the month turns.

Vishti, or Bhadra: the karana to plan around

Vishti, near-universally called Bhadra in printed almanacs, is the one karana the tradition treats as inauspicious for beginnings. Weddings, housewarmings, launches, journeys, and first steps are timed to avoid it. The name Bhadra here belongs to the karana; the tithi groups also use bhadra as a group name, an unrelated and favourable use of the same word.

Because the cycle is fixed, Vishti's eight monthly visits always land on the same half-tithis, and almanac readers learn them by heart.

The management is built into the cycle. A Vishti spell lasts under half a day, its start and end are printed in every panchang, and eight short windows a month leave the great majority of the month open. Routine and ongoing work continues through it as normal. The practice is a glance and a small adjustment of schedule, the same habit as stepping around Rahu Kalam on the weekday page, and today's panchang shows whether a Bhadra window touches today at your location.

What the karana adds to a day's reading

In the full reading of a day, the karana is the last and lightest filter. The tithi and weekday set the day's broad character, the nakshatra adds the Moon's flavour, the yoga the Sun-and-Moon tone, and the karana then splits the day into halves, telling you which half carries the day's quality cleanly.

That is also how muhurta uses it: once a favourable day is found, the chosen hour is checked against the karana, mainly to keep clear of a Bhadra window. A movable, favourable karana under a favourable tithi is the standard sign-off on a chosen time, the last box ticked before the hour is fixed and the invitations are printed.

The karana of your birth

Read at a birth moment, the karana becomes the janma karana, one of the five limbs of the birth panchanga. The classical natal texts give results for birth in each karana, a light tone over the chart rather than a verdict, and always read beside the birth tithi, vara, nakshatra, and yoga.

A free birth chart lists the full panchanga of your birth moment, karana included, alongside the chart itself, which is the natural way to see this smallest limb of the almanac in your own sky, sitting beside the tithi it halves.