Nitya Yoga: The 27 Yogas of the Panchang

The yoga listed in a panchang is the nitya yoga, the "daily yoga": the fourth limb of the panchang, the five-limbed Vedic almanac. It is a measure of the Sun and the Moon taken together. Add the two sidereal longitudes, divide the sum by 13 degrees 20 minutes, and the count names one of 27 yogas, from Vishkambha to Vaidhriti. Each carries its own quality for the day: Siddhi, accomplishment, welcomes beginnings; Vyatipata, calamity, counsels routine work instead. The word yoga means a joining, and this daily joining of the two lights is a different thing entirely from the planetary yogas of a birth chart.

This page covers the daily yoga alone: the calculation with a worked example, all 27 names and meanings, and how the adverse ones are handled in practice. For how the yoga sits beside the tithi, vara, nakshatra, and karana, start at the panchang.

How the daily yoga is calculated

The yoga is the mirror image of the tithi. The tithi measures the gap between the Sun and the Moon, their longitudes subtracted; the yoga measures the two added together, a single combined reading of where both lights stand. One watches them separate, the other watches their sum sweep the circle.

The mechanics: take the Moon's sidereal longitude and the Sun's, both counted from 0 degrees Aries, and add them, subtracting 360 if the total passes a full circle. Divide by 13 degrees 20 minutes, the same width as a nakshatra, and count from Vishkambha. The Sun contributes about a degree a day and the Moon about thirteen, so the sum advances a little over 14 degrees daily and the yoga changes roughly once a day, a touch faster than the nakshatra does.

A worked example makes it concrete. Suppose the Sun stands at 10 degrees of sidereal Taurus, which is 40 degrees from the start of Aries, and the Moon at 18 degrees of sidereal Cancer, which is 108 degrees. The sum is 148 degrees. Dividing by 13 degrees 20 minutes places it in the twelfth division, so the yoga of the moment is Dhruva, "constant", a favourable one. When the sum reaches 160 degrees, Vyaghata takes over, and the almanac prints the clock time of that handover.

All 27 nitya yogas

The names are old, and most translate cleanly. The quality column reflects the standard almanac reading: favourable yogas welcome new undertakings, adverse ones are kept for routine work, and the section after the table explains how strictly each is applied.

The yogas to plan around

Nine of the 27 carry adverse names: Vishkambha, Atiganda, Shula, Ganda, Vyaghata, Vajra, Vyatipata, Parigha, and Vaidhriti. In practice the tradition grades them. Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are the two set aside whole: weddings, launches, and first steps wait for another day. For several of the others, custom avoids mainly the opening portion of the yoga and treats the remainder as workable.

The framing is calendar management, not dread. An adverse yoga lasts about a day, returns about once a month, and has its own proper work: maintenance, finishing, clearing, inward practice. Since eighteen of the 27 are favourable and the wheel turns daily, a plan rarely waits more than a day or two for a yoga that suits it. The almanac's gift is knowing which day is which, and today's panchang names the running yoga and its ending time for your location.

How the yoga is used in practice

The yoga is a confirming filter rather than a headline. In day-picking, the tithi and weekday choose the candidate days, and the yoga then confirms or rejects them: a launch already favoured by a jaya tithi and a Thursday is happily signed off under Siddhi, and quietly postponed under Vyatipata. The yoga rarely decides alone.

A few names are worth knowing on sight because almanacs and family elders quote them. Siddhi, Siddha, Shubha, and Brahma are the welcome ones, the names that get a wedding date approved. Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are the two that get a date moved. The remaining twenty-one mostly pass without comment, colouring the day without governing it, which is the right weight to give this limb.

The sample day on the panchang shows the yoga in its place: a bright tenth tithi, a Thursday of Jupiter, the Moon in a nourishing star, Siddhi yoga running, a movable karana. The yoga is the fourth voice in that five-voice agreement, and a day with all five in accord is what the almanac calls a good day to begin.

Why this yoga is not the chart yoga

The word yoga, a joining or union, does double duty in Vedic astrology, and the two uses are unrelated. In a birth chart, yogas are planetary combinations: configurations such as Gaja Kesari, formed by Jupiter and the Moon in a particular relationship, or the Raja yogas formed by house lords joining. Those are read from a single fixed chart, and there are hundreds of them.

The panchang's yoga is a calendar quantity. It involves only the Sun and the Moon, it belongs to a day rather than a person, and it cycles through all 27 names roughly every 27 days. When an almanac says "yoga: Siddhi", it is describing the day. When a chart reader says "this chart has a yoga", they are describing a planetary combination. Keeping the two senses apart is half the work of learning the term. Both descend from the Sanskrit root yuj, to join, the same root behind the practice of the exercise mat, which is a third and separate use again.

The yoga of your birth

Read at a birth moment, the same measure gives the janma yoga, one of the five limbs of the birth panchanga. The classical natal texts include results for birth in each of the 27, alongside the birth tithi, vara, nakshatra, and karana, as a finishing tone over the chart rather than a headline.

It is a minor factor, and the tradition reads it that way: a birth in Vyatipata is given its management in the same breath, with the rest of the chart, the lagna, the Moon, and the dashas, carrying far more weight. To see your own, a free birth chart lists the full panchanga of your birth moment, and the muhurta guide shows how the day's yoga is weighed when choosing a time to act.