Your family's tithi birthdays, star birthdays and shraddha dates, where you live
Enter a birth or a death once. See the day to keep it each year in your own city, following your family's tradition, with the reason for each date. Then add them all to your calendar.
- Choose your cityWhere you keep the dates now, not where they happened.
- Add each personA birth or a death, by date, or by the tithi or star if that's what you know.
- Keep them every yearSee this year's day with the reason, and add ten years to your calendar.
- Tithi
- Star
- Sunrise
Your family dates
The calendar file has the next 10 years, with reminders a week and a day before. Your list is saved only in this browser.
Want a priest to perform the puja or shraddha on one of these dates? Asking on WhatsApp is free, and you see the price before you book.
How the dates are worked out
A tithi is a lunar day: the time the Moon takes to gain 12° on the Sun. A star (nakshatra) is the Moon's place among 27 parts of the sky. Neither lines up with midnight, so the same tithi or star can fall on different days in India and in North America or Australia. This tool works them out for the city you keep the dates in, which is what your priest there would do.
The rules for each kind of date
- Tithi birthdays fall on the day the birth tithi is in effect at sunrise, in the birth month. When it holds at two sunrises, the first is used, and the other is shown too.
- Star birthdays (Tamil and Malayali) fall on the day the birth star is in effect at sunrise in the birth month. When it holds at two sunrises, the later day is used, and the other is shown too. If the star comes twice in the month, the second is used, as most families do.
- Shraddha falls on the day the tithi of death covers the afternoon period (aparahna, the fourth fifth of daylight). If it covers the afternoon on two days, the day with more of it is used. A death in an adhika (extra) month is kept in the adhika month in years that have one.
- Mahalaya shraddha is on the same tithi in the Pitru Paksha fortnight. Deaths on Purnima, Chaturdashi or Amavasya are remembered on Sarvapitri Amavasya (Chaturdashi is kept for sudden or violent deaths). Some families keep other days, such as Navami for a mother (Avidhava Navami); ask your priest.
- North Indian months end at the full moon (purnimanta). South and West Indian months end at the new moon (amanta). The tithi is the same; only the month's name changes in the dark fortnight.
- Tamil and Malayalam months follow the Sun: the Tamil month is the Sun's sign at sunset, and the Malayalam month is its sign three-fifths of the way through daylight.
When your priest may say a different day
Families and panchangs don't all follow the same rules. When a date is close to a cut-off, or families are known to differ, we show the other day with the reason. Please confirm important dates with your family priest.
- Many Tamil temples and priests use the traditional vakya panchangam, which can put a star or tithi a day apart from these calculations. The calculations here follow the modern (drik) method, as Drik Panchang does.
- Some texts (Dharmasindhu) keep the yearly shraddha by midday (madhyahna) rather than the afternoon. In most years it's the same day.
- The rites in the first year after a death (monthly rites and the first annual shraddha) have their own rules and aren't covered here.
- Some Telugu and Kannada families keep birthdays by star rather than tithi, and some Malayali families keep the shraddham by tithi. Choose what your family does.
- Bengali and Odia calendars aren't covered yet.
These dates are worked out on your device from astronomical positions (checked against the Swiss Ephemeris and against Drik Panchang festival dates). Nothing you enter is sent to us or anyone else. Dates are a guide for planning and are not religious advice; see our disclaimer. City data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Astronomy by Astronomy Engine (MIT licence).
