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Panchak

Is Panchak On Today?

Know before you plan travel or construction: whether Panchak is on and when the next one begins. It runs while the Moon is in the last five nakshatras.

Today's panchang in New Delhi

Sunday, 1 November 2026

Tithi
Krishna Saptami (until 2:52 pm)
Vara
Ravivara
Nakshatra
Pushya (until 4:30 am, next day)
Yoga
Sadhya (until 2:39 pm)
Karana
Bava (until 2:52 pm)
Sunrise
6:34 am
Sunset
5:35 pm
Computing...

What is Panchak?

Panchak is a roughly-five-day recurring window in every lunar cycle when the Moon transits the five classical "panchak" nakshatras: Dhanishta pada 3-4, Shatabhisha, Purva Bhadrapada, Uttara Bhadrapada, and Revati. Roughly once every 27 days, it lasts about 4-6 days.

A few kinds of new work are traditionally avoided during Panchak: beginning a long journey, building a new house or stockpiling fuel, journeys to the south, and specific classical rules around funeral rites. Everyday household work, office work, and continuing work already underway are not treated as restricted.

This page shows the dates only; no "do or do not" verdict. The final decision is left to family, tradition, and priest.

Common misreadings of Panchak

A common misreading treats every Panchak period as equally significant. Classical panchang tradition also grades Panchak by the weekday it begins on, with a different traditional name and caution level for each starting weekday, rather than treating every five-day window the same. This page shows when Panchak falls; a family panchang or pandit is the right place to check which named variant a specific date belongs to.

A second misreading assumes Panchak falls on the same calendar dates every year, like a fixed holiday. It's tied to the Moon's transit through five specific nakshatras, not a fixed Gregorian date, so it recurs roughly every 27 days and drifts across the calendar year to year, the same way Ekadashi or Purnima do.

A third misreading lumps Panchak together with Bhadra (Vishti karana), another commonly avoided inauspicious period. The two are unrelated: Panchak is a nakshatra-based, roughly monthly window, while Bhadra is based on a different classical karana calculation and recurs twice in most lunar days. Checking one tells you nothing about the other.

FAQ

Questions about Panchak

Is Panchak the same everywhere? +

Yes. Panchak is based on the Moon's sidereal nakshatra position, which is the same everywhere on Earth. So Panchak on a given date is on for Delhi, London, and New York alike (though the day boundary depends on each city's local time zone).

Can we make a birth chart during Panchak? +

Yes. Making a birth chart is not restricted by Panchak; the classical avoids are mainly for new "physical" starts, like travel or construction. Birth time cannot be changed, so a baby's chart is cast from that exact moment regardless.

Can weddings happen during Panchak? +

Most traditions do not treat Panchak as a blocker for weddings, since a wedding muhurat is fixed by a combination of tithi, nakshatra, yoga, and lagna, not by Panchak alone. See our full muhurat service for a personalised marriage window.

Where does this data come from? +

For every date we sample the Moon's exact astronomical position at 12:00 IST (sidereal calculation with the Lahiri ayanamsa). The dates this yields match what mainstream panchang websites publish.