Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī
Appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa
Wednesday, 5 September 2159
From the pañchāṅga
By local reckoning this is kept on Tuesday, 4 September or Wednesday, 5 September across the world, the date above is for your location.
Smārta observes the midnight (niśīta) Aṣṭamī shown here; Vaiṣṇava tradition also requires the Rohiṇī nakṣatra and may keep it a day later.
How to keep the fast
A day-long fast, often kept without water (nirjala), held until midnight with jāgaraṇa, the night vigil of kīrtana, and worship at the niśīta hour of Kṛṣṇa’s appearance.
Breaking the fast, Broken after the midnight worship; the strict break it the next morning, once Aṣṭamī (and, for Vaiṣṇavas, the Rohiṇī nakṣatra) has passed.
सङ्कल्पः · saṅkalpaḥ
Wednesday, 5 September, in the old reckoning
अद्य · श्वेतवराह कल्पे · वैवस्वत मन्वन्तरे · कलियुगे प्रथम पादे
adya · śveta-varāha kalpe · vaivasvata manvantare · kali-yuge prathama pāde
शालिवाहन शके २०८१ · सिद्धार्थ संवत्सरे · दक्षिणायने · वर्षा ऋतौ
śālivāhana śake 2081 · Siddhārtha saṁvatsare · Dakṣiṇāyane · Varṣā ṛtau
भाद्रपद मासे · कृष्ण पक्षे · अष्टमी तिथौ · बुध वासरे · रोहिणी नक्षत्रे · हर्षण योगे · बालव करणे
Bhādrapada māse · Kṛṣṇa pakṣe · Aṣṭamī tithau · Budha vāsare · Rohiṇī nakṣatre · Harṣaṇa yoge · Bālava karaṇe
जम्बूद्वीपे · भारतवर्षे*
jambū-dvīpe · bhārata-varṣe (India)
*The locality lines, jambū-dvīpe bhārata-varṣe, your deśa and your kṣetra: name your continent, country, region, and town. India is shown by default; spoken aloud you'd substitute your own.
What you just read
The sankalpa is the opening declaration of any traditional Hindu observance. It places the moment in three nested frames, cosmic, calendrical, and astronomical, before any act, so the doer knows when and where they are standing in time.
Cosmic time doesn't change with where you read this. Śveta-varāha is the present kalpa (a day of Brahmā, ~4.32 billion years). Vaivasvata is the current manvantara within it. Kali-yuga prathama pāda places us in the first quarter of the dark age. These are the deepest layers of the Hindu reckoning of time, the same for someone in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Sydney, or San Francisco.
Calendrical time tracks the present year. The Śaka era counts from 78 CE; the named saṁvatsara is one of a sixty-year cycle of year-names (Prabhava, Vibhava... Akṣaya, then repeating). The ayana tells us which half of the solar year we're in: Uttarāyaṇa (sun moving north, January to July) or Dakṣiṇāyana (south, July to January). The ṛtu is the season.
Astronomical time is the most particular. The māsa, pakṣa, and tithi follow the moon; the vāra is the weekday; the nakṣatra is which of the 27 lunar mansions the moon currently sits in; the yoga is a sun-plus-moon arithmetic; the karaṇa is the half-tithi. These four: nakṣatra, yoga, tithi, karaṇa, together with the vāra are the literal "five limbs" of the word pañchāṅga.
The values shown above are computed for your local sunrise. The day "belongs to" whichever tithi (and nakṣatra and karaṇa) was prevailing at sunrise, even if those quantities change mid-morning, the day keeps its sunrise name until the next sunrise. This is the convention every printed panchang and every traditional sankalpa uses. A reader in Sydney sees their sunrise's reckoning; a reader in London sees theirs; both differ from each other by a few hours of the sky.
Why it is spoken every day. The sankalpa is the traditional opening of daily (nitya) observance, not reserved for festivals. Recited each morning, it re-anchors you in the exact moment you occupy in sacred time and dedicates the day’s actions with conscious intention (saṅkalpa means “resolve”). On an Ekadasi it is the same declaration that opens the fast, the day, the place, and the purpose, named before the vrata begins.
Sky on 5 September 2159
Sun
Moon
Rahu kāla
12:18 PM – 1:50 PM
Yamaganda kāla
7:41 AM – 9:13 AM
Abhijit muhūrta
11:54 AM – 12:42 PM
Bearings are degrees on the horizon (0° N, 90° E, 180° S, 270° W). Rahu and Yamaganda are traditionally avoided for new undertakings. Abhijit is the brief auspicious window centred on local noon.
Found an error?
ekadasi.day has no ads and no popups. If a date, name, or story reads wrong, please write, accuracy matters more than reach.
feedback@ekadasi.day →·Other ways to help