Hindu Calendarहिन्दू कैलेंडर

The Hindu calendar is lunisolar. Its day is the tithi, the time the Moon takes to move 12° ahead of the Sun, so a tithi can be shorter or longer than a solar day. The tithi current at sunrise names the day. Thirty tithis make a lunar month: the bright half (Shukla paksha) from new moon to full moon, and the dark half (Krishna paksha) back to new moon.

North India uses the Purnimanta calendar, where a month ends on Purnima; Gujarat, Maharashtra and the South use Amanta, where it ends on Amavasya. The Shukla paksha has the same month name in both, but a Krishna paksha festival such as Diwali falls in Kartika in the North and in Ashwin in the Amanta calendar. This site uses Purnimanta month names.

Twelve lunar months are about eleven days shorter than the solar year, so roughly every three years an extra month, the Adhik Maas, is added. One fell from 17 May to 15 June 2026 (Adhik Jyeshtha); the next is in 2029. Years are counted in the Vikram Samvat, which begins on Chaitra Shukla Pratipada and runs 56–57 years ahead of the Gregorian year.