October 2026 Panchang Calendar — Chennai
Every tithi and nakshatra below is the one in force at Chennai's own sunrise on that date — Madras sits at 80.27°E, so a day can carry a different tithi here than in a calendar computed for another meridian when a boundary falls near dawn. The lunar month is labelled by the amanta convention this city uses.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Lunar months spanned | Bhadrapada–Ashwin |
| Earliest sunrise | 05:58 |
| Latest sunrise | 06:02 |
| Longest day | 721 minutes |
| Shortest day | 700 minutes |
| Ekadashi days | 2 |
| Purnima / Amavasya | 1 / 1 |
| Mornings whose tithi differs from New Delhi | 0 |
Sunrise in Chennai moves from 05:58 on the 1st to 06:02 on the 31st, and sunset from 17:59 to 17:43 — the day shortens by 21 minutes across October, which drags every kaal window and every Choghadiya slot with it.
On none of the 31 mornings this month does the tithi at Chennai's sunrise differ from the one at New Delhi's — every boundary this month happens to fall clear of both dawns.
The two times under each date are that morning's sunrise at Chennai and the start of that day's Rahu Kaal, which is the eighth of real daylight assigned to Rahu on that weekday. Both move with the city, not just with the date: they are what a calendar computed for another meridian gets wrong even on the days it agrees about the tithi.
How far the nearest other sky is
Of the other cities computed on this site, the closest to Chennai by sunrise is Tirupati, 110 km away, where sunrise runs up to 4.4 minutes from this one. Over the 365 mornings behind this calendar the tithi differs on 2 of them and the nakshatra differs on 1 — a boundary falling between the two dawns. That is a small number and it is the whole argument: on those mornings a calendar reprinted from Tirupati would be wrong here, and there is no way to know which mornings without computing both.
Everything on this page is read at Chennai's own sunrise, from its own coordinates — 13.08°N 80.27°E — so it is not the nearest city's calendar with a name changed on it.
Observances in October 2026
| Date | Observance | Tithi it is fixed to | What the day is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 October | Indira Ekadashi | Bhadrapada Krishna Ekadashi | One of the twenty-four named ekadashis; the fast runs from this sunrise to the parana window after the next. |
| 10 October | Mahalaya Amavasya | Bhadrapada Krishna Amavasya | Sarvapitri Amavasya — the close of Pitru Paksha, and the day Bengal begins Durga Puja's countdown. |
| 11 October | Sharad Navratri begins | Ashwin Shukla Pratipada | Ghatasthapana; the nine nights run to Navami and close on Vijayadashami. |
| 19 October | Durga Ashtami | Ashwin Shukla Ashtami | Sandhi Puja sits in the forty-eight minutes straddling the Ashtami–Navami boundary computed on this site. |
| 21 October | Vijayadashami | Ashwin Shukla Dashami | Dussehra; Mysuru's jamboo savari leaves the palace on a muhurta of a few minutes within it. |
| 22 October | Papankusha Ekadashi | Ashwin Shukla Ekadashi | One of the twenty-four named ekadashis; the fast runs from this sunrise to the parana window after the next. |
| 26 October | Sharad Purnima | Ashwin Shukla Purnima | The brightest full moon of the year; Surat eats ghari on the day after it. |
Why the month is named what it is here
Two calendars run side by side in Chennai and this page only speaks one of them. The lunar month named on this page is amanta, the South Indian convention, and it governs tithi-based vrats. Tamil civil dating is solar: the month changes when the Sun changes sign, so a Tamil almanac prints Aadi or Maargazhi where this page prints Shravana or Margashirsha, and the two systems drift against each other by design. The tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana on this page are the same in both.
How a festival lands on a date
None of the dates above is stored. Each observance is held here as the rule that defines it — a lunar month, a fortnight and a tithi — and resolved against the computed panchang for Chennai each time this calendar is rebuilt, which is why the same festival moves through the Gregorian year and why two adjacent cities can differ by a day. The lunar month name follows the amanta reckoning; the intercalary adhika masa, which repeats a month name roughly every thirty-two months, is detected and its festivals are attributed to the regular month rather than the leap one.
A day is marked by the tithi standing at sunrise. Observances that are settled at another moment — Janmashtami at midnight, Diwali at pradosh, Ahoi Ashtami at starrise — can therefore be announced by a temple one day either side of the marker here, and the table above says so where it applies. Solar festivals such as Makar Sankranti are keyed to the Sun's ingress instead, which is why they barely move.