Ayanāṃśa
अयनांश
The precessional offset between tropical and sidereal zodiacs.
Definition
Ayanāṃśa ('portion of the ayana') is the angular distance between the sāyana (tropical) and nirayana (sidereal) zodiacs, which grows by about 50 seconds of arc a year as the equinoxes precess. Nirayana longitude equals sāyana longitude minus the ayanāṃśa. Several values are in use; the Lahiri (Citrāpakṣa) ayanāṃśa, recommended by India's Calendar Reform Committee in 1955, is about 24° in the 2020s.
Articles that use this term
- PanchangaExplainer
How to read a panchang
The five limbs of the Indian almanac, what each one measures, and how to make sense of a printed page.
7 min read · 15 October 2026
- Panchanga
The 27 nakshatras: a sky map older than the zodiac
Before the twelve signs reached India, the Vedic sky was read by the Moon's nightly stations. What they are and how they are still used.
7 min read · 13 October 2026
- SiddhantaExplainer
Sidereal and tropical: what the ayanamsa is, and why Lahiri
Two zodiacs, one sky. How the slow wobble of the Earth's axis separates them, and how India chose a standard in the 1950s.
7 min read · 12 October 2026
- Jyotish · HoraExplainer
The birth chart, house by house
What a kundli is, how it is drawn in North and South Indian styles, and what each of the twelve houses is traditionally said to represent.
8 min read · 11 October 2026
- Jyotish · HoraExplainer
Houses and signs: the difference every beginner misses
Twelve signs, twelve houses, and why they are not the same twelve. A plain explanation of the two frames in every kundli.
7 min read · 9 October 2026
- Jyotish · HoraExplainer
Vimshottari dasha: time, divided
A 120-year cycle of nine periods, started from the Moon's nakshatra at birth. How the system is built and how to read its arithmetic.
7 min read · 8 October 2026
- Jyotish · Hora
Space and Time: the two components of prediction
How the classical tradition separates what a chart shows from when it is said to unfold, and why that framework organises everything a student learns.
8 min read · 4 October 2026
- SiddhantaExplainer
Gochar explained: transits, sign changes and retrograde motion
What a transit calendar actually lists, why a graha seems to move backwards, and how the classical texts and modern astronomy describe the same motion.
8 min read · 29 September 2026
- PanchangaExplainer
Sankranti: the Sun's twelve sign entries
Why Makar Sankranti stays near 14 January while Diwali wanders, how the twelve sankrantis are classed, and the slow drift that will move the date.
6 min read · 26 September 2026
- Panchanga
Namakshar: the syllables of the nakshatra padas
How a table of 108 syllables came to be used in naming children, what the grihya sutras say about names, and what they do not.
6 min read · 23 September 2026