Pradoṣa

Sacred to Śiva

Thursday, 8 October 2026

Lord Śiva dancing the cosmic Sandhyā Tāṇḍava at twilight on Mount Kailāsa worshipped by devas and sages — Pradoṣa Kāla: Lord Śiva performs the sacred Sandhyā Tāṇḍava at twilight on Trayodaśī, bestowing divine grace and dispelling all sins.

From the pañchāṅga

Kṛṣṇa Trayodaśī begins7 Oct, 11:17 PM

Ends8 Oct, 10:16 PM

ObservancePradoṣa-kāla, the hour around dusk

The waning Trayodaśī twilight sacred to Śiva. Worship is offered in the pradoṣa-kāla around sunset, when Śiva is said to dance between the horns of the evening.

How to keep the fast

A fast is kept through the day; Śiva is worshipped in the pradoṣa-kāla, the hour and a half around sunset, when he is said to dance between the horns of the evening.

Breaking the fast, Broken after the pradoṣa-kāla (sunset) worship.

About Pradoṣa→Share Timings

सङ्कल्पः·SAṄKALPAḤ

today, in the old reckoning

Cosmic Time
अद्य · श्वेतवराह कल्पे · वैवस्वत मन्वन्तरे · कलियुगे प्रथम पादे
adya · śveta-varāha kalpe · vaivasvata manvantare · kali-yuge prathama pāde
Calendrical Time
शालिवाहन शके १९४८ · पराभव संवत्सरे · दक्षिणायने · शरद् ऋतौ
śālivāhana śake 1948 · Parābhava saṁvatsare · Dakṣiṇāyane · Śarad ṛtau
Astronomical Limb (Pañcāṅga) · पञ्चाङ्ग कालः
कार्तिक मासे · कृष्ण पक्षे · त्रयोदशी तिथौ · गुरु वासरे · पूर्व फाल्गुनी नक्षत्रे · शुक्ल योगे · गर करणे
Kārtika māse · Kṛṣṇa pakṣe · Trayodaśī tithau · Guru vāsare · Pūrva Phalgunī nakṣatre · Śukla yoge · Gara karaṇe
Sacred Locality
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.

Today's sky