Tithi Devta: Lords of 16 Tithis in Muhurta Chintamani

A lunar month uses sixteen tithi names: fourteen that recur in both fortnights, Pratipada to Chaturdashi, plus Purnima, which closes the bright half, and Amavasya, which closes the dark one. The “tithi devta” or “tithi lord” of each is read here from one verse of Rama Daivajna’s Muhurta Chintamani, a handbook of electional astrology, which has fifteen names for those sixteen tithis, and only fourteen different deities among them, because one of them comes up twice. Below are the verse, a word-by-word reading, the full table, the points where another text, the Narada Purana, differs, and the spans of every tithi in the coming amanta Kartika, 9 November to 9 December 2026.

The Verse: Muhurta Chintamani, Shubhashubha Prakarana 3

The Shubhashubha Prakarana, the opening chapter on what favours or spoils a moment, gives the lords of the tithis in its third verse. In Devanagari:

तिथीशा वह्निकौ गौरी गणेशोऽहिर्गुहो रविः
शिवो दुर्गाऽन्तको विश्वे हरिः कामः शिवः शशी

Romanised: tithīśā vahnikau gaurī gaṇeśo'hir guho raviḥ / śivo durgā'ntako viśve hariḥ kāmaḥ śivaḥ śaśī. The first word, tithīśāḥ, is tithi with īśa, “lord”, in the plural: “the lords of the tithis”. Everything after it is a list, in order, beginning from Pratipada.

Reading the Verse Word by Word

A Sanskrit verse runs its words together under the rules of sandhi, so the fifteen names do not sit as fifteen separate words on the page. Here is each one as it appears in the line, and the deity it names:

• Pratipada (वह्नि): the first half of the dual vahnikau, vahni, fire, that is Agni. Lord: Agni.
• Dwitiya (कौ): the second half of vahnikau, ka, a name of Brahma as Prajapati; the dual ending -au is what joins the two into one word. Lord: Brahma.
• Tritiya (गौरी): gaurī, the goddess Gauri. Lord: Gauri.
• Chaturthi (गणेशो): gaṇeśaḥ, which takes the form gaṇeśo before the next word. Lord: Ganesha.
• Panchami (ऽहिर्): ahiḥ, the serpent, almost hidden by sandhi: gaṇeśaḥ followed by ahiḥ is written gaṇeśo'hir, the avagraha (') marking the a that has been swallowed. Lord: the serpent (Naga).
• Shashthi (गुहो): guhaḥ, a name of Kartikeya, written guho before raviḥ. Lord: Guha (Kartikeya).
• Saptami (रविः): raviḥ, the Sun. Lord: Ravi (Surya).
• Ashtami (शिवो): śivaḥ, written śivo before the next word. Lord: Shiva.
• Navami (दुर्गा): durgā, which runs into the next word as durgā'ntako. Lord: Durga.
• Dashami (ऽन्तको): antakaḥ, literally the one who makes an end, a name of Yama. Lord: Antaka (Yama).
• Ekadashi (विश्वे): viśve, a plural, standing for the Vishvedevas, the gods addressed as a group. Lord: the Vishvedevas.
• Dwadashi (हरिः): hariḥ, a name of Vishnu. Lord: Hari (Vishnu).
• Trayodashi (कामः): kāmaḥ, Kama. Lord: Kama.
• Chaturdashi (शिवः): śivaḥ again, the one name the verse gives twice. Lord: Shiva.
• Purnima (शशी): śaśī, the hare-marked one, a name of the Moon. Lord: Shashi (the Moon).

Two of the glosses need a further note. Antaka is an epithet, read here as Yama; viśve is a bare adjective, “all”, and only the context of a list of deities makes it the Vishvedevas.

Tithi Lords for All 30 Tithis

The verse gives one list for both fortnights, so a Krishna paksha tithi has the lord of the Shukla paksha tithi with the same number. Each tithi name links to its page in the panchang, which lists the New Delhi sunrises at which it runs in 2026 and 2027.

Shiva is the only lord named twice, at the Ashtami (8) and the Chaturdashi (14). Across the two fortnights that gives him four tithis a month, Shukla Ashtami, Shukla Chaturdashi, Krishna Ashtami and Krishna Chaturdashi, which is why a search for the Ashtami lord and one for the Chaturdashi lord end at the same name. Every other deity has one number. For the first fourteen numbers that means two tithis a month, one in each half; Shashi’s fifteenth place covers Purnima, and whether it also takes in Amavasya is the open question of the next section.

Amavasya and the Narada Purana

The verse stops at fifteen. It does not say whether its last name, Shashi, also serves the new-moon day, the fifteenth tithi of the dark half, and this page does not fill that gap for it. The Narada Purana has a list of its own, in the Purva-bhaga, chapter 56, verses 133b to 135 in G. V. Tagare’s translation, and on three points it can be set beside the Muhurta Chintamani. It gives Darsha, the new-moon day, to the manes (pitris). It opens with Brahma and then Agni, the Muhurta Chintamani’s first two names in the other order. Beyond those points its list does not line up one name to a tithi, so it is not tabled here.

Separately, the site’s festival table puts Sarva Pitru Amavasya, the day that closes the fortnight of shraddha and tarpan for ancestors, on 30 September 2027, and the Margashirsha Amavasya 2026 page describes the monthly darsha shraddha that Dharmashastra manuals attach to every Amavasya.

Festivals Set Beside the Verse

Here are seven rows of the site’s 2027 festival table, each with the tithi its span covers, that tithi’s lord in the verse, and the deity the site’s own page on the festival describes it as kept for. In five of them the two agree and in two they do not. The table only places the two lists side by side; it is not evidence for a rule in either direction.

Of the rows, only Maha Shivratri sits in the dark fortnight, on the second of Shiva’s numbers. The two that differ have their own details. Bhai Dooj, also called Yama Dwitiya, is on Shukla Dwitiya, where the verse has Brahma; the verse’s place for Antaka is the Dashami, eight tithis further on. The Bhai Dooj 2026 page tells the Yama and Yamuna story behind the name. Dev Uthani (Prabodhini) Ekadashi is kept for Vishnu, as the Dev Uthani Ekadashi 2026 page sets out; its tithi, Shukla Ekadashi, has the Vishvedevas in the verse, and Hari is the lord of the next number, the Dwadashi, which is the parana day on which the Ekadashi fast is broken. The Navratri forms behind the Maha Navami row are on the Navratri 2027 page.

Tithi Lords in Kartika 2026, 9 November to 9 December

The next amanta month to begin after this page went up is Kartika. It will open with the new moon at 12:32 IST on 9 November 2026, and it will run to the next new moon on 9 December 2026. Its 30 tithis are below with their lords, their IST spans and the New Delhi sunrise dates at which each one will be running. The spans are the instants at which the Moon’s lead over the Sun crosses each twelve-degree mark, from the JPL DE421 ephemeris with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and they are the same across India; the sunrise column is New Delhi’s only, and a town far to the east or west can differ where a tithi edge lies near dawn.

The month has 30 tithis and 29 New Delhi sunrises. Two tithis, Shukla Ekadashi (the Vishvedevas) and Krishna Chaturthi (Ganesha), will begin after one sunrise and end before the next, so no date in a calendar read at New Delhi sunrise is named after them; one, Shukla Navami, will be running at two sunrises, 18 November and 19 November. The kshaya and vriddhi tithi list explains how a calendar handles both. The Shukla Ekadashi is Dev Uthani Ekadashi’s tithi, and the Dev Uthani page linked above gives its own reasoning for the date; this page sets none. The longest span will be the Shukla Panchami, 26 h 41 min, and the shortest the Krishna Dwitiya, 20 h 25 min. Shiva’s four tithis will open on 17 November, 23 November, 1 December and 7 December. The month’s Purnima is the subject of the Kartik Purnima 2026 page.

What This Page Does Not Give

A list of lords is a correspondence, and there is nothing in it to test what worship of a tithi’s deity leads to, so no such result is offered here, nor any rule that a rite must or must not fall on a tithi because of its lord. Searches also ask for a planet per tithi (“ashtami tithi lord planet”). Schemes of that kind circulate, but no text cited on this site and no table in its data carries one, so none is printed.

In Brief

• Source: Muhurta Chintamani, Shubhashubha Prakarana, verse 3, by Rama Daivajna
• Count: fifteen names for sixteen tithi names, fourteen distinct deities; the same list serves both pakshas
• Order: Agni, Brahma, Gauri, Ganesha, serpent (Naga), Guha (Kartikeya), Ravi (Surya), Shiva, Durga, Antaka (Yama), Vishvedevas, Hari (Vishnu), Kama, Shiva and Shashi (the Moon)
• Repeated: Shiva, at Ashtami and Chaturdashi
• Amavasya: not stated in the verse; the Narada Purana gives Darsha to the manes (pitris)
• Kartika 2026: 30 tithis, 29 New Delhi sunrises; Shukla Ekadashi and Krishna Chaturthi hold none, Shukla Navami holds two

Related Pages

Other tithi rules are worked out on their own pages: the five groups from Nanda to Purna on the rikta tithi page, the arithmetic that places Shiva for a Rudrabhishek on the shiv vaas page, and the tithi-and-weekday count for a havan on the agni vaas page. The tithi index has a page for each of the 30, and finding your birth tithi shows how to work out the tithi of a birth from its date and time. In Hindi: तिथि के देवता: 16 तिथियों के स्वामी, मुहूर्त चिन्तामणि से.