Vedic Almanac
Ṛta
Know the kind of day you're in
Some hours suit pushing and some suit letting things settle. Ṛta tells you which one you are in.
iPhone · Coming soon
The Pañcāṅga, read for the moment you are in
Ṛta works from the Pañcāṅga (panchang), the five-part Vedic reading of where the Sun and Moon actually are at a given moment. That calculation has guided timing decisions for centuries. Ṛta runs it for the moment you are in and says what it means in ordinary words.
Five measurements, each turning at its own pace. Together they give the moment its character, and they are what the screen is made of.
- Ether · stillness Open Yogathe luni‑solar angle
- Air · awareness Clarity Nakṣatrathe lunar mansion
- Fire · drive and will Ignite Vārathe weekday
- Water · feeling and flow Flow Tithithe lunar day
- Earth · steady action Ground Karaṇathe half‑day
A reading of the moment you are standing in
What this stretch of time supports, what it resists, and where to take care. Nothing to interpret and no chart to read.
The five measurements each turn on their own rhythm, so the reading changes through the day, usually four to seven times, and you can look whenever you want to know where things stand.
A reading that is yours, not everyone's
Most calendars hand the whole world the same day. The Moon was in one of twenty-seven Nakṣatras when you were born, and Ṛta measures every day against that one through Tārā Bala, the traditional nine-position cycle.
It tells you how today's sky sits with your own, and it moves roughly once a day. Two people opening the app in the same room see the same sky and get a different day out of it.
Knowing when to act and when to wait
Every moment comes with what it favours and what it works against, written out for each of the five limbs at each position of your own cycle. Step through the moments ahead to find the one that suits what you have in mind.
It earns its place when you are picking the day for a conversation you have been putting off, weighing whether to start something now or later, or trying to place why a day is heavier going than it should be.
As far in as you care to go
Read one line and stop, or open a single element and read that thread on its own, or go the whole way down to the Sanskrit name, the presiding deity, the śakti, and the minute the window closes.
Every technical term has a written explanation behind it. You choose how much detail you get.
A practice that suits the hour
Each limb carries suggested yoga āsana at three levels, matched to the chakra it sits with. The Moon's current sign decides which practice comes up, so you are not picking from a list of a hundred while you stand on the mat.
The moment picks, and you move with it.
Some smaller things worth knowing
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Told when it matters
One quiet reminder when your own star turns, about once a day, since that is the single change that moves your personal reading. Ask for every change instead if you want them, or turn them off and let the app sit there until you come to it.
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No connection needed
Every calculation, every reading and the whole place list are inside the app. Put the phone in airplane mode and it behaves identically, because everything is already on it.
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Sidereal, or tropical
Sidereal is the default, with Lahiri as the ayanāṁśa. A single setting switches the whole system to tropical if that is how you practise.
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Calculated the classical way
Positions are geocentric, taken from the centre of the Earth, which is the frame classical Pañcāṅga uses. A reading here lines up with the almanac you already check against.
Nothing here leaves your phone.
No account, no sign-up, no server. Your birth details are saved on your phone and nowhere else, and the app sends nothing anywhere. No analytics, no advertising, no tracking. Ṛta cannot tell whether you opened it today.
Coming to the App Store
Ṛta is in the last stretch before submission, on iPhone first. There is no mailing list and no sign-up form here, for the same reason there is none in the app. To hear when it lands, write to reframeclips@gmail.com.
Ṛta is the Vedic word for the order underlying everything: the turning of the Sun and Moon, the seasons, the rhythm of a living body. The Pañcāṅga is one way of reading it. Pronounced “RIHT-ah”, the ṛ sounded as in “rhythm”, and written Rta wherever the diacritic will not go.