How to read the Telugu calendar 2026
A Telugu calendar does one job a Gregorian wall calendar cannot: it tells you, for every date of 2026, which lunar day (Tithi) and which star (Nakshatra) the Moon is passing through. Those two values decide nearly everything in Telugu family life, from which day Ekadashi falls to whether a Thursday is fit for a Gruha Pravesham. The grid above is that calendar for the whole of 2026, month by month, with the Tithi and Nakshatra printed in Telugu inside each date the way a printed almanac from Hyderabad or Vijayawada would show them.
The first Telugu line in a cell is the Tithi, prefixed with its fortnight: శు for Shukla Paksha, the waxing half from Amavasya to Pournami, and కృ for Krishna Paksha, the waning half back to Amavasya. The second line is the Nakshatra. A cell tinted gold is a Vrat day, and its third line names the observance: ఏకాదశి (Ekadashi), ప్రదోషం (Pradosham), పౌర్ణమి (Pournami), అమావాస్య (Amavasya), సంకష్టహర చతుర్థి (Sankashti Chaturthi) or మాస శివరాత్రి (Masa Shivaratri).
Why the Tithi at sunrise
A Tithi is not a fixed 24 hours; it is the time the Moon takes to gain twelve degrees on the Sun, anywhere from about 19 to 26 hours. So a Tithi starts and ends at odd times of day, and printed Telugu calendars resolve this by naming each date after the Tithi in force at sunrise (Udaya Tithi). This page does the same, using sunrise at Hyderabad. The practical effect is that a short Tithi can be missing from the grid (a Kshaya Tithi) and a long one can appear on two consecutive dates (a Vriddhi Tithi). Both are normal, and both are why the Ekadashi count differs slightly between years.
The Nakshatra line
Below the Tithi, each cell names the Nakshatra, one of the 27 stars the Moon visits in its monthly round, about one a day. The Nakshatra matters less for festivals and more for people: a child's birth star fixes the first letter of the name at Namakaranam, and a handful of stars (Rohini, Mrigashira, Uttara, Hasta, Swati, Anuradha, Revati among them) are the ones a purohit looks for when fixing a marriage or a house-warming. If you know your own Janma Nakshatra, the days it recurs in 2026 are easy to spot on the grid, and many families mark them for a temple visit.
Festivals in 2026
Every major Telugu festival is fixed to a Tithi, which is why it moves on the Gregorian calendar. Ugadi is Chaitra Shukla Padyami, the day after the March Amavasya. Sri Rama Navami is nine days later on Chaitra Shukla Navami. Vinayaka Chavithi is Bhadrapada Shukla Chaviti, in late August or September. Vijayadashami closes the nine nights of Dasara on Ashwayuja Shukla Dashami, and Deepavali falls on the Ashwayuja Amavasya that follows. Sankranti is the exception: it is solar, the day the Sun enters Makara, and sits on 14 or 15 January every year. To place any of these, find the month, then the Tithi named above; each date links to a full Panchangam for the day.
Telugu calendar for the USA and other countries
Telugu families in New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, the Bay Area, the UK or Australia mostly keep the dates their family in India keeps, and for that this calendar is the reference. Strictly, though, a Tithi is observed by local sunrise, and because the United States is nine to thirteen hours behind India, a Tithi that ends in the Indian evening can already be over by the American morning. Temples in the US therefore sometimes observe a festival one day earlier than India. For a fast or a ceremony you keep to the letter, check your temple's published calendar alongside this one.
Using the calendar with the rest of the site
The grid tells you what a day is; it does not tell you whether the day suits a purpose. For a marriage, Gruha Pravesham, vehicle purchase or Namakaranam date, the Muhurtham page applies the classical Tithi, Nakshatra and weekday rules to any range of dates in 2026 and marks the favourable ones. For the timing windows within a day, Rahu Kalam, Yamagandam, Gulika Kalam and Abhijit Muhurtham, tap the date or open the Panchangam page. The Tithi and Vrat page keeps a rolling list of the next fasting dates if you only want what is coming up.