Seven-day vocabulary
Meet the seven vāras
Vāra simply means a day of the week. The Sanskrit names use a compound pattern familiar from English: Sun + day = Sunday and Moon + day = Monday. In Sanskrit, Ravi + vāra = Ravivāra and Soma + vāra = Somavāra. A daily pañcāṅga shows the vāra—the weekday—beside the tithi and karaṇa. The tithi and weekday follow separate cycles and sometimes coincide. When tithi and vāra meet →
How the names are built
A celestial name joins the word vāra.
The same simple pattern forms all seven names: the name associated with a celestial body comes first, and vāra comes second.
A weekday—a named day in the seven-day week. It does not mean a planet.
In this naming system, one of seven celestial bodies: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, or Saturn. Sanskrit astronomical usage groups the Sun and Moon with the five visible planets under this term.
A different word. It can mean a seizing or taking; in calendar and astronomy writing, it means an eclipse.
The weekly circle
The seven names follow one pattern.
- RavivāraSundayRavi · Sun
- SomavāraMondaySoma · Moon
- MaṅgalavāraTuesdayMaṅgala · Mars
- BudhavāraWednesdayBudha · Mercury
- GuruvāraThursdayGuru or Bṛhaspati · JupiterAlso Bṛhaspativāra
- ŚukravāraFridayŚukra · Venus
- ŚanivāraSaturdayŚani · Saturn