---
type: Concept
bundle: jyotisha-kala
bundle_version: 0.12.0
id: vara
title: Vāra
iast: Vāra
devanagari: वार
description: 'The planetary weekday, running sunrise to sunrise, its order generated by the horā rule of hour-lords; NOT a midnight-boundary day, NOT an arbitrary name list, NOT interchangeable with tithi.'
darshana:
- Jyotiṣa
text_source: Āryabhaṭīya Kālakriyāpāda; Sūrya Siddhānta 1
tags:
- vara
- weekday
- panchanga
- hora
- jyotisha
not:
- term: 'a midnight-boundary day'
  why: 'The vāra runs from sunrise to sunrise (the ahorātra), so the small hours belong to the previous vāra. Ritual and electional rules read the sunrise-bounded day; importing the civil midnight boundary silently shifts them.'
  instead: 'Render vāra as the sunrise-to-sunrise weekday and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'an arbitrary name list'
  why: 'The order Ravi, Soma, Maṅgala, Budha, Guru, Śukra, Śani is generated: order the seven grahas by decreasing apparent period, assign one to each hour in rotation, and the lord of the first hour names the day. The week order is a theorem of the horā rule, not a convention.'
- term: 'interchangeable with tithi'
  why: 'The vāra is solar and uniform; the tithi is lunar and elastic. The almanac needs both precisely because they measure different cycles.'
related:
- /concepts/panchanga.md
- /concepts/hora.md
- /concepts/tithi.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Vāra -- वार

**Not:** a midnight-boundary day, an arbitrary name list, interchangeable with tithi

## What It Actually Means

The vāra is the weekday, sunrise to sunrise. Its sequence is generated by the horā rule: order the seven classical grahas by decreasing apparent period (Śani, Guru, Maṅgala, Ravi, Śukra, Budha, Soma), assign one to each of the twenty-four hours in rotation, and the lord of a day’s first hour names the day; the familiar week order falls out automatically. The planetary week is a system India shares with the Hellenistic world, integrated into Indian timekeeping in the early centuries CE and fully naturalized: the vāra is one of the five limbs of the pañcāṅga and carries its own electional rules.

## Audience Metaphor

A workshop where seven foremen rotate hour by hour in a fixed order: name the foreman of the day’s first hour and you have named the day. The week is not a list somebody chose; it is the schedule the rotation produces, and the shift changes at sunrise, not midnight.

## Citations

1. Āryabhaṭīya Kālakriyāpāda on hour-lords generating the week order -- see [references/aryabhatiya.md](../references/aryabhatiya.md)
2. Sūrya Siddhānta 1 on the divisions of civil time -- see [references/surya-siddhanta.md](../references/surya-siddhanta.md)
