2026 · Telugu lunar calendar
Telugu Calendar 2026
The Telugu calendar runs on the moon. Here is 2026 laid out: the samvatsara names, all twelve lunar masas with their approximate Gregorian spans, the major festivals, and a note for NRI families on why your US date can differ from India by a day.
NRI note: dates below use standard (India) reckoning. For tithi-based festivals, the US date can land a day off because local sunrise decides the tithi. The Sampangi app computes each date for your own city. Here is why that happens.
The samvatsara: what year is 2026?
The Telugu calendar names each year in a 60-year cycle of samvatsaras. Two samvatsaras overlap with 2026 on the Gregorian calendar.
From the start of 2026 through March 19, 2026, the running samvatsara is Plavanga, which began at Ugadi 2025. On Thursday, March 19, 2026, Ugadi ushers in the new samvatsara: Vibhava. Vibhava runs until the next Ugadi in April 2027. The name "Vibhava" carries associations of growth, radiance, and abundance. When Telugu families write dates in the traditional format, they include the samvatsara name alongside the masa and tithi.
How the Telugu lunar calendar works
The Telugu calendar is lunisolar: the months follow the moon, but the year is kept in step with the solar year so that seasons and festivals stay in roughly the same place on the Gregorian calendar.
Each lunar month begins with the new moon (Amavasya) and runs to the next new moon, approximately 29.5 days. The month has two halves: the Shukla paksha (bright fortnight, from new moon to full moon) and the Krishna paksha (dark fortnight, from full moon back to new moon). Each day within the month is a tithi, numbered 1 through 15 in each fortnight. Many festival dates are defined by a specific tithi: Ugadi is Chaitra Shukla Padyami (1st tithi of the bright fortnight of Chaitra), Vinayaka Chaviti is Bhadrapada Shukla Chaturthi (4th tithi), and so on.
Because 12 lunar months total about 354 days against the solar year's 365, an adhika masa (leap month) is added roughly every three years to realign the calendars. When this happens, a masa repeats and the year has 13 months. The festivals that follow the repeated masa keep their tithi dates, but the overall calendar feels shifted. Sampangi handles adhika masas correctly when computing Telugu birthdays.
Telugu masas in 2026
The twelve masas below correspond to the Telugu year Vibhava (which starts at Ugadi, March 19, 2026). The table shows both the portion of the previous Plavanga year (Margashira through Phalguna) and the full Vibhava year (Chaitra onward). Gregorian dates are approximate; exact boundaries depend on the new moon date in each year.
| Telugu masa | Approx. Gregorian span (2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Margashira | Dec 2025 - Jan 2026 | Sacred to Vishnu; Dhanurmasa month of Divya Prabandham recitations. |
| Pushya | Jan - Feb 2026 | Makara Sankranti (Jan 14) marks the sun's turn north. |
| Magha | Feb - Mar 2026 | Maha Shivaratri falls in this month. |
| Phalguna | Mar 2026 | Holi / Kamadahanam on Phalguna Purnima (Mar 3). |
| Chaitra | Mar - Apr 2026 | Ugadi (Mar 20) opens Vibhava samvatsara. Rama Navami and Hanuman Jayanti follow. |
| Vaisakha | May - Jun 2026 | Summer month; Akshaya Tritiya typically falls here. |
| Jyeshtha | Jun - Jul 2026 | Monsoon begins; a quieter festival month. |
| Ashadha | Jul - Aug 2026 | Chaturmas (the four-month period) begins; auspicious ceremonies paused. |
| Shravana | Aug - Sep 2026 | Sacred to Vishnu; Varalakshmi Vratam (Aug 28) and Krishna Janmashtami (Sep 4). |
| Bhadrapada | Sep - Oct 2026 | Vinayaka Chaviti (Ganesh festival, Sep 14). |
| Ashvayuja (Asvina) | Oct - Nov 2026 | Navaratri, Dussehra (Oct 20), and Deepavali (Nov 8). |
| Karthika | Nov - Dec 2026 | The most auspicious month; daily lamp lighting, Karthika Pournami (Nov 24). |
Major Telugu festivals in 2026
All dates below use standard (India) reckoning. The Sampangi app shows each date for your US city.
| Festival | 2026 date | Telugu masa |
|---|---|---|
| Makara Sankranti | Pushya | |
| Maha Shivaratri | Magha | |
| Holi / Kamadahanam | Phalguna | |
| Ugadi (Telugu New Year) | Chaitra | |
| Sri Rama Navami | Chaitra | |
| Hanuman Jayanti | Chaitra | |
| Varalakshmi Vratam | Shravana | |
| Krishna Janmashtami | Shravana | |
| Vinayaka Chaviti | Bhadrapada | |
| Dussehra (Vijayadashami) | Ashvayuja | |
| Deepavali | Ashvayuja | |
| Karthika Pournami | Karthika | |
| Vaikunta Ekadasi | Margashira |
Telugu birthdays and the NRI date question
If you grew up in India and now live in the United States, you have probably noticed that the Telugu birthday or festival date your family observes is sometimes one day off from what relatives back home celebrate. This is not an error in either calendar. It follows from a rule in the traditional system: a tithi counts on the day it is present at local sunrise.
Sunrise arrives in Hyderabad roughly ten to thirteen hours before it arrives in Dallas, Atlanta, or New Jersey, and fifteen hours before the West Coast. A tithi that begins in the evening India time can be fully in effect when Hyderabad sees sunrise, but still hours away from reaching the US. The tithi then falls on the sunrise of the following morning in the US, making the Gregorian date one day later.
Generic online calendars and printed panchangams typically show the India date. For Telugu families in the US who want the date for their city, the calculation needs to be done for your sunrise time and location. That is what the Telugu birthday calculator on this site does, and what the Sampangi app does for every festival and birthday you store.
Telugu birthdays (janma tithi) are the clearest case where this matters: your Telugu birthday is the day the same tithi as your birth tithi is present at sunrise in the place where you observe it. If you were born in Vijayawada but live in Chicago, your Telugu birthday is the day the tithi is at sunrise in Chicago, which can be one day different from the Vijayawada date. Sampangi computes this correctly.
What is a tithi?
A tithi is the basic unit of the Telugu lunar calendar. It is defined by the angular distance between the moon and the sun: each 12 degrees of separation is one tithi. Because the moon moves faster than the sun, a tithi lasts roughly 19 to 26 hours, shorter or longer depending on the moon's speed in its elliptical orbit. This means a tithi can begin and end at any time of day or night, and some tithis can span two sunrises (making the same tithi apply on two Gregorian days) while other tithis skip a sunrise entirely (making them absent from the calendar for that location that year).
This is why the Telugu calendar feels dynamic and precise at the same time: the dates of festivals shift each year, but they always follow a coherent astronomical logic. If you want to understand the system more deeply, read our explainer on what a tithi is.
See the full festival list: Telugu festivals in 2026. Find your own date: Telugu birthday calculator.
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