section_path: Day/Five limbs of time/Karaṇa
section_name: Karaṇa
paragraph_text: Karaṇa
  
  A karaṇa is half of a tithi. To be precise, a karaṇa is the time required for the angular distance between the Sun and the Moon to increase in steps of 6° starting from 0°. (Compare with the definition of a tithi.)
  
  Since the tithis are 30 in number, and since 1 tithi = 2 karaṇas, therefore one would logically expect there to be 60 karaṇas. But there are only 11 such karaṇas which fill up those slots to accommodate for those 30 tithis. There are actually 4 "fixed" (sthira) karaṇas and 7 "repeating" (cara) karaṇas.
  
  The 4 "fixed" karaṇas are:
  
  The 7 "repeating" karaṇas are:
  
  The Vedic day begins at sunrise. The karaṇa at sunrise of a particular day shall be the prevailing karaṇa for the whole day.(citation needed)