Term
Varaवार
Weekday
The weekday in the Vedic calendar, each ruled by a planetary lord. Guruvara (Thursday) is ruled by Jupiter, Somavara (Monday) by the Moon, and so on. Vara is one of the five angas of the panchanga.
Vara is the weekday, and the simplest of the five limbs of the panchanga. Each of the seven days is named for, and ruled by, one of the seven classical grahas: Ravivara (Sun), Somavara (Moon), Mangalavara (Mars), Budhavara (Mercury), Guruvara (Jupiter), Shukravara (Venus), and Shanivara (Saturn). The order of the week follows the classical sequence of planetary hours rather than the planets’ speed or distance.
Unlike the other angas, the vara needs no ephemeris — it is the civil weekday. The one subtlety is that the Vedic day runs from sunrise to sunrise, not midnight to midnight, so the vara “of the day” is the weekday in force at sunrise. SahiKundli anchors it to the sunrise date and reports the Sanskrit name, the English weekday, and the ruling planet.
The vara’s lord is more than a label: the rotation of the inauspicious day-part timings — Rahu Kalam, Yamaganda, and Gulika Kalam — is keyed to the weekday, and several traditional muhurta rules turn on which graha rules the day. The vara is therefore the hinge between the calendar and the day’s timing tables.