Vākyapañcāṅga

This is not to be confused with the Dṛggaṇita pañcāṅga, the nearly unanimous choice of almanac of Malayalam speaking people, established by Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri (c. 1380–1460) who was a major Indian mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama.

In this context, the word vākya means a Sanskrit sentence, often meaningless in the literary sense, which represent a numerical value encoded in the kaṭapayādi system.

In spite of the inaccuracies, there are large sections of the population who adhere to Vākyapañcāṅga-s to determine the auspicious times for conducting religious rites and festivals.

It was contented that accuracy and accordance with actual observation may be needed for Astronomy but not for computation of tithi, nakṣatra and other aspects for the purpose of performing rituals.

One may use the modern technique for observational astronomy, but for ritual use, one should resort to the traditional computation of the position of stars, for ‘appointed time’ is crucial.