Updated 2026-06-25
The Tibetan & Mongolian Lunar Calendar — Zurkhai
Today's lunar day, auspicious timing, the 60 element–animal years and the 2026 festivals — in the tradition of zurkhai (Tibetan-Buryat astrology).
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What is zurkhai?
Zurkhai (also spelled zurhai or zurqai) is the traditional astrology of the Tibetan-Buddhist world — practised by Tibetans, Mongols, Buryats, Kalmyks and Tuvans. The word means roughly "astrological calculation." It is not Western star-sign astrology: zurkhai fuses indigenous Bön reckoning, the Chinese-derived cycle of twelve animals and five elements, and the Indian Kālacakra star system, and its everyday job is electional — choosing auspicious timing for real decisions (travel, business, moving house, medical treatment, a child's first haircut) from the lunar day, the weekday, the lunar mansion and a person's birth animal-sign.
It is practised across the Buddhist world — Tibet, Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia and Tuva — and this site is its plain-English home, with the daily calendar, the 60 element–animal years and the auspicious-timing readings the tradition is built on.
- The Tibetan calendar is lunisolar — each year has 12 (or, in leap years, 13) lunar months beginning and ending on a new moon, with months periodically added to stay aligned with the solar year — this is why Tibetan holidays drift against the Western calendar and fall on different dates each year.
- It is related to but not identical with the Chinese calendar — Tibetan astrology fuses indigenous Bon, Chinese-derived element/animal astrology and Indian Kalachakra star astrology — this is why Losar often falls near Chinese New Year yet can differ by a whole month.
- Lunar days (tithi) are not equal to solar days — a tithi is the time the moon takes to cover 1/30th of the new-moon-to-new-moon arc, so it can be shorter or longer than 24 hours — this mismatch between lunar and solar days is the root cause of doubled and skipped dates.