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Occult API
POST/api/astro/lunar_month_scan/1 credit

Lunar month scan

Finds the exact start and end instants of one named Hindu lunar month within a calendar year — Chaitra, Vaisakha, Jyeshtha and so on. Useful for scheduling anything anchored to a lunar month rather than a Gregorian one. reckoning decides where the boundaries sit. Under 'amanta' (the default, used in the south and west) a month runs from one new moon to the next and takes its name from the Moon's sign at the opening new moon. Under 'poornima' it runs from one full moon to the next and takes its name from the Sun's sign at the opening full moon; northern calendars use this, and for the dark fortnight the two reckonings put the same day in differently named months. Pass month_name, year and timezone_as_float; no place is needed. The response is {year, month_name, reckoning, rows}, where rows is a list of {start, end} UTC timestamps — usually one entry, and two when an adhika (leap) month of the same name also falls in that year. The scan does not label which of the two is the leap month.

https://yogataraapi.prahlad.app/api/astro/lunar_month_scan/
Test Request

Authentication

Send your key in the X-API-Key header. Keys are server-side credentials — never put one in browser JavaScript or a mobile app.

X-API-Key: yt_live_a1b2c3d4_…
Content-Type: application/json

Request fields

FieldTypeRequiredNotes
month_namestringrequired
VaisakhaJyeshthaAshadhaShravanaBhadrapadaAshwinKartikaMargashirshaPaushaMaghaPhalgunaChaitra
timezone_as_floatnumber (double)required

UTC offset of the place, in hours, as a decimal. Example: 5.5 for India (UTC+05:30), -5 for New York in winter, 5.75 for Nepal. This is NOT validated against date_time - if the two disagree you get a successful response for the wrong moment, so derive both from the same source. Use the offset in force on that date, not today's: a summer birth in a country with daylight saving needs the summer offset.

yearintegerrequired

Year of birth as a number, e.g. 1990. Four digits.

min 1800 · max 2400

reckoningstringoptional
amantapoornima

Example request

curl -X POST https://yogataraapi.prahlad.app/api/astro/lunar_month_scan/ \
  -H "X-API-Key: $OCCULT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"month_name":"Vaisakha","timezone_as_float":5.5,"year":2026,"reckoning":"amanta"}'

Response

{
  "data": {
    "year": 2026,
    "month_name": "Vaisakha",
    "reckoning": "amanta",
    "rows": [
      {
        "start": "2026-04-17T11:52:21+00:00",
        "end": "2026-05-16T20:01:32+00:00"
      }
    ]
  },
  "message": "successful",
  "is_error": false
}

Captured from a real call using the exact request above. Results sit under data.

Errors

Metering errors return { "error": "…", "message": "<code>", "is_error": true }. Show error to people and branch on message. See the error reference.