What the sources actually say about amla — with the sources shown
A reference tool for two traditional questions: whether the sources restrict eating आमलकी (āmalakī, āṁvlā) on a given day, and whether they restrict bathing with it.
It answers from traditional and scriptural sources, and it shows its working. Every answer names the rule behind it, the text that rule rests on, and how far that text could be verified. Where the sources conflict, the conflict is shown rather than silently resolved.
Amla Dharma Calendar is research and reference software. It does not claim religious authority and does not decide what is religiously correct.
Amla Dharma Calendar
आँवला · आमलकी · āmalakī
The two questions it answers
- Can I eat amla today?
- Can I bathe with amla today?
For a date and a place you choose — and with the source behind every answer shown next to it.
A plain answer, with nothing behind it
Ask whether amla may be eaten on a particular day and you will usually get a flat yes or no — from a printed calendar, a website, or a half-remembered family rule. What you rarely get is the source it came from, whether that source was actually checked, whether it was talking about eating or about bathing, or whether other sources say something different.
The confident answer and the uncertain one look identical. This application was built so that they do not.
The difference between “permitted” and “nothing found”
Most tools of this kind have two answers. This one has six, because the interesting cases are the ones a yes-or-no answer has to flatten.
The distinction that matters most is the third state below. Finding no prohibition in the sources is not the same as finding permission in them, and the application will not present it as though it were — it is shown in a neutral state rather than a positive one, and labelled for exactly what it is.
That single refusal is the reason the other five states are worth having.
Explicitly prohibited
A verified source prohibits this in the context you selected. The rule, the text it rests on and the level of that source are all shown alongside the answer.
Explicitly permitted
A verified source positively permits or prescribes this in the context you selected — a statement in the sources, not an absence of one.
No verified prohibition found
No verified prohibition was found. This is deliberately not shown as approval, because it is not one: it records what the cited sources do not say, and nothing more.
Traditional practice — not a universal rule
A real traditional practice applies, but the sources are not specific enough to call it a prohibition. The practice is described rather than enforced.
Uncertain — sources conflict
Traditional sources disagree, or their scope cannot be established. The disagreement is shown to you instead of being silently resolved, and it is not treated as a prohibition.
Bathing-only restriction
The restriction attested for that day concerns bathing with amla, not eating it. Eating and bathing are modelled as separate rule sets so that one can never quietly become the other.
Traceable from answer to source
The rules are held as data with their sources attached rather than written into the application’s code, so what the app reports can be inspected instead of taken on trust.
Every answer names its source
A verdict is never given on its own. The rule it came from, the text that rule rests on, the Sanskrit as it appears in that text, and the level of the source are all shown with it.
Eating and bathing are kept apart
Rules about eating amla and rules about bathing with it are two separate sets. A restriction attested only for bathing is reported as exactly that, and never allowed to become an eating prohibition.
Disagreement is shown, not resolved
Where the sources conflict, the app reports the conflict and the positions within it. It does not choose a side, and it does not present a contested reading as settled.
Unverified material is marked as such
A verse is quoted only where it was actually located in a text. Where the Sanskrit could not be independently verified, the record says so on its face rather than leaving you to assume it was checked.
The pañcāṅga is computed, not looked up
Sunrise for your chosen place, the operative tithi and nakṣatra, the lunar month under both the amānta and pūrṇimānta conventions, and saṅkrānti are calculated from astronomical data on your device.
Local eclipse visibility is worked out
Some restrictions depend on an eclipse being visible where you are, not merely on one occurring. Visibility is decided from first contact, greatest eclipse and last contact together with the body's altitude at each.
Eating amla and bathing with amla are different questions
The sources treat them separately, and so does the application. Rules about consuming the fruit and rules about bathing with it — धात्री-स्नान (dhātrī-snāna) — are modelled as two entirely separate sets.
This matters because the two are easily conflated, and a conflation runs in one direction: a restriction attested only for bathing gets repeated as though it restricted eating. Keeping the sets apart makes that failure structurally impossible rather than merely unlikely.
When the restriction found for a day concerns bathing, the application says so in those words.
Eating amla
Rules attested for consuming the fruit.
Bathing with amla
Rules attested for dhātrī-snāna: amla-infused water, powder, paste.
Nothing crosses the middle. A restriction attested only for bathing is reported as a bathing restriction, and never becomes an answer about eating.
The same date is not the same day everywhere
Several of the quantities these rules depend on are local. The application computes them for the place you choose rather than assuming one.
A tithi begins and ends at a moment, not at midnight. Which one is operative for a given day depends on the sunrise at your location, so two places can sit on different tithis on the same calendar date.
Sunrise itself is a local quantity. The app uses an explicit convention — the upper limb of the Sun, with the standard 34′ refraction allowance — rather than leaving it unstated.
A lunar month has two competing conventions, amānta and pūrṇimānta, which name the same month differently. Both are computed, because a rule stated in one convention means something else read in the other.
An eclipse restriction can turn on whether the eclipse was visible where you are. An eclipse over Antarctica is not an eclipse over Agra, and the app is built to tell those apart.
You pick a place from this list. The application never reads your device’s location — it does not hold the permission that would let it.
Nothing you ask it leaves your device
What a person looks up here can be personal. The application is built so that the question does not arise: it holds no permission that would let it send anything anywhere.
It cannot reach the network
The Android application requests no INTERNET permission. This is not a promise not to transmit — the operating system will not let it open a connection at all.
Everything is calculated on your device
The research material, the rules and the astronomical routines are all contained in the app. Nothing is fetched at runtime and no third-party service is contacted.
There is no account
Nothing to sign in to, no username, no password, no profile. The app has no server for an account to exist on.
No advertising, analytics or telemetry
No analytics SDK, no crash-reporting service, no advertising library and no tracking of any kind. There are no advertisements and no in-app purchases.
Your location is never read
Location permissions are not requested. You pick a place from a list inside the app; the device's own location is never accessed. Camera, microphone, contacts and storage are not requested either.
Nothing is kept
The app stores no history, no cookies and no browser storage of any kind, and Android's cloud backup is switched off for it. Close it and reopen it and it starts again at today's date.
An Android release is being prepared
Amla Dharma Calendar is not yet published. There is no listing to link to and no download offered here, and there will not be one on this page until a release actually exists.
If you would like to hear when it does, or you have a question about how the rules and sources are handled, write to us.
- Platform
- Android
- Package
- com.findnsecure.amladharmacalendar
- Permissions requested
- None that grant access to your data or device
- Network access
- Not possible
- Account
- Not required
- Price
- Free of charge
Built to the same standard as the rest of our software
Amla Dharma Calendar is an Embarc application. The discipline it applies to sources is the discipline the company applies to any claim it ships: state what can be checked, mark what cannot, and never let the two look the same.
- Built by Embarc Information Technology Pvt. Ltd., an engineering company working on enterprise software since 1994.
- The research came first and the application second: the rule corpus and its source records were compiled and reviewed before any verdict logic was written.
- Rules are held as data with their sources attached, not hard-coded in application code, so what the app reports can be inspected rather than taken on trust.
- The application's behaviour is checked by an automated audit that fails the build on an over-claim — including any attempt to state a confidence the sources do not carry.
Corrections are welcome
The corpus is maintained with its sources attached so that it can be checked. If you believe a rule or a source is wrong, and you can point to where your source is published, we would rather hear it than not.
Frequently asked
- Does the app tell me what is religiously correct?
- No, and it is built not to. It reports what the sources it cites say, names them, and shows their level and verification status. Different sampradāyas, regions, families and gurus follow different practices, and where the sources are unclear or in conflict the app says so and leaves the decision to you.
- What does “no verified prohibition found” mean?
- Exactly what it says: no prohibition was found in the sources the app carries. It is not a statement that the sources positively permit the act, and the app deliberately does not present it as one — it is shown in a neutral state rather than a positive one, because treating an absence of evidence as permission would be a claim the research does not support.
- Why does it ask for a place as well as a date?
- Because some of the underlying calendar quantities are local. Which tithi is operative for a day depends on sunrise where you are, and whether an eclipse restriction applies can depend on whether that eclipse was visible from your location. The place is chosen from a list in the app; your device's location is never read.
- Why are eating and bathing treated separately?
- Because the sources treat them separately. Rules about consuming amla and rules about bathing with amla (dhātrī-snāna) are modelled as two distinct rule sets, so a restriction attested only for bathing is reported as a bathing restriction and never silently applied to eating.
- What happens when the sources disagree?
- The app reports the disagreement. It shows that the sources conflict and what the competing positions are, rather than picking one and presenting it as settled. A conflict is not treated as a prohibition.
- Does the app need an internet connection?
- No. It cannot use one. The Android application requests no INTERNET permission, so it is unable to open a network connection at all. Every calculation runs on your device.
- What data does it collect about me?
- None. There is no account, no analytics, no advertising and no telemetry, and the app keeps no history of what you looked up. The dates and places you enter are used to perform the calculation and are not stored or transmitted. The privacy policy for this app sets this out in full.
- Is it available on Google Play?
- Not yet. An Android release is being prepared. This page will link to the listing once it actually exists — until then there is nothing to install, and no download is offered here.
- I think one of the rules or sources is wrong. Can I say so?
- Please do. Corrections that cite a published source are genuinely useful, and the corpus is maintained with its sources attached precisely so that it can be checked. Write to support@embarc.co.in with the verdict concerned and what your sources say.
What this application is, and what it is not
Amla Dharma Calendar is research and reference software. It reports what the traditional and scriptural sources it cites say, together with how far each of those sources could be verified. It does not determine religious truth, it does not present any rule as universally authoritative, and it does not claim religious authority of any kind.
Different sampradāyas, regions, families and gurus follow different practices, and the sources themselves do not always agree. Where they are unclear or in conflict, the application says so and leaves the decision with you.
It is not medical, dietary or nutritional advice. For a decision that matters to you, consult someone qualified in your own tradition.
Amla Dharma Calendar is an application from Embarc Information Technology Pvt. Ltd. The figures on this page are diagrams of how the application classifies an answer, not screenshots of it. Android is a trademark of Google LLC; the application is not yet published on Google Play, and nothing on this page should be read as saying that it is.