Taitila is the fourth karana and the fourth of the seven movable (chara) karanas, recurring eight times through the lunar month. In the panchanga it is counted among the benefic moving karanas and is associated in the almanac tradition with prosperity and favourable outcomes. As with all the karanas, its role is to refine the reading of the daily almanac: the panchanga names the tithi, the weekday, the nakshatra the Moon occupies, the yoga formed by Sun and Moon together, and the karana of the half-tithi, and an astrologer weighs all five in selecting a muhurta. These are the conventions of the Hindu calendar tradition, resting on the continuous six-degree steps by which the Moon draws away from the Sun after their conjunction.
Taitila's name is one of the least transparent of the eleven: no clear Sanskrit root is generally agreed to underlie it, in contrast to Kaulava's link to kula or Balava's to bala, and modern popular sources that offer a confident derivation for Taitila should be read with some caution on that particular point. What is textually secure is its position, fourth of the seven movable karanas, and its generally auspicious classification in the muhurta tradition, grouped with Bava, Balava and Kaulava toward the favourable end of the eleven rather than with Vishti at the unfavourable extreme; the almanac's specific associations with prosperity, as with several of the movable karanas, are a later interpretive layer rather than something derivable from the name itself.