Panchang guide / Daily periods

Rahu kaal, choghadiya and hora: how they are calculated

Rahu kaal, choghadiya and hora divide the day into periods that are favourable or unfavourable for starting something. All three are worked out from local sunrise and sunset, so they change with the season and your city.

• Guide
• Tithi
• Months
• Muhurat
• Rahu kaal, choghadiya, hora
• Ekadashi, amavasya, purnima

Rahu kaal

Divide the daytime, from sunrise to sunset, into eight equal parts. One of them is Rahu kaal, the period of Rahu, traditionally avoided for new beginnings. Which part it is depends on the weekday:

With 12 hours of daylight from 6 am, each part is 90 minutes, so Monday’s Rahu kaal runs from 7:30 to 9:00 am. In a London winter, with eight hours of daylight, each part is only an hour. Yamaganda and Gulika kaal are worked out the same way, from different parts of the day.

Choghadiya

The day and the night are each divided into eight choghadiyas. Each one has a quality:

• Good: Amrit (nectar), Shubh (auspicious), Labh (gain) and Char (moving, good for travel)
• Avoided: Udveg (anxiety), Kaal (loss) and Rog (illness)

The sequence depends on the weekday, and each choghadiya is ruled by a planet. Choghadiya is especially used in Gujarat and western India for travel, business and quick decisions.

Hora: the planetary hours

Each hora is one twelfth of the daytime or of the night, ruled by a planet. The rulers follow the order Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, and the first hora after sunrise belongs to the planet of the weekday: Sunday starts with the Sun’s hora, Monday with the Moon’s. This same cycle is the origin of the order of the weekdays.

A hora is chosen to suit the work: Jupiter’s for learning and blessings, Venus’s for the arts and relationships, Mercury’s for writing and trade, the Sun’s for dealing with authority.

For your city today: Rahu kaal and choghadiya, calculated from your local sunrise and sunset.