What it is
The panchang divides each day into windows of time. The choghadiya splits the daylight into eight parts and the night into eight more, each named Amrit, Shubh, Labh or Char, which families take as good for beginning things, or Rog, Kaal or Udveg, which they avoid. The hora is the planetary hour: each hour of the day is kept by one of the seven grahas, in an order set by the weekday. And some windows are avoided for new beginnings whatever the choghadiya says, above all Rahu Kaal, with Yamaganda and Gulika beside it, each about an eighth of the daylight, its place in the day set by the weekday.
In Gujarat, Rajasthan and much of North and West India, the choghadiya is what families look at first. Elsewhere Rahu Kaal is the first check. Because all of these windows are measured from sunrise and sunset, their clock times change with the city and the season, which is why a list printed for one city does not fit another.
What you enter
The form asks about the moment and the purpose. Its fields, as the web app shows them:
- At, the date and time you have in mind; leave it for now.
- For what: Anything, Travel, Business, Study, A medical consultation, A ceremony or A purchase.
- For how long (minutes), if what you plan will take a while.
The times are worked out for the city in your settings. The answer has its own link, so you can keep it or send it to someone in the family.
What you get
The tool shows the choghadiya, hora and inauspicious windows around the moment you gave: which choghadiya and which hora are running, whether Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda or Gulika falls in or near your time, and the windows around it.
That result is free. If you would like more, a written reading for what you plan, prepared from the windows, is a paid extra that the web app offers after the result; you never need it to see the windows.
How it is worked out
The tool takes the sunrise and sunset of the day for your city, divides the daylight and the night into their eight parts, and names each by the weekday's sequence. The horas and the windows of Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika come from the same sunrise and sunset. Every month's choghadiya is also printed on its own page beside our calendar, free without an account.
Every answer comes from our own panchang engine, worked out for the city you choose and read on the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa, the one the Calendar Reform Committee of India adopted. The same engine prints the dates and times on our calendar and panchang pages, so the tool and the calendar never disagree with each other. How we compute explains the method, and why a printed almanac from your town may differ from it by a minute or two.
Before you begin
The tool is free with a Bhagya Card account. If you are not signed in, the button above takes you to sign in first, with your mobile number or your email, and then straight to the tool.
Check the city in your settings, above all when you are travelling: the windows move with the sunrise, and the sunrise moves with the city.
Questions
What is the difference between choghadiya and hora?
The choghadiya divides the day and the night into eight parts each; the hora divides them into hours kept by the seven grahas. Families follow one or both, as their tradition does.
Can a good choghadiya fall in Rahu Kaal?
Yes. The systems are separate, so a favourable choghadiya can overlap Rahu Kaal. Many families then wait until both are clear, and the tool shows both so you can.
Is the good time tool free?
Yes, with a free account. Only the written reading offered after the result is paid.