Choghadiya: Today’s Good and Bad Times, Day and Night

Short answer: Choghadiya is a simple panchang clock that splits the time from sunrise to sunset into eight equal slots, and sunset to the next sunrise into eight more. Each slot carries one of seven names. Amrit, Shubh and Labh are the good ones, Char is fine for travel and routine work, and Udveg, Rog and Kaal are best left alone for new starts.

Updated 8 November 2026

What is choghadiya?

The word comes from “chau” (four) and “ghadi”. A ghadi is an old unit of 24 minutes, so four of them make about 96 minutes. That is the size of one choghadiya when day and night are each twelve hours long. In practice the slots stretch in summer and shrink in winter, because the day is divided by eight whatever its length.

Gujarati and Rajasthani trading families have used it for generations to pick the hour for opening a shop, signing a deal or setting out on a trip. You will see it printed on calendars in Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai offices. In Bengaluru more people ask me about Rahu kaal, but choghadiya does a different job, and the two work well together.

Each slot is tied to a planet. That planet decides the name and the mood of the slot:

The day choghadiya table for each weekday

The first slot after sunrise belongs to the lord of the weekday. Sunday starts with Udveg (Sun), Monday with Amrit (Moon), and so on. After that the names follow a fixed cycle, and the eighth slot always repeats the first. Read down the column for your day:

Night choghadiya: how the order changes after sunset

The night has its own eight slots, and its order is different from the day’s. Sunday night begins with Shubh, Monday night with Char, Tuesday night with Kaal, Wednesday night with Udveg, Thursday night with Amrit, Friday night with Rog and Saturday night with Labh. Each night then runs through the same seven names in a set order and closes with the name it opened with.

One thing catches people out. In the panchang the day runs from sunrise to sunrise, so “Monday night” means the hours after Monday’s sunset, even though the clock has moved into Tuesday after midnight. A slot at 2 am on Tuesday is read from the Monday night column.

How to work out choghadiya for your city

You need two numbers: sunrise and sunset for your city on that date. Any weather app or panchang gives them.

• Subtract sunrise from sunset to get the length of the day.
• Divide it by eight. That is one day slot.
• Start at sunrise and add one slot at a time. Label them from the column for that weekday.
• For the night, take sunset to the next morning’s sunrise, divide by eight, and use the night column.

That is all the arithmetic there is. The labels never change; only the clock times move with the seasons and with your longitude.

A Bengaluru example: Ugadi, Wednesday 7 April 2027

Ugadi falls on Wednesday 7 April 2027. In Bengaluru the Sun rises at about 6:12 am and sets at about 6:31 pm, so daylight is roughly 12 hours 19 minutes and each slot is about 92 minutes.

So a family bringing home a scooter on Ugadi morning would aim for the Amrit window from about 7:44 am, or the Shubh window before noon. Notice that the Rog slot after midday is also when Wednesday’s Rahu kaal sits. Two separate systems point at the same ninety minutes, which makes that stretch easy to skip. My page on Rahu kaal timings for each weekday shows how that one is counted.

A Kolkata or Delhi reader on the same day will get different clock times, since the Sun rises earlier in the east and later in the north in April. Use your own city. These figures are rounded, and the exact minutes shift a little every day, so check a panchang for the actual date you are planning.

Which choghadiya is good for what?

I keep it practical.

• Signing an agreement or opening a bank account: Labh first, then Amrit or Shubh.
• Puja at home, a naming ceremony, a first day at school: Amrit or Shubh.
• Starting a long drive or a house shift: Char is made for movement. Amrit works too.
• Paying an old loan or closing a dispute: people traditionally use Kaal or Rog for endings, though I simply avoid starting anything new in them.
• Meeting a government office: Udveg is the Sun’s slot, and the Sun rules authority, so some families do accept it for that one purpose.

Where choghadiya stops being enough

Choghadiya is a public clock. Everyone in your city gets the same slots on the same day, whatever their chart. That makes it good for the dozens of small decisions in a month: when to leave for the airport, when to hand over a cheque. For a wedding, a griha pravesh or a company launch I go further. I check the tithi and nakshatra of the day, the lagna rising at the chosen minute, and how the day sits with your own Moon and running dasha. A Labh slot on a day that is weak for you is still a weak day.

The midday window is another tool worth knowing. It sits around local noon and is often used when a whole day looks crowded; I explain it on the Abhijit muhurat page. For the bigger 2027 dates, kharmas and Chaturmas included, see my shubh muhurat 2027 overview.

Getting the hour picked for your own event

If you have something specific coming up, send me the event, the city, the dates your family can manage, and the birth details of the person it is for. In a 45-minute call I go through the panchang for those dates against your chart and give you a day and a time window that suits both. The written note follows within 48 hours. You can book a muhurat consultation here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Char choghadiya good or bad?

Char is neutral. It belongs to Venus and suits anything that moves: travel, transport, shifting furniture or stock. For a fixed start such as a griha pravesh or a wedding, I would pick Amrit, Shubh or Labh instead.

Which choghadiya is best for buying gold or a car?

Labh and Amrit are the usual picks for a purchase, with Shubh close behind. For a vehicle I also make sure the slot is outside Rahu kaal and that the day itself is a good one in the panchang.

Does choghadiya change from city to city?

The names in each slot stay the same everywhere, but the clock times change, because they hang on local sunrise and sunset. Bengaluru and Kolkata can differ by more than half an hour on the same date.

How long is one choghadiya slot?

About 96 minutes when day and night are equal. It runs longer on summer days and shorter on winter days, since daylight is always cut into eight equal pieces.

Can I use night choghadiya to time a trip?

Yes. Use the night column for that weekday, counted from sunset. A late train or an early morning flight can be timed to a Char, Labh or Amrit slot of the night.