What is choghadiya? The eight parts of the day and night

Choghadiya is one of the most familiar ways of reading the hours in the panchang, the traditional Hindu almanac. It divides the day, from sunrise to sunset, into eight equal parts, and the night, from sunset to the next sunrise, into eight more. Each part carries one of seven names. Tradition favours some of those names as times to begin something and sets the others aside.

This guide covers the seven names, how the weekday sets their order, a worked example with round numbers, and why the parts grow and shrink with the seasons.

How choghadiya divides the day and the night

The word is usually explained as "four ghadi". A ghadi, or ghatika, is a traditional unit of 24 minutes, so four of them make 96 minutes. Across a full day and night the sixteen parts average about 90 minutes, a little under four ghadi, and any single part can be longer or shorter, because choghadiya is tied to the sun rather than the clock.

Each half is cut into eight equal parts: the day runs from the local sunrise to the local sunset, and the night from sunset to the next sunrise. Sixteen parts make one full cycle, sunrise to sunrise.

Because every part is a fraction of real daylight or real darkness, its length depends on two things:

• The season. When day and night are equal, near the equinoxes, every part lasts about 90 minutes. On a long summer day the daytime parts grow and the night parts shrink by about the same amount. In winter the reverse happens.
• The place. The farther a city is from the equator, the wider that swing. On 8 August 2026, London had about fifteen hours of daylight and Sydney a little under eleven, so a daytime part lasted about 113 minutes in London and about 80 in Sydney.

This is why a choghadiya table is always made for a particular place and date.

The seven names and what tradition says about them

Seven names share the eight parts of each half, so the eighth part of the day always repeats the name of the first, and the same is true of the night.

Four of the names are the ones tradition favours:

• Amrit means nectar. It is held in the highest regard of the seven and is traditionally considered good for anything that matters.
• Shubh means good or auspicious. Tradition favours it for beginnings, such as a ceremony, a new venture or a first day.
• Labh means gain. It is counted as a good stretch for work and steady progress.
• Char means moving or changeable. It is favoured above all for travel and setting out.

Three are the ones tradition sets aside when choosing a time to begin something new:

• Udveg, a word for restlessness.
• Kaal, a word for time.
• Rog, a word for being unwell.

Setting a part aside does not mean anything is expected to happen during it. Ordinary life carries on through all sixteen parts. Tradition does not pick these three for starting something that matters.

In the panchang tradition, each name also belongs to one of the seven planets that give the weekdays their names: Udveg to the Sun, Amrit to the Moon, Rog to Mars, Labh to Mercury, Shubh to Jupiter, Char to Venus and Kaal to Saturn. That link sets the order.

How the weekday sets the choghadiya order

The daytime names always follow the same loop:

Udveg, Char, Labh, Amrit, Kaal, Shubh, Rog, and then back to Udveg.

Read through their planets, that loop is Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars: the same order followed by the hora, the planetary hour, another traditional division of the day. The weekday only decides where you step into the loop, because the first part of the day belongs to the weekday's own planet. Sunday is the Sun's day, so it opens with Udveg. Monday is the Moon's day, so it opens with Amrit.

The night uses the same seven names with a different stride. Instead of moving one place forward around the daytime loop, each night part moves two places back. Starting from Shubh, that gives:

Shubh, Amrit, Char, Rog, Kaal, Labh, Udveg, and then back to Shubh.

The weekday sets the night's starting point too. One pattern in the table below: each night opens with the name that opens the daytime four weekdays later. Sunday night opens with Shubh, which is how Thursday's daytime begins.

A worked example with round numbers

Take an example Sunday with round, illustrative times: sunrise at 6:00am, sunset at 6:00pm, and the next sunrise at 6:00am. Real days are rarely this tidy, but the arithmetic holds.

The day and the night are each 12 hours, or 720 minutes. Divided into eight, every part lasts 90 minutes.

Sunday's daytime runs Udveg, Char, Labh, Amrit, Kaal, Shubh, Rog and Udveg. Sunday's night runs Shubh, Amrit, Char, Rog, Kaal, Labh, Udveg and Shubh. The table below gives times for the favoured parts of that example cycle.

The remaining parts carry Udveg, Kaal and Rog, the three names tradition sets aside.

When the day is longer or shorter

Now take an example summer day with sunrise at 5:30am and sunset at 7:30pm. The day is 14 hours, or 840 minutes, so each daytime part lasts 105 minutes. If the next sunrise is again at 5:30am, the night is 10 hours and each night part lasts 75 minutes. Winter turns this around: with sunrise at 7:00am and sunset at 5:00pm, each daytime part lasts 75 minutes and each night part 105.

The names and their order stay the same throughout. A Sunday still opens with Udveg, and a Sunday night with Shubh. Only the length of each part changes, and every boundary on the clock moves with it.

How Sumuhurta uses choghadiya

Sumuhurta, the iPhone app this site is about, reads choghadiya as one input among several. It does not show a choghadiya table. It shows a few selected personal windows in each sunrise-to-sunrise cycle and leaves the rest as open sky.

Alongside choghadiya, the calculation reads the hora, which divides the day and the night into twelve parts each, ruled by planets in a fixed order that begins at sunrise with the weekday's planet. It also reads the abhijit muhurta, a traditional stretch around local noon, and the brahma muhurta, a traditional 48-minute span that ends 48 minutes before sunrise. On the personal side it reads the birth chart entered on your phone: your dasha period (the planetary period of life you are in, by traditional reckoning) and the Moon's position relative to your birth Moon. When the birth time is known, it also reads the sign rising at the time and how the hour's ruling planet sits for your chart.

Choghadiya works as a gate. A minute is considered only if it sits wholly inside an Amrit, Shubh, Labh or Char part, and wholly outside Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika, three other traditional daytime periods, each one eighth of the daylight, chosen by weekday. In the app's own words:

Every personal window Sumuhurta surfaces is calculated to avoid Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda, Gulika, and the Kaal, Rog and Udveg choghadiya periods.

That is a focused rule, not a complete electional-muhurta assessment. A muhurta is an auspicious time for an occasion, and the fuller traditional practice of choosing one weighs many more factors. Inside the gate, the other inputs shape where the windows fall. A window lasts between 20 and 150 minutes, a cycle holds at most three, and none crosses sunrise or sunset.

Each window carries a plain name, Clear run, Sharp or Steady, and beneath it a quiet attribution for readers who know Jyotish, the Vedic tradition of reading the sky. The attribution names the hora and the choghadiya at the middle of the window, for example Mercury hora · Labh. Where the tradition names an intent, the window says it plainly: For beginnings. under Shubh, For travel and setting out. under Char, and For anything that matters. under Amrit. These are traditional suggestions, not predictions. There is more on the other inputs in how Sumuhurta reads the day.

Common questions

Is Kaal choghadiya the same as Rahu Kaal?

No. Kaal is one of the seven choghadiya names. Rahu Kaal is a separate daytime period. Both use the same eight equal parts of the daylight, but each is assigned by its own weekday rule, so the names do not line up. On a Tuesday, for example, Rahu Kaal is traditionally the seventh part of the day, and the seventh choghadiya of a Tuesday is Shubh. That is why the two are counted separately. The guide to Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika explains how those periods are found.

Why does the choghadiya change from day to day?

Two things move. The weekday changes at each sunrise, so the starting name changes. And sunrise and sunset shift a little every day, so every part's length and clock times shift with them.

Which choghadiya is considered the best?

Tradition generally holds Amrit in the highest regard, followed by Shubh and Labh, with Char valued most for travel. When choosing a time to begin something, people traditionally look for one of these four and pass over Udveg, Kaal and Rog.

Does a night choghadiya belong to the day before or the day after?

To the day before. In the panchang the weekday changes at sunrise, not at midnight, so the small hours before Monday's sunrise are still Sunday's night and follow Sunday's night order. There is more on this in why the Vedic day starts at sunrise.

Can I see a full choghadiya table in Sumuhurta?

No. Sumuhurta shows a few selected personal windows rather than a table, and names the choghadiya of each window in its attribution. If you want all sixteen parts for your city, a full panchang lists them.