A merchant and his daughter wait at their shop doorway at sunrise, she holding a new red cloth-bound ledger.

Choghaḍiyā

Choghaḍiyā divides daylight and night into eight periods each, with seven recurring names. Mạghā calculates all sixteen from local sunrise and sunset and labels them Favourable or Avoid. Their duration changes with the date and location.

Eight daytime and eight nighttime periods

Elapsed from sunrise / sunset · 012 h 7 min

Day · 06:12–18:19
- 1. Kāl
- 2. Śubh
- 3. Rog
- 4. Udveg
- 5. Chal
- 6. Lābh
- 7. Amṛt
- 8. Kāl
Night · 18:19–06:12
- 1. Lābh
- 2. Udveg
- 3. Śubh
- 4. Amṛt
- 5. Chal
- 6. Rog
- 7. Kāl
- 8. Lābh

Bengaluru · 12–13 September 2026. Both lanes use the same elapsed-time scale: day periods last about 1 h 31 min, night periods about 1 h 29 min. The white marker corresponds to the 12:00 daytime sample. Gold is favourable; rose is avoid. Chal is favourable in Mạghā and neutral in many almanacs.

Day and night periods have different lengths

Day and night are divided separately, so their periods match only when day and night are the same length. On Saturday 12 September 2026 in Bengaluru, Mạghā puts sunrise at 06:12 and sunset at 18:19. Each day Choghaḍiyā lasts 1 hour 31 minutes. Each night Choghaḍiyā, running on to sunrise at 06:12 the next morning, lasts 1 hour 29 minutes.

That Saturday's day runs Kāl, Śubh, Rog, Udveg, Chal, Lābh, Amṛt and Kāl again. Its night runs Lābh, Udveg, Śubh, Amṛt, Chal, Rog, Kāl and Lābh again. The diagram draws both sequences to scale and shades each period by how Mạghā tags it. At 12:00, the sample's reference time, the day was in Udveg, which ran from 10:44 to 12:15.

A couple in wedding clothes sits before a small sacred fire as a priest pours ghee and relatives scatter rice.

Amṛt, Śubh and Lābh are favourable, and almanacs rate Amṛt highest

Each type takes its character from a planet. Amṛt, “nectar”, belongs to the Moon; almanacs rate it the best of the seven and treat it as suitable for any kind of work. Śubh, “auspicious”, belongs to Jupiter and is the usual choice for marriages and religious ceremonies. Lābh, “gain”, belongs to Mercury and is favoured for opening a business, trading and beginning studies.

Mạghā tags all three “Favourable”. They also count in favour of every activity in its activity planner, from travel and signing to house-warming, medicine and marriage, and the planner names the active Choghaḍiyā among the reasons it gives for a recommended window, alongside any suitable Horā or muhūrta.

A traveller ties a bundle onto a kneeling camel at a sandstone village gate as his wife hands him a water flask.

Chal, the moving period, is the traditional time to travel

Chal, also written Char, belongs to Venus and means “moving”. Almanacs recommend it above all for journeys, which suits a system traditionally used to time travel. They disagree on how to class it. Drik Panchang's explanatory text counts it among four good Choghaḍiyās, while its own daily tables, like several other almanacs, label it neutral.

Mạghā shows Chal as “Chara” and tags it “Favourable”, following the four-good, three-bad division. Its activity planner is narrower: Chal counts in favour of travel only. For signing, ceremonies and other starts it adds no weight either way, so Chal alone never earns a recommendation for those activities.

An elderly merchant sits calmly on a veranda with a closed ledger and a cup of tea while his clerk waits nearby.

Almanacs advise against new starts in the three cautionary types

Udveg, “anxiety”, belongs to the Sun. Kāl, Saturn's period, is read as loss and delay. Rog, “illness”, belongs to Mars. Almanacs advise against beginning anything auspicious in them, and Mạghā tags each “Avoid”.

Drik Panchang still gives each a use, noting that a bad Choghaḍiyā can suit a particular task: Udveg for dealing with government, Kāl for building wealth and Rog for contests such as a debate. Mạghā's activity planner counts only favourable Choghaḍiyās, so a cautionary one adds no weight there. The windows that rule a time out in the planner are different: Rāhu Kālam, Yamagaṇḍa, Gulika Kālam, Durmuhūrta, Varjyam and Viṣṭi, with Pañchaka added for house-warming, marriage, property and ceremonies.

A young woman arranges a ring of clay lamps on a coloured floor pattern at dusk while an older woman holds a brass plate.

The weekday's planet opens the day, and the fifth weekday's opens the night

Day choghaḍiyā starts with the weekday's planet: Sunday Udveg, Monday Amṛt, Tuesday Rog, Wednesday Lābh, Thursday Śubh, Friday Chal, Saturday Kāl. Continue Sun → Venus → Mercury → Moon → Saturn → Jupiter → Mars. Night starts with the fifth weekday's planet, counting inclusively, and advances by the same fifth-weekday rule: Śubh → Amṛt → Chal → Rog → Kāl → Lābh → Udveg. Each eight-part sequence repeats its starting type at the end.

A night watchman raises a lantern beside a copper water clock in a moonlit courtyard, with a bronze gong behind him.

Day and night Choghadiya

Day & night Choghadiya lists eight periods from sunrise and eight from sunset, with 24-hour boundaries and Favourable or Avoid labels. NOW marks the reference time; past periods dim and post-midnight times include their date.

Note: Mạghā uses the Sun’s centre without refraction. Almanacs using the upper edge with refraction can differ by minutes: about 3½ minutes at Bengaluru sunrise on 12 September 2026.

What people ask about Choghaḍiyā

Which Choghaḍiyā is best, Lābh or Amṛt?

Almanacs usually rate Amṛt highest and treat it as suitable for any work. Lābh, the period of gain, is the common choice for business, trade and study, and Śubh for marriages and ceremonies, so the best one depends on what you are starting. Mạghā tags all three “Favourable”, and its activity planner counts each of them for every activity.

When does the night Choghaḍiyā start?

At sunset. The night sequence runs from sunset to the next sunrise in eight equal parts, so it starts at a different clock time each day and in each place. In Bengaluru on 12 September 2026 it began at 18:19 and ended at 06:12 the next morning. Periods after midnight still belong to the previous weekday's night, because the Pañchāṅga day runs from sunrise to sunrise.

Should I follow Choghaḍiyā or Rāhu Kālam?

They are independent systems built on the same eight parts of daylight, so every Rāhu Kālam coincides with one day Choghaḍiyā, sometimes a favourable one. In Bengaluru on 12 September 2026, Rāhu Kālam matched Rog, but Yamagaṇḍa matched Lābh. Traditions settle such clashes differently. In Mạghā's activity planner, Rāhu Kālam, Yamagaṇḍa and Gulika Kālam always override a favourable Choghaḍiyā.

Can I use Choghaḍiyā outside India?

Yes. Choghaḍiyā depends only on local sunrise and sunset, so work it out for the city you are in rather than converting Indian clock times. Choose any city on Mạghā's Pañchāṅga page, from Edison in New Jersey to London, and it calculates that day's periods from local sunrise and sunset, in the local time zone, with daylight saving where it applies.

Check today's Choghaḍiyā for your city

The prepared Choghadiya for Bengaluru on 12 September 2026, including the current Udveg period; the phone shows the day sequence. — The real day and night Choghaḍiyā lists for the fixed Bengaluru sample at 12:00 IST on 12 September 2026, not today's periods. The phone result shows Day. Chara is tagged Favourable in Mạghā, while many almanacs call it neutral. Date and place controls cannot change this sample. Sample moment: 12 September 2026 · 12:00:00
Bengaluru, India · Asia/Kolkata

Check day and night Choghaḍiyā free, without an account. The demo uses Bengaluru at noon on Saturday, 12 September 2026; its date and place stay fixed.

See today's Choghaḍiyā