Muhurat: Auspicious Timings
Almost every timing in Jyotish is a share of daylight rather than a clock time, which is why it moves with your sunrise and with the season. Everything below is computed from the ephemeris for your city rather than quoted as a single national figure.
Coming up
Dhanteras — Friday, 6 November 2026
Kartik Krishna Trayodashi. The day most gold in India is bought, and the buying hours differ by city.
Every day
Today's panchang
Tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana with their end times, sunrise and sunset, Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda, Gulika, Abhijit and Brahma Muhurat, the full Choghadiya for day and night, and the planetary hours. For any city and any date.
Buying gold
When to buy gold
The two festivals that carry most of India's gold buying, why their dates move every year, and the observance rules that decide which calendar day each falls on. Akshaya Tritiya 9 May 2027.
Dhanteras 2026
The date and the tithi behind it, buying hours and Pradosh Kaal for eight cities, the Dhanvantari mantra, the puja vidhi step by step, and what tradition says to leave on the shelf.
Pushya nakshatra dates
The recurring window, roughly every 27 days, and the one most people never hear about. Every window for 2026 and 2027 with exact start and end times, and the Thursday and Sunday combinations that make it Guru Pushya or Ravi Pushya.
Why none of these is a fixed time
Take the interval from sunrise to sunset and divide it into eight, and you have the parts that Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika are cut from. Divide it into fifteen and you have muhurtas, one of which is Abhijit. Divide daylight into eight and the night into eight and you have the Choghadiya. Every one of these is a fraction of the day rather than a time of day.
So a fourteen-hour summer day makes every window longer and pushes every boundary later, and a city further east reaches each one earlier on the clock. That is why a single national figure is always an approximation, and why every table on these pages is computed per city.
Common questions
What does muhurat mean?
A muhurat is a chosen span of time, picked because the tradition treats it as favourable for a particular undertaking. Classically a muhurta is also a unit: a fifteenth of the daylight, roughly 48 minutes, which is where the word comes from. In ordinary use it now means any auspicious window, whether that is a Choghadiya period of about ninety minutes or a wedding date chosen a year ahead.
What is the difference between muhurat and Choghadiya?
Choghadiya is one system for finding a muhurat, and the quickest. It divides daylight into eight parts and the night into eight more, each carrying a name and a character — Amrit is the most favourable, Shubh and Labh are good, Char is neutral, and Kaal, Rog and Udveg are avoided. A full muhurat calculation for something like a marriage weighs the tithi, the nakshatra, the weekday and both charts, and Choghadiya is only one input to it.
Which periods does tradition say to avoid?
Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika Kaal, each one of the eight equal parts of the day, and each falling on a different part depending on the weekday. Rahu Kaal is the one most people know. Against them sit Abhijit Muhurat around midday and Brahma Muhurat before sunrise, both considered broadly favourable.
Do auspicious timings differ by city?
Yes, and by more than people expect. Almost every window is measured from local sunrise and sunset rather than from the clock, and India keeps a single time zone across nearly thirty degrees of longitude. On the same day, the same window can open more than an hour apart in Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Any page giving one national figure is rounding.
Whether a day suits you personally is a separate question from whether it is generally auspicious, and that one depends on your own chart — which dasha is running, and where Jupiter and Venus sit. A free kundli shows both.