Choghadiya today

All the same word. It comes from "cho" (four) and "ghadi" (a traditional 24-minute unit), so the name means four ghadis, about 96 minutes, though the real length follows the day’s sunrise and sunset. Chogadia, chaughadia, chogdiya and choghdiya are all romanisations of the same Gujarati and Hindi term, and none of them is more correct than another.

Amrit is treated as the best of the eight, followed by Shubh and Labh. Labh is specifically associated with gain (money, study and deals) and Shubh with anything meant to last. Chal is neutral and considered fine for travel. If you can only move something by an hour, moving it into Amrit, Shubh or Labh is the whole of the practice.

It depends on your city, because each one counts from its own sunrise. The eight city tiles at the top of this page show the period running in each of those cities and when it ends. Open your city’s page for the day and night tables, with the current row marked “Now”. Before sunrise, the night period still running belongs to the previous panchang day.

Because 96 is the name, not the measure. A day choghadiya is one eighth of the real daylight, so a twelve-hour day gives 90 minutes, a fourteen-hour day 105 and a ten-hour day 75. The night is divided the same way over its own length. A printed table that assumes 96 minutes is wrong for most of the year, which is why this site computes each boundary from the day’s own sunrise and sunset.

No. They are independent systems measured over the same day, and most practitioners apply both. An Amrit choghadiya that falls inside Rahu Kaal is still inside Rahu Kaal. The usual reading is that the more restrictive of the two wins, so you would wait. This comes up every week: on Tuesday Rahu Kaal is the Shubh period, and on Thursday it is Amrit.

Day periods run from sunrise to sunset; night periods run from sunset to the next sunrise. Their lengths usually differ, and their names follow different orders. Day starts with the weekday’s own planet. Night starts with the fifth weekday’s planet, counting the current weekday as one: Sunday night starts with Thursday’s Jupiter, giving Shubh. Day follows Udveg, Chal, Labh, Amrit, Kaal, Shubh, Rog; night follows Udveg, Shubh, Amrit, Chal, Rog, Kaal, Labh, each rotated to its opening name.

Chal is the one named for travel: the word means movable, and it is set aside for journeys even though it is otherwise neutral. Amrit, Shubh and Labh are fine for a journey too. For a griha pravesh or a new vehicle, pick Amrit or Shubh, or Labh if the purchase is for a business. Keep the start out of Rog, Kaal and Udveg and check Rahu Kaal separately. A wedding needs more than a choghadiya: it is set from a full muhurta reading.

Yes. These are avoidance windows for beginnings, not for existing life. Work already underway continues, and routine and unavoidable tasks are not held up for them. What tradition asks is that you do not start something you care about inside one. Each runs about an hour and a half, so moving a start time is usually all that is needed.

No, and that is the point of it. Choghadiya needs the date, the weekday and the local sunrise, and nothing about you: no birth time, no chart, no rashi. That is why it is the muhurta system people actually use day to day, while a wedding or a naming is set from a full horoscope reading.