Best choghadiya for buying gold, a vehicle or a new business
By The Choghadiya Now Team · Published 16 September 2026
The short answer: any of the three good choghadiya, Amrit, Shubh or Labh, is a sound hour for a beginning, and the muhurta tradition gives each a leaning. Amrit is the first choice for anything. Shubh is for what is meant to last. Labh is the one named for gain, so it is the natural pick for trade. Chal is fine for the journey itself. The three to move a start time out of are Rog, Kaal and Udveg, and whichever you choose, check that it does not fall inside Rahu Kaal, which overrides all of them.
The rest of this page is the reasoning, purchase by purchase, and how to find the window on the day you actually need it, because a choghadiya is a clock time only for one city on one date, and the right hour in Ahmedabad is not the right hour in Chennai.
Why the good ones are good
The seven choghadiya are named for the seven classical planets, and each period takes its planet’s character. That is the whole logic: a gentle planet gives a good hour, a harsh one gives an hour to avoid.
| Choghadiya | Planet | Verdict | Traditionally used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amrit | Moon | good | anything: the first choice |
| Shubh | Jupiter | good | ceremonies, anything meant to last |
| Labh | Mercury | good | learning, trade, a new business |
| Chal (Char) | Venus | neutral | travel and movement |
| Udveg | Sun | avoid | only government and official work |
| Kaal | Saturn | avoid | only work done to accumulate wealth |
| Rog | Mars | avoid | only disputes and competition |
Most panchangs count Chal with the good ones; it is the mildest of them and is reserved for movement, which is why this site marks it neutral rather than green. The “used for” column is what tradition assigns, not a prediction: a shop opened in Kaal does not fail because of the hour; it is simply not the hour tradition would have chosen.
Buying gold or jewellery
Shubh or Amrit. Gold is bought to be kept, and Shubh, Jupiter’s period, the planet of increase and permanence, is the choghadiya tradition names for things meant to last. Amrit is never a wrong choice. Labh is acceptable, and some buyers prefer it precisely because it is the period of gain.
Two calendar days sit above the daily table for gold. On Dhanteras, the first day of Diwali, and on Akshaya Tritiya in late April or early May, the whole day is held auspicious for buying gold and the choghadiya is used only to pick the best hour within it. For 2026 both dates are in the festival calendar: Akshaya Tritiya on 19 April and Dhanteras on 6 November.
On an ordinary day, aim for Shubh or Amrit in daylight, and step outside Rahu Kaal. On a Tuesday or a Thursday be especially careful: those are the two weekdays on which a good choghadiya and Rahu Kaal are the same ninety-odd minutes (Shubh on Tuesday, Amrit on Thursday), and the tradition is clear that Rahu Kaal wins.
Taking delivery of a new vehicle
Amrit, Shubh or Labh for the moment of taking possession; Chal is fine for the drive home. A vehicle is both a purchase meant to last and a thing that moves, which is why the advice you will hear covers both: the good three for the beginning, and Venus’s Chal, the choghadiya of movement, for the journey.
The moment that matters is the one you choose to mark: the key, the first start, the puja if you do one. Put that inside the window; the paperwork before it and the traffic after it do not need to fit. Avoid Rog, Kaal and Udveg for the start, and check Rahu Kaal separately, since it is a different system on the same day, and it overrides.
Starting a business, opening a shop, signing the first contract
Labh first, then Shubh. Labh is Mercury’s period, the planet of trade, speech and exchange, and it is the choghadiya named for gain. It is the traditional choice for opening a shop, registering a firm, or the first sale. Shubh is the choice when the emphasis is on longevity: a partnership, a lease, something you want to outlast the year. Amrit covers both.
For a first transaction rather than a first day (a payment, an order, a signature) the same three apply and the window need only cover the act itself. If the working day starts before a good period opens, most people begin the routine of the day and hold the ceremonial start, the ribbon or the first entry in the book, for the window.
Rahu Kaal is checked separately, always
Choghadiya and Rahu Kaal are two independent readings of the same daylight. Both divide the day into eight, but they pick their parts by different rules, so on any weekday Rahu Kaal is exactly one named choghadiya: Sunday Udveg, Monday Kaal, Tuesday Shubh, Wednesday Rog, Thursday Amrit, Friday Kaal, Saturday Rog. On five days it lands on a period you were avoiding anyway. On Tuesday and Thursday it lands on a good one, and that is the case people get wrong: a Thursday Amrit that sits inside Rahu Kaal is not a usable Amrit.
The choghadiya table on every page of this site marks the running period, and the Rahu Kaal window is shown beside it, so the overlap is visible rather than something to work out.
Finding today’s window for your city
A choghadiya is not a fixed clock time. It is one eighth of the real daylight, starting from the real sunrise, so it moves with the date and with the city. On Wednesday 16 September 2026 the first period of the day, Labh, opens at 5:58 AM in Chennai, 6:06 AM in New Delhi and 6:26 AM in Ahmedabad: the same name, half an hour apart. The length moves too: in New Delhi a day choghadiya is about 105 minutes in late June and 77 in late December, not the nominal 96.
So the method is simply: open the choghadiya page for your city on the day, read the good periods off the daylight table, and check the Rahu Kaal line. If your city is not in the directory, the search in the top bar covers more than twelve thousand towns, every one computed from its own sunrise.
What choghadiya does not decide
Choghadiya is the everyday muhurta, the one for a purchase, a journey, a signature. It is not the instrument for a wedding, a naming, a griha pravesh or a business launch that a family wants set properly: those are fixed from a full muhurta reading against the panchang and the people’s charts, of which the choghadiya is one small part. For those, the daily table tells you the hour within a day someone else has chosen; it does not choose the day.
And within its own scope it is a preference, not a prohibition. Work already underway is never stopped for a Rog period; an unavoidable errand is not postponed for Udveg. What the tradition asks is that when you can choose the hour of a beginning, you choose a good one.
Today’s timings for this
This post describes what the panchang tradition says about a window; it is not personal advice. Times on the linked pages are computed for the city you choose.