Rahu Kaal today
Rahu Kalam Timing · Rahukalam
Today in eight cities
Each from its own sunrise- Chennai9:00 AM – 10:31 AMRahu Kaal in Chennai →
- Bengaluru9:11 AM – 10:42 AMRahu Kaal in Bengaluru →
- Hyderabad9:07 AM – 10:39 AMRahu Kaal in Hyderabad →
- New Delhi9:11 AM – 10:43 AMRahu Kaal in New Delhi →
- Mumbai9:29 AM – 11:01 AMRahu Kaal in Mumbai →
- Kolkata8:27 AM – 9:59 AMRahu Kaal in Kolkata →
- Pune9:26 AM – 10:57 AMRahu Kaal in Pune →
- Ahmedabad9:30 AM – 11:02 AMRahu Kaal in Ahmedabad →
What is Rahu Kaal?
Rahu Kaal is the slice of each day assigned to Rahu, the shadow planet of Vedic astronomy. For about ninety minutes, a little more in summer and less in winter, the day is considered unsupportive of beginnings: new journeys, new contracts, new ventures. It is an avoidance window, not a fearful one: ongoing work continues normally, and once the period passes the day resumes as usual.
It is the most widely observed of all the daily timings, and the one most people mean when they say they checked the panchang. In much of South India the same window is called Rahu Kalam, and it is quoted in the same breath as Yamaganda and Gulika Kaal, its two smaller siblings. Rahu himself comes from the story of the churning of the ocean: the asura Svarbhanu drank the nectar and was cut in two, and the head is Rahu, the body Ketu. In the sky Rahu is not a body but a point, where the moon’s path crosses the sun’s, and it is at that point that eclipses happen, which is why Rahu is the one who swallows the sun.
How Rahu Kaal is calculated
- Take the daylight span, sunrise to sunset in this city, and divide it into eight equal parts.
- Rahu takes one part each day, on a fixed weekday sequence: the 8th part on Sunday, the 2nd on Monday, the 7th on Tuesday, the 5th on Wednesday, the 6th on Thursday, the 4th on Friday and the 3rd on Saturday. No weekday is given the first part, so the first eighth after sunrise is never Rahu Kaal.
- Because the parts are eighths of a real day, the window runs about 90 minutes at the equinox, longer in summer and shorter in winter, and it starts at a different clock time in every city.
How long Rahu Kaal really lasts
“Ninety minutes” is the equinox figure. Rahu Kaal is an eighth of the real daylight, so it stretches and shrinks with the year. In New Delhi on 21 June 2026 the sun is up for 13 hr 58 min and the Sunday window runs 5:37 PM to 7:21 PM, 105 minutes. On 21 December the day is 10 hr 19 min and Monday’s window is 8:26 AM to 9:44 AM, 77 minutes. In New Delhi today, for example, it is 1 hr 32 min. Further from the equator the swing is wider: London’s Rahu Kaal on 21 December is 59 minutes.
It is the same eighth that one day choghadiya occupies, so on any given day the two are always exactly the same length.
The weekday pattern, in words
The table of eighths reads more easily as a shape. Monday, Saturday and Friday put Rahu Kaal in the morning, the second, third and fourth parts of the day. Wednesday and Thursday put it around midday, the fifth and sixth. Tuesday has it in the afternoon, the seventh, and Sunday in the last light before sunset, the eighth. Because no weekday takes the first part, roughly the first ninety minutes of every day are free of it, by arithmetic rather than dispensation. The strip further down gives the clock times for this week.
Why Rahu Kaal differs between cities, and between websites
Same weekday, different cities, different clocks. On Wednesday 16 September 2026 Rahu Kaal runs 12:03 to 1:35 PM in Chennai, 12:15 to 1:48 PM in New Delhi and 12:34 to 2:06 PM in Ahmedabad: Chennai’s sun rises eight minutes before Delhi’s and Ahmedabad’s twenty minutes after, and the eighths move with it. A table for one city is wrong for the next.
Between websites the difference is a minute or two, and it comes from the astronomy rather than the rule. Every panchang divides the day into the same eighths; they differ on when the day starts. Whether “sunrise” means the sun’s upper edge or its centre changes the moment by a minute or two. Whether the atmosphere’s bending of light near the horizon is counted changes it again. Add rounding, and two honest panchangs can differ by one to three minutes on every boundary. This site uses the upper edge with refraction, the convention Indian panchangs follow, and checks the result against a published reference; how sunrise is defined here has the detail.
Which choghadiya Rahu Kaal falls on
Rahu Kaal and the day choghadiya are the same eight cuts of the same daylight, so each weekday’s Rahu Kaal is one named choghadiya: Sunday Udveg, Monday Kaal, Tuesday Shubh, Wednesday Rog, Thursday Amrit, Friday Kaal, Saturday Rog. In New Delhi today, for example, that is Rog, 9:11 AM – 10:43 AM. On five days it lands on a period the choghadiya already marks as one to avoid; on Tuesday and Thursday it lands on a good one, Shubh and Amrit, and there the tradition is clear that Rahu Kaal wins: an auspicious choghadiya that overlaps it is set aside. Rahu Kaal also spans parts of two planetary hours, since the hora grid is twelfths.
Yamaganda, Gulika Kaal and the rest of the day
The three Kaal windows are the same eighths chosen by three weekday rules, which is why they sit together under the eight cities above: in New Delhi today, for example, Yamaganda is 1:47 PM – 3:18 PM and Gulika Kaal is 6:08 AM – 7:40 AM, and the three never overlap. The counterweight is Abhijit Muhurat, the midday window on a fifteen-part division of the same daylight, 11:50 AM – 12:39 PM today. By arithmetic the only Rahu Kaal slot that reaches the middle of the day is Wednesday’s fifth eighth, and Wednesday is the one weekday on which Abhijit is held void, so the two never share a minute on a day Abhijit counts. Dur Muhurtam is on that fifteen-part grid as well and can straddle a Rahu Kaal edge; Brahma Muhurta belongs to the night’s division and has nothing to do with the daylight eighths at all.
Frequently asked questions
What is Rahu Kaal?▼
Rahu Kaal (Rahu Kalam) is a daily period of roughly 90 minutes considered inauspicious for beginning anything new: journeys, ventures, purchases or ceremonies. Work already underway is generally not affected.
How is Rahu Kaal calculated?▼
The daytime from sunrise to sunset is divided into eight equal parts. One part belongs to Rahu each day, following a fixed weekday pattern: the 8th part on Sunday, 2nd on Monday, 7th on Tuesday, 5th on Wednesday, 6th on Thursday, 4th on Friday and 3rd on Saturday.
Is Rahu Kaal the same in every city?▼
No. Because it is derived from local sunrise and sunset, Rahu Kaal differs between cities and across seasons. Always check the timing for your own location.
What should be avoided during Rahu Kaal?▼
Tradition avoids starting new endeavours: signing agreements, beginning travel, opening a business, or auspicious ceremonies. Routine ongoing work, and remedial worship of Rahu, are considered acceptable.
How long does Rahu Kaal last?▼
One eighth of the daylight, whatever that happens to be. On a day of exactly twelve hours it is 90 minutes; in a north Indian June it stretches past 100, and in December it falls under 80. It is never a fixed 90 minutes, which is why a printed table for one city cannot be used in another, or in the same city six months later.
Does Rahu Kaal apply at night?▼
No. Rahu Kaal is a division of the daylight only, sunrise to sunset cut into eight, so it always ends by sunset and there is no night Rahu Kaal to look up. The night has its own systems, including the night choghadiya, but Rahu does not take a share of it.
Can I travel during Rahu Kaal?▼
Tradition asks you not to begin a journey inside it. A journey already underway is not affected, and neither is arriving somewhere during it. In practice this means shifting a departure by an hour or so; if that is not possible, the window is widely treated as an inconvenience rather than a danger.
What if my work is already going on when Rahu Kaal starts?▼
Carry on. Rahu Kaal restricts beginnings, not continuations. A meeting that started before it does not need to stop, and ongoing work, travel and routine tasks run through it normally. The window matters at the moment something starts.
Is Rahu Kaal avoided for weddings and griha pravesh?▼
Yes, and it is one of the first things checked when a date is set. For ceremonies of that size, though, Rahu Kaal is a veto rather than the whole calculation. The muhurta itself comes from a full panchang reading, and Rahu Kaal only rules out part of the day it lands in.
What is the difference between Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda and Gulika Kaal?▼
They are the same arithmetic with different weekday tables. All three take one eighth of the daylight; they simply claim different eighths on any given day, so all three can be looked up from the same sunrise and sunset. Rahu Kaal is the most widely observed of the three, and the one people mean when they say they checked the panchang.
Which weekday has the earliest Rahu Kaal?▼
Monday, when Rahu takes the second of the eight parts and the window lands mid-morning. No weekday puts it at sunrise, because the first part is never Rahu’s, so there is always some clear time at the start of the day. Sunday is the opposite case: Rahu takes the eighth and last part, so the window runs up to sunset. The week strip above shows all seven for this city.
How do I find Rahu Kaal for another city?▼
Change the city at the top of the page. Rahu Kaal is computed from that city’s own sunrise and sunset, so it is genuinely different in Mumbai and Delhi on the same date, not by a token amount but by however much their sunrises differ, which across India is over an hour and a half east to west.
Is Rahu Kaal the same as Rahu Kalam?▼
Yes. They are the same window under two romanisations, Rahu Kaal being the more common Hindi and Gujarati form and Rahu Kalam the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam one. Rahukalam and Rahu Kala are the same word again.
Rahu Kaal today by city
Calibrated for local sunrise and astronomical coordinates. Select your city below:
The other daily timings
All sixteen periods of the day and night, and which of them are worth using.
- Abhijit Muhuratbest
The 48 minutes astride solar noon, the safe default for a beginning.
- Brahma Muhurtagood
The 48 minutes before dawn, the hour tradition reserves for practice.
- Yamagandaavoid
The second daily avoidance window, the one for health and paperwork.
The window whose events are said to repeat, which cuts both ways.
- Dur Muhurtamavoid
The short unlucky muhurtas of the fifteen: one or two, depending on the day.
Twenty-four planetary hours, and what each ruler is traditionally used for.