Find today’s Rahu Kaal, Gulika Kaal, and Yamaganda Kaal for your city. Sunrise-based timings with the canonical Vedic weekday assignments.
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28.6139°, 77.2090° · Asia/Kolkata
Showing Delhi until you choose a city
Abhijit Muhurat start and end for your city, computed from local sunrise and sunset as the 8th of 15 daylight parts. Not a fixed 48 minutes.
astrologyThe direction Vedic panchang tradition advises avoiding when starting a journey, for every day of the week. No birth chart or city needed.
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astrology| Calculation method | Sunrise to sunset divided into 8 equal periods |
| Period length | ~90 minutes (varies by date and latitude) |
| Weekday assignment | Sun 8, Mon 2, Tue 7, Wed 5, Thu 6, Fri 4, Sat 3 |
| Related windows | Gulika Kaal, Yamaganda Kaal (separate assignments) |
| Location dependency | Yes - varies with local sunrise and sunset |
| Default location | Delhi until you choose a city |
| Sunrise algorithm | Meeus/NOAA-style (Meeus 1998 ch. 15), ~1 minute precision |
| Verification | Weekday tables cross-verified against Drik Panchang, AstroSage, mPanchang, and AstroVed; computed sunrise checked against recorded Drik Panchang times for Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai; 41 automated checks in all |
| Privacy | Your city/date calculation is client-side; major-cities table is server-rendered. No personal data sent. |
Rahu Kaal (also spelt Rahu Kalam or Rahukalam, and known in Hinglish as Aaj Ka Rahu Kaal) is a roughly 90-minute window in each day considered inauspicious in Vedic astrology. It is one of eight equal segments that divide the daytime span between sunrise and sunset. Each weekday is traditionally assigned a specific segment as Rahu Kaal, named after the lunar north node Rahu.
In Indian cultural practice, Rahu Kaal is treated as unsuitable for initiating new activities, particularly marriage rituals, vehicle and property purchases, business launches, signing contracts, and beginning long journeys. It is not, however, considered a window during which to halt routine work or delay urgent matters.
The math is simple. Take the local sunrise and sunset for your date and city. Divide the interval between them into 8 equal parts. Then look up which part is assigned to today’s weekday. That part is Rahu Kaal.
A worked example for Delhi on a Saturday with sunrise at 05:24 IST and sunset at 19:13 IST: the day length is 13 hours 49 minutes, so each of the 8 periods is about 1 hour 44 minutes. Saturday is assigned period 3 for Rahu Kaal, so Rahu Kaal runs from about 08:52 to 10:36 IST. The same day also has Gulika Kaal (period 1, at sunrise) and Yamaganda Kaal (period 6, in mid-afternoon).
Sunrise and sunset themselves are computed using a Meeus-style algorithm (after the standard astronomical reference, Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd ed., 1998, chapter 15) with the standard 50′ atmospheric-refraction convention. Typical precision is around 1 minute for Indian latitudes.
Sunrise anchors more of the panchang than just this window. The Hindu calendar date itself is set by whichever tithi is running at sunrise in your location, which is why two panchangs cast for different cities can differ by a day - our Panchang Today page computes all five angas for your city with every period boundary. It is also why the same lunar month can begin on two different dates depending on the convention a region follows, as Shravan does in 2026.
These are the canonical Vedic period assignments for each weekday. Period 1 starts at sunrise; period 8 ends at sunset. Each period is one-eighth of the day length.
| Weekday | Rahu Kaal period | Gulika Kaal period | Yamaganda Kaal period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 8 | 7 | 5 |
| Monday | 2 | 6 | 4 |
| Tuesday | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| Wednesday | 5 | 4 | 2 |
| Thursday | 6 | 3 | 1 |
| Friday | 4 | 2 | 7 |
| Saturday | 3 | 1 | 6 |
Gulika Kaal is the segment ruled by Gulika (in some traditions identified with Mandi, Saturn’s son). It uses a different weekday assignment from Rahu Kaal: Sunday segment 7, Monday segment 6, Tuesday segment 5, Wednesday segment 4, Thursday segment 3, Friday segment 2, Saturday segment 1. On Saturday Gulika Kaal starts at sunrise.
Yamaganda Kaal (also spelt Yamagandam or Yamaghanta) is the segment associated with Yama, the deity of time and death. Its weekday assignment is: Sunday segment 5, Monday segment 4, Tuesday segment 3, Wednesday segment 2, Thursday segment 1, Friday segment 7, Saturday segment 6. The three windows together occupy three of the eight daily segments, leaving five segments as neutral or favourable depending on tradition.
Rahu Kaal is traditionally avoided for starting marriage rituals, Griha Pravesh (house-warming), vehicle, property and gold purchases, business launches, signing contracts, and beginning long journeys. Routine work and urgent matters - medical, legal, or unavoidable travel - should not be delayed; cultural practice treats Rahu Kaal as inauspicious for initiating major undertakings, not for continuing already-underway activities.
Travellers who check Rahu Kaal for the departure time often also check Disha Shool for the departure direction. Rahu Kaal answers “when” and varies by city; Disha Shool answers “which way” and depends only on the weekday.
People often also check Abhijit Muhurta (the auspicious midday window) when planning around Rahu Kaal. Our Abhijit Muhurat calculator computes it for the same cities from the same sunrise engine - one fifteenth of daylight, centred on midday. For picking a favourable window rather than avoiding one, the day and night Choghadiya tables divide the same span into eight named parts each.
Times for Saturday, 29 August 2026 (Asia/Kolkata). All values use the locked Vedic weekday assignments per the canonical Drik Panchang convention.
| City | Rahu Kaal | Gulika Kaal | Yamaganda Kaal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delhi, Delhi | 09:09 AM - 10:45 AM | 05:57 AM - 07:33 AM | 01:58 PM - 03:34 PM |
| Mumbai, Maharashtra | 09:31 AM - 11:05 AM | 06:22 AM - 07:56 AM | 02:13 PM - 03:47 PM |
| Bengaluru, Karnataka | 09:14 AM - 10:47 AM | 06:08 AM - 07:41 AM | 01:53 PM - 03:26 PM |
| Chennai, Tamil Nadu | 09:03 AM - 10:36 AM | 05:57 AM - 07:30 AM | 01:42 PM - 03:15 PM |
| Kolkata, West Bengal | 08:27 AM - 10:02 AM | 05:18 AM - 06:52 AM | 01:12 PM - 02:47 PM |
| Hyderabad, Telangana | 09:09 AM - 10:43 AM | 06:01 AM - 07:35 AM | 01:50 PM - 03:24 PM |
| Pune, Maharashtra | 09:27 AM - 11:01 AM | 06:19 AM - 07:53 AM | 02:09 PM - 03:43 PM |
| Ahmedabad, Gujarat | 09:30 AM - 11:05 AM | 06:20 AM - 07:55 AM | 02:15 PM - 03:50 PM |
| Jaipur, Rajasthan | 09:16 AM - 10:51 AM | 06:04 AM - 07:40 AM | 02:03 PM - 03:39 PM |
| Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh | 08:55 AM - 10:31 AM | 05:44 AM - 07:19 AM | 01:42 PM - 03:18 PM |
| Kochi, Kerala | 09:20 AM - 10:53 AM | 06:15 AM - 07:48 AM | 01:58 PM - 03:30 PM |
| Patna, Bihar | 08:39 AM - 10:14 AM | 05:28 AM - 07:03 AM | 01:25 PM - 03:01 PM |
Rahu Kaal is a roughly 90-minute window in Vedic astrology considered inauspicious for starting new activities. It is one of eight equal segments that divide the daytime from sunrise to sunset; each weekday is assigned a specific segment as Rahu Kaal, named after the lunar north node Rahu.
Take the local sunrise and sunset for your date and city. Divide the interval between them into 8 equal parts. Then look up which part is assigned to today's weekday: Sunday is part 8, Monday part 2, Tuesday part 7, Wednesday part 5, Thursday part 6, Friday part 4, Saturday part 3. That part is Rahu Kaal.
Rahu Kaal is anchored to the local sunrise and sunset. Sunrise in Mumbai is roughly 36 minutes later than in Kolkata even on the same date, because Mumbai is further west. Both observe IST, so the clock-time of Rahu Kaal differs accordingly. Latitude also affects the length of daylight, especially in summer and winter.
All three are inauspicious windows of equal length (one-eighth of the day), but they use different weekday assignments. Gulika Kaal is the segment ruled by Saturn's son Gulika, traditionally Saturday segment 1. Yamaganda Kaal is the segment associated with Yama. The three usually fall in different parts of the day; on Saturday, for example, Gulika is at sunrise, Rahu in mid-morning, and Yamaganda in mid-afternoon.
Classical texts attribute Rahu Kaal to the lunar node Rahu, considered a shadow grah with disruptive influence on new beginnings. The practical convention treats this window as unsuitable for initiating major undertakings such as marriage rituals, vehicle purchases, or business launches.
Yes. The tradition treats Rahu Kaal as inauspicious for initiating major activities, not for routine work, eating, sleeping, or continuing tasks already in progress. Urgent or medical matters should not be delayed.
The daytime Rahu Kaal calculated by this tool uses the sunrise-to-sunset interval and is the form most commonly referenced. Some traditions also recognise a separate Ratri Rahu Kaal (night Rahu Kaal) computed from sunset to next sunrise; this tool focuses on the daytime window.
Rahu Kaal is always exactly one-eighth of the daytime span. In equatorial latitudes with a 12-hour day this is 90 minutes; in Indian metros it ranges from roughly 82 minutes (winter solstice in Kanyakumari) to 105 minutes (summer solstice in Srinagar).
The interactive calculator above accepts any city in our autocomplete database (covering all Indian cities above 5,000 population plus global cities above 100,000). The table further down the page shows pre-computed times for twelve major metros as a quick reference.
Yes, with regional variations in convention. South Indian Tamil tradition often emphasises Rahu Kaal more than North Indian traditions, but the underlying calculation - daytime divided into 8 parts with a weekday-specific assignment - is the same across the major Panchang schools.
Want your full birth chart with planetary positions and Vimshottari Dasha? Free Kundli Generator computes Lahiri sidereal D1 and D9 charts with Mangal Dosha and Dasha timeline.
Planning matrimonial muhurta around Rahu Kaal? Free Kundli Matching (Ashtakoot Guna Milan) runs the 36-Guna compatibility analysis for two partners.