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In short
A hora is a planetary hour: the day and the night are each split into twelve parts, and each part is ruled by a graha in a fixed order that starts from the lord of the weekday. This app times them from local sunrise and sunset, so day and night horas differ in length.
What the term means
In the panchang sense a hora is one of twenty-four planetary hours in a day, each ruled by one of the seven visible grahas. The first hora after sunrise belongs to the lord of the weekday, so the weekday and its first hour share a ruler. The same word also names the second divisional chart, the Hora (D2), which is a different idea.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 27, explaining Hora Bala, says plainly that "Hora means planetary hour". It divides sunrise to sunrise into 24 equal parts, gives the first to the weekday lord, and each following one to the lord of the sixth weekday counted from the last. The same chapter scores the lords of the year, month, day and hora as a component of strength. BPHS uses equal hours; this app uses unequal ones, as described below.
How this app computes it
- The rulers run in descending Chaldean order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, then round again. The sequence starts at the weekday's own lord.
- Twelve day horas are twelfths of sunrise to sunset at your place; twelve night horas are twelfths of sunset to the next sunrise. They are equal only near an equinox.
- Without a place the app uses a fixed 06:00 to 18:00 IST day, which makes every hora 60 minutes, and says so on the page.
- The same daily table also gives the choghadiya and Rahu Kaal; the life-planning view reads the first hora to name the weekday lord.
Pages that use this term
- Hora calculator - the day's planetary hours for a place.
- Choghadiya calculator - the companion day division.
- Muhurat feature - choosing a time to start.
- Jupiter in Vedic astrology - Jupiter's hora and weekday.
- Mars in Vedic astrology - Mars's hora and weekday.
Related terms
Vara, Muhurat, Choghadiya and Panchang.
Hora Timings
Twenty-four hourly rulerships, in Chaldean order from the weekday's own lord.
This date is sent only to compute the answer. Nothing is stored, no account is created, and no email is asked for.