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In short
Rahu Kaal is one of the eight equal parts of daylight, a different one for each weekday, that panchang tradition sets aside as unsuitable for starting new work. This app cuts it from local sunrise to sunset, lists it among the day's times to avoid, and gives the largest penalty in its muhurat scoring to a window that overlaps it.
What the term means
Rahu Kaal (also Rahu Kalam) is a span of roughly an eighth of the daylight hours, assigned to Rahu, in which tradition advises against beginning anything important. Which eighth it is depends on the weekday, and its clock time shifts with the season because daylight lengthens and shortens.
Where the term comes from
None of the classical texts in this site's corpus mentions Rahu Kaal. It is a convention of the printed panchang, and this app takes its weekday order from a published modern panchang, which it checks against for every weekday.
How this app computes it
- The daylight from local sunrise to sunset is divided into eight equal parts. Rahu Kaal is the 2nd part on Monday, 3rd on Saturday, 4th on Friday, 5th on Wednesday, 6th on Thursday, 7th on Tuesday and 8th on Sunday.
- Without a place there is no sunrise, so the app falls back to a fixed 06:00 to 18:00 IST day and says so on the page.
- Since it is cut from the same eight parts as the daytime choghadiya, Rahu Kaal always matches one choghadiya slot exactly.
- In muhurat scoring a window that overlaps Rahu Kaal loses 25 points, the largest single deduction, with the reason "best avoided". There the day is the fixed IST clock, because the place of the event is not known.
Rahu Kaal is a rule of timing, not a reading of your chart: it falls at the same place for everyone on a given day, whatever their birth details. The muhurat engine treats it as one factor beside the nakshatra, tithi and your own Moon house.
Pages that use this term
- Rahu Kaal calculator - the window for a date and place.
- Muhurat calculator - where the overlap is penalised.
- Rahu in Vedic astrology - the graha it is named for.
- Pushya nakshatra - a favoured star read with Rahu Kaal.
- Rohini nakshatra - timing notes that mention it.
Related terms
Choghadiya, Hora, Muhurat and Panchang.
Rahu Kaal
Which eighth of the day, sunrise to sunset, the weekday's own Rahu Kaal table assigns.
This date is sent only to compute the answer. Nothing is stored, no account is created, and no email is asked for.