Today's Hora Timings - Sunday, 18 October 2026

What Is Hora?

Hora is the planetary hour in Vedic astrology. Each day, measured from local sunrise to the next sunrise, is divided into 24 horas, and each hora is ruled by one of the seven classical planets: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

The ruling planet sets the mood of that hour. A Jupiter hora favours wealth and learning; a Mars hora favours courage and competition. Choosing a shubha hora - an auspicious hour - for an important task is one of the simplest muhurat tools in daily use.

The full cycle of these 24 planetary hours is called the hora chakra. Reading it lets you line up a task with an hour whose planetary energy supports it.

The 7 Horas and What Each Is Best For

Every hora carries the nature of its ruling planet. Use this table to match an hour to your task rather than treating any hora as simply "good" or "bad".

Worth noting: Mars and Saturn horas are often called simply "inauspicious." That is an oversimplification. Mars hora is excellent for competition, courage and physical work, and Saturn hora supports labour, property dealings and disciplined effort. They are situational, not inherently bad.

Best Hora for Common Tasks

Pick the hora whose planet rules your activity. These are the pairings traditional practitioners use most often.

For a complete auspicious window - not just the hour - pair the hora with the day's shubh muhurat.

Hora vs Choghadiya: Which Should You Use?

Hora and choghadiya are both Vedic systems for finding an auspicious time, and both are measured from sunrise - but they answer different questions. Hora tells you which planet rules each hour; choghadiya gives a faster good-or-bad reading of the day.

Use hora when the task suits a particular planet - a Mercury hora for signing a deal, a Venus hora for a purchase. Use choghadiya when you just need the next clearly auspicious window. Many people check both: see today's choghadiya timings alongside this hora chart.

How Is Hora Calculated?

Hora calculation follows three rules:

1. Take the time from local sunrise to the next sunrise and split it into 24 horas - 12 between sunrise and sunset (day horas) and 12 between sunset and the next sunrise (night horas). Because daylight length changes through the year, day and night horas are rarely exactly 60 minutes.
2. The first hora of the day is ruled by that weekday's lord: Sun on Sunday, Moon on Monday, Mars on Tuesday, Mercury on Wednesday, Jupiter on Thursday, Venus on Friday, Saturn on Saturday.
3. Each following hora moves through the Chaldean order - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon - repeating around the clock.

This planetary-hour method is described in classical Jyotisha literature; the foundational text is named for it - the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, literally the "great Parashara science of the hora."

How Shubh Panchang calculates your hora

We compute horas from the exact sunrise and sunset for your selected city using Drik Ganit - the modern astronomical method, the same standard used for our daily Panchang. Times update automatically each day and adjust to your location, so the chart you see is for your city, not a fixed default.

Does Hora Timing Change by City?

Yes. Because horas are measured from local sunrise and sunset, the start and end times shift from one city to another. Sunrise in Surat differs from Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai, so the hora running right now in each city is different.

Always read the hora for your own location. Set your city at the top of this page and the full day-and-night chart recalculates for you.

Why It's Called "Hora"

The word hora comes from the Sanskrit ahoratra, meaning "day and night." Drop the first and last syllables - a-ho-ra-tra - and "hora" remains.

In practice the name fits its purpose: each hora is a single hour of the day-and-night cycle, carrying the influence of its ruling planet.