Choghadiya in Ahmedabad — slot lengths, sunrise anchor and the full grid

Ahmedabad is where choghadiya stopped being a manuscript and became a habit — the Gujarati trading day is still organised around Labh. Its slot runs from 1h 20m in late December to 1h 42m in late June, and its sun crosses the meridian 39.7 minutes after the clock says noon, so the whole grid sits late against IST.

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In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a daylight choghadiya runs 1h 20m to 1h 42m, sunrise moves 1h 29m across the year, and solar noon sits 39.7 minutes behind the clock. All three computed at 23.02°N 72.57°E.

If you learned choghadiya from a relative rather than a book, there is a fair chance the relative was Gujarati. The system’s survival as everyday practice — rather than a specialist’s tool — owes more to Ahmedabad’s trading houses than to any text, and Labh, the gain slot, is the reason.

Which makes the arithmetic here worth being precise about. Ahmedabad sits at 23.02°N, just inside the tropics, so its day length swings 2h 50m across the year. That is a middling swing by Indian standards, and it still moves a single slot by 22 minutes between the solstices.

Everything below is computed at Ahmedabad’s own coordinates. Where it differs from a table you have seen for Mumbai or Delhi, the difference is real, not a rounding disagreement.

The Labh window moves by nearly half an hour between the solstices

For a trading day the question is rarely "what is running now" — it is "when does Labh start". On a Wednesday, Labh opens the daylight, so it begins at sunrise, and Ahmedabad’s sunrise moves from 05:53 in early June to 07:23 in mid-January. That is a 90-minute swing in when the merchant’s best slot of the week opens.

On other weekdays Labh sits further into the morning and the slot length does the work instead. Sunday puts Labh in third position, which in late June — sunrise 05:55, slots of 1h 42m — covers 09:18 to 11:00. In late December the same third position starts around 09:58 and ends around 11:18: later, 22 minutes shorter, and barely overlapping the summer window at all. The computed grids for both dates are further down this page.

The habit of quoting a fixed clock time for a favourable slot is therefore a Mumbai-in-March habit that happens to work for a few weeks a year. It is not how the system works, and in a city that genuinely plans around it, the difference costs real time.

How long one Ahmedabad choghadiya is, through the year

Sunrise, sunset and the resulting eighth at the year's four turning points, computed for 2026.

Ahmedabad sits at 23.02°N, and latitude is the only thing that sets slot length. Its daylight runs from 10h 43m on 22 December to 13h 33m on 21 June — a swing of 2h 50m — so one eighth of it moves between 1h 20m and 1h 42m. That is 21 minutes of variation in the same named slot.

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Daylight	One day slot	One night slot
March equinox (20 March)	06:44	18:51	12h 07m	1h 31m	1h 29m
June solstice (21 June)	05:55	19:28	13h 33m	1h 42m	1h 18m
September equinox (22 September)	06:28	18:37	12h 08m	1h 31m	1h 29m
December solstice (21 December)	07:16	17:59	10h 43m	1h 20m	1h 40m

Across the whole year a Ahmedabad daylight slot runs 1h 20m to 1h 42m and a night slot 1h 18m to 1h 40m. At the equinoxes the two are equal — that is what an equinox is.

Where Ahmedabad's grid sits on the clock, and why

Sunrise in Ahmedabad runs from 05:53 on 8 June to 07:23 on 15 January. That is 1h 29m of movement in the first boundary of the day, and since every later boundary is measured from it, the whole grid travels the same distance.

Longitude adds a second offset that never changes. At 72.57°E, 9.93° west of the 82.5°E timezone meridian, solar noon in Ahmedabad falls at about 12:40 rather than 12:00 — 39.7 minutes after the clock, on every date of the year. Against 1h 42m and 1h 20m slots that is roughly a 39-to-49 per cent share of one slot, borrowed from a neighbouring city's table and never repaid.

Measure	Value
Earliest sunrise	05:53 on 8 June
Latest sunrise	07:23 on 15 January
Longest daylight	13h 33m on 21 June
Shortest daylight	10h 43m on 22 December
Annual day-length swing	2h 50m
Solar noon vs clock noon	+39.7 minutes

The full daylight grid for Ahmedabad on 21 June

Sunday, sunrise 05:55, sunset 19:28 — the year's longest daylight and therefore its longest slots.

13h 33m of daylight, divided by eight, gives 102 minutes a slot. Sunday is ruled by Sun, so the sequence opens on Udveg at 05:55 and closes on Udveg at 19:28 — the eighth slot repeating the first, as it does on every weekday. Of the eight, 4 are favourable.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Ahmedabad	Reading
1	Udveg	Sun	05:55 – 07:37	avoid for starts
2	Chal	Venus	07:37 – 09:18	favourable
3	Labh	Mercury	09:18 – 11:00	favourable
4	Amrit	Moon	11:00 – 12:41	favourable
5	Kaal	Saturn	12:41 – 14:23	avoid for starts
6	Shubh	Jupiter	14:23 – 16:05	favourable
7	Rog	Mars	16:05 – 17:46	avoid for starts
8	Udveg	Sun	17:46 – 19:28	avoid for starts

Times computed from NOAA sunrise/sunset at this city's coordinates. Rounded to the minute for display.

The same eight slots on 22 December, compressed

Tuesday, sunrise 07:17, sunset 18:00: 10h 43m of daylight, 2h 50m less than 21 June had. Each slot has shrunk to 80 minutes from 102, and sunrise itself has moved 1h 22m later.

Compare the third row of each grid and the whole argument of this page is in one line: Labh ran 09:18–11:00 in 21 June and Chal runs 09:57–11:18 in 22 December. Same city, same position in the grid, no overlap at all.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Ahmedabad	Reading
1	Rog	Mars	07:17 – 08:37	avoid for starts
2	Udveg	Sun	08:37 – 09:57	avoid for starts
3	Chal	Venus	09:57 – 11:18	favourable
4	Labh	Mercury	11:18 – 12:38	favourable
5	Amrit	Moon	12:38 – 13:59	favourable
6	Kaal	Saturn	13:59 – 15:19	avoid for starts
7	Shubh	Jupiter	15:19 – 16:39	favourable
8	Rog	Mars	16:39 – 18:00	avoid for starts

The night that follows 21 June in Ahmedabad

Sunset at 19:28 to the next sunrise is 10h 27m, so each night slot is 78 minutes — 23 minutes shorter than that same day's daylight slots, because midsummer is when the night is the compressed half. In 22 December the relationship inverts and Ahmedabad's night slots reach 1h 40m.

The sequence is not the day sequence continued: it starts on Shubh, ruled by Jupiter, where the daylight had started on Udveg. The slots after midnight still belong to Sunday, because the vedic day turns over at sunrise and not at 00:00.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Ahmedabad	Reading
1	Shubh	Jupiter	19:28 – 20:46	favourable
2	Amrit	Moon	20:46 – 22:05	favourable
3	Chal	Venus	22:05 – 23:23	favourable
4	Rog	Mars	23:23 – 00:41	avoid for starts
5	Kaal	Saturn	00:41 – 02:00	avoid for starts
6	Labh	Mercury	02:00 – 03:18	favourable
7	Udveg	Sun	03:18 – 04:37	avoid for starts
8	Shubh	Jupiter	04:37 – 05:55	favourable

Times after 24:00 are shown on the following morning's clock; the row still belongs to the previous weekday.

Ahmedabad against the other cities in this cluster

The two numbers that make one Indian city’s choghadiya different from another’s: how far its solar noon sits from clock noon, and how much its daylight swings across the year.

City	Solar noon vs clock	Annual day-length swing	Daylight slot range
Ahmedabad (this page)	+39.7 min	2h 50m	1h 20m – 1h 42m
Mumbai	+38.5 min	2h 18m	1h 22m – 1h 40m
New Delhi	+21.2 min	3h 39m	1h 17m – 1h 45m
Surat	+38.7 min	2h 35m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Rajkot	+46.8 min	2h 44m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Vadodara	+37.3 min	2h 44m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Pune	+34.6 min	2h 14m	1h 23m – 1h 39m
Bangalore	+19.6 min	1h 32m	1h 25m – 1h 37m
Hyderabad	+16.1 min	2h 05m	1h 23m – 1h 39m
Jaipur	+26.9 min	3h 23m	1h 18m – 1h 44m
Chennai	+8.9 min	1h 33m	1h 25m – 1h 37m

A positive offset means the sun peaks after the clock says noon. All eleven cities are on one timezone, which is why the column has a 38-minute spread.

Building the grid by hand, from three numbers

Three facts produce the whole table: the weekday, the sunrise and the sunset. Nothing else is needed, and nothing else is used.

Step	Value
Sunrise and sunset	05:55 and 19:28 — 13h 33m of daylight
Divide by eight	813 ÷ 8 = 102 minutes, or 1h 42m per slot
Sunday's opener	Udveg — the choghadiya of Sun, which rules Sunday
Walk the fixed cycle	Udveg → Chal → Labh → Amrit → Kaal → Shubh → Rog → Udveg
Third boundary, as a check	05:55 + 2 × 1h 42m = 09:18

The third slot on 21 June in Ahmedabad is Labh, running 09:18 to 11:00, and the eighth is Udveg from 17:46. Every boundary follows from the same division, and the same three facts on any other date give that date's grid.

Use the city's own sunrise, never a neighbour's. The eleven cities in this cluster span 37.9 minutes of solar time on an identical clock.

Frequently asked

What is today’s choghadiya in Ahmedabad?

It depends on the weekday and today’s sunrise, both of which change. This page gives you the structure and the year’s real range for Ahmedabad — 1h 20m to 1h 42m per daylight slot — and the live table for today’s date is on the Choghadiya Today tool linked below.

Why is Ahmedabad’s choghadiya different from Mumbai’s?

Two reasons, both small and both real. Ahmedabad is about four degrees further north, so its day length swings 2h 50m across the year against Mumbai’s 2h 18m; and it is very slightly west, so its solar noon lags clock noon by 39.7 minutes against Mumbai’s 38.5. The names are identical; the boundaries are not.

Which choghadiya is best for business in Ahmedabad?

Labh, by tradition and by the trade the city is built on — it is the gain slot, ruled by Mercury. Amrit scores higher in our ranking as a general-purpose favourable slot, but for a commercial start the Gujarati convention has always reached for Labh first.

What this page can NOT tell you

• These are geometric sunrise and sunset times at the city centre. A tradition that uses the visible sunrise over a real horizon — hills, buildings, haze — will differ, and it is not wrong to.
• The figures are computed for a fixed reference year so this page cannot go stale on the shelf. Sunrise repeats to within seconds across years, so they hold; they are still not a substitute for looking up an actual date.
• Choghadiya carries no personal component. Your chart, dasha and transits are absent from every number here, and two people in this city read exactly the same table.
• The favourable / avoid labels are conventional and they do not predict outcomes. They rank a preference between otherwise equal moments, which is a much smaller claim than the word "auspicious" usually carries.
• Ahmedabad’s sunrise here is computed for the city centre. The metropolitan area spans about 25 km east to west, which is under two minutes of solar time — real, but below the resolution anyone plans to.

Choghadiya is a folk-electional convention, not a prediction. It labels slices of the day by tradition; it does not know what you are doing, who you are, or how it turned out. Treat a label as a preference, and never as permission or prohibition.

How AskSoma computes and what we refuse to claim · Engine: NOAA solar position (sunrise/sunset), ±1 minute against published almanac times · Ayanamsa: not used — choghadiya is a sunrise-to-sunset division, with no sidereal component · Content reviewed 2026-08-08