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

Surat sits almost directly south of Ahmedabad — one minute of solar time apart — so their sunrise clocks nearly agree, but their day lengths do not. Surat’s slot runs 1h 21m to 1h 41m against Ahmedabad’s 1h 20m to 1h 42m, and its solar noon lags the clock by 38.7 minutes. Borrowing the neighbour’s table works, until the solstices.

choghadiya surat, surat choghadiya today, aaj ka choghadiya surat, shubh choghadiya

In Surat, Gujarat, a daylight choghadiya runs 1h 21m to 1h 41m, sunrise moves 1h 22m across the year, and solar noon sits 38.7 minutes behind the clock. All three computed at 21.17°N 72.83°E.

Surat is the useful case study for a question everyone eventually asks: can I just use the big city’s table? The two cities are 230 km apart, share a longitude to within a quarter of a degree, and are separated by 1.85 degrees of latitude. That combination isolates the two variables cleanly.

Longitude drives the clock offset, and here there is almost none — 1.0 minute of solar time between them. Latitude drives the seasonal swing, and there the gap is real: 2h 35m in Surat against 2h 50m in Ahmedabad.

So the answer is conditional, and the condition is the season. Near the equinoxes the two tables are interchangeable to within a couple of minutes. Near the solstices they are not.

Two cities, one meridian, and the exact date the shortcut fails

At the June solstice Surat’s daylight runs 05:58 to 19:23 and Ahmedabad’s 05:55 to 19:28. Sunrise differs by 3 minutes, sunset by 5, and the slot length by about a minute. At the December solstice Surat runs 07:12 to 18:02 and Ahmedabad 07:17 to 18:00 — the gap has swapped sign at sunset.

A 3-to-5 minute disagreement at sunrise does not stay a 3-to-5 minute disagreement: each city divides its own daylight into eight, so the gap compounds across the grid and the last boundary of the day is further apart than the first. Which is to say — for an errand, borrow the table. For a registration appointment or a scheduled call, do not.

The wider point generalises to every pair of Indian cities. North-to-south differences are almost invisible at the equinoxes and largest at the solstices; east-to-west differences are constant all year. They are separate errors and they do not cancel.

How long one Surat choghadiya is, through the year

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

Surat sits at 21.17°N, and latitude is the only thing that sets slot length. Its daylight runs from 10h 51m on 22 December to 13h 25m on 21 June — a swing of 2h 35m — so one eighth of it moves between 1h 21m and 1h 41m. That is 19 minutes of variation in the same named slot.

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Daylight	One day slot	One night slot
March equinox (20 March)	06:43	18:50	12h 07m	1h 31m	1h 29m
June solstice (21 June)	05:58	19:23	13h 25m	1h 41m	1h 19m
September equinox (22 September)	06:27	18:36	12h 08m	1h 31m	1h 29m
December solstice (21 December)	07:11	18:02	10h 51m	1h 21m	1h 39m

Across the whole year a Surat daylight slot runs 1h 21m to 1h 41m and a night slot 1h 19m to 1h 39m. At the equinoxes the two are equal — that is what an equinox is.

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

Sunrise in Surat runs from 05:56 on 7 June to 07:19 on 16 January. That is 1h 22m 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 72.83°E, 9.67° west of the 82.5°E timezone meridian, solar noon in Surat falls at about 12:39 rather than 12:00 — 38.7 minutes after the clock, on every date of the year. Against 1h 41m and 1h 21m slots that is roughly a 38-to-48 per cent share of one slot, borrowed from a neighbouring city's table and never repaid.

Measure	Value
Earliest sunrise	05:56 on 7 June
Latest sunrise	07:19 on 16 January
Longest daylight	13h 25m on 21 June
Shortest daylight	10h 51m on 22 December
Annual day-length swing	2h 35m
Solar noon vs clock noon	+38.7 minutes

The full daylight grid for Surat on 21 June

Sunday, sunrise 05:58, sunset 19:23 — the year's longest daylight and therefore its longest slots.

13h 25m of daylight, divided by eight, gives 101 minutes a slot. Sunday is ruled by Sun, so the sequence opens on Udveg at 05:58 and closes on Udveg at 19:23 — the eighth slot repeating the first, as it does on every weekday. Of the eight, 4 are favourable.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Surat	Reading
1	Udveg	Sun	05:58 – 07:38	avoid for starts
2	Chal	Venus	07:38 – 09:19	favourable
3	Labh	Mercury	09:19 – 11:00	favourable
4	Amrit	Moon	11:00 – 12:40	favourable
5	Kaal	Saturn	12:40 – 14:21	avoid for starts
6	Shubh	Jupiter	14:21 – 16:02	favourable
7	Rog	Mars	16:02 – 17:42	avoid for starts
8	Udveg	Sun	17:42 – 19:23	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 07:12, sunset 18:02: 10h 51m of daylight, 2h 35m less than 21 June had. Each slot has shrunk to 81 minutes from 101, and sunrise itself has moved 1h 14m later.

Compare the third row of each grid and the whole argument of this page is in one line: Labh ran 09:19–11:00 in 21 June and Chal runs 09:54–11:16 in 22 December. Same city, same position in the grid, no overlap at all.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Surat	Reading
1	Rog	Mars	07:12 – 08:33	avoid for starts
2	Udveg	Sun	08:33 – 09:54	avoid for starts
3	Chal	Venus	09:54 – 11:16	favourable
4	Labh	Mercury	11:16 – 12:37	favourable
5	Amrit	Moon	12:37 – 13:58	favourable
6	Kaal	Saturn	13:58 – 15:20	avoid for starts
7	Shubh	Jupiter	15:20 – 16:41	favourable
8	Rog	Mars	16:41 – 18:02	avoid for starts

The night that follows 21 June in Surat

Sunset at 19:23 to the next sunrise is 10h 35m, so each night slot is 79 minutes — 21 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 Surat's night slots reach 1h 39m.

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 Surat	Reading
1	Shubh	Jupiter	19:23 – 20:42	favourable
2	Amrit	Moon	20:42 – 22:02	favourable
3	Chal	Venus	22:02 – 23:21	favourable
4	Rog	Mars	23:21 – 00:40	avoid for starts
5	Kaal	Saturn	00:40 – 02:00	avoid for starts
6	Labh	Mercury	02:00 – 03:19	favourable
7	Udveg	Sun	03:19 – 04:38	avoid for starts
8	Shubh	Jupiter	04:38 – 05:58	favourable

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

Surat 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	+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 (this page)	+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	05:58 and 19:23 — 13h 25m of daylight
Divide by eight	805 ÷ 8 = 101 minutes, or 1h 41m 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	05:58 + 2 × 1h 41m = 09:19

The third slot on 21 June in Surat is Labh, running 09:19 to 11:00, and the eighth is Udveg from 17:42. 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

Can I use Ahmedabad’s choghadiya timings in Surat?

Within a few minutes, most of the year, yes — the two cities are on nearly the same meridian so their solar noons differ by only about a minute. The disagreement grows toward the solstices, where the day-length difference (2h 35m of annual swing against 2h 50m) pushes the later boundaries several minutes apart.

How long is a choghadiya in Surat?

From 1h 21m in late December to 1h 41m in late June for daylight, and the inverse — 1h 19m to 1h 39m — at night. The two are equal, near 1h 31m, only within a few days of an equinox.

What time does choghadiya start in Surat?

At local sunrise, which in Surat runs from 05:56 in early June to 07:19 in mid-January. There is no fixed start time; the whole grid is anchored to sunrise and moves with it.

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.
• The comparison with Ahmedabad on this page uses both cities’ centre coordinates. Two people on opposite edges of either metro would see a smaller difference between cities than between their own two positions on some dates.

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