Muhurat and times of day
Muhurat in Vedic astrology
Updated
Muhurat: how the API computes it
The API answers two muhurat questions. The first is about the fixed windows of each day. GET /v1/panchang/daily returns abhijit muhurat, the 8th of the 15 daytime muhurats, around local noon (PA-10). Its bands list brahma muhurta before dawn and the dur muhurta periods to avoid. They also list pradosh (early night) and nishita (around midnight).
Bhadra and panchaka, two periods tradition avoids for some work, are there too. Each muhurat there is a fifteenth of the daylight or of the night. So it lasts 48 minutes only when day and night are equal.
The second question is when to start one activity. POST /v1/muhurta/{activity} searches a range of dates for windows that pass the rules for that activity (MU-06). The activities are buying a vehicle, buying property, moving into a new home (griha-pravesh) and marriage (vivah).
Every window lists the rules it passed. Nothing is scored or ranked, so if two windows pass, both come back. Add a birth chart, and each window gains for_you. It holds tara bala and chandra bala, two daily ratings for that person.
For a wedding, add the partner as well. Then suits_both says whether a window works for the couple. The rules were read from a published calendar and checked against a second year.
The response names that source.
Get it from the API
POST /v1/muhurta/vehicle
# New York, Nov 2, 2026 to Jan 31, 2027
curl -X POST "https://apiforastrology.com/api/astrology/v1/muhurta/vehicle" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ASTROLOGY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"from":"2026-11-02","to":"2027-01-31","latitude":40.7128,"longitude":-74.006,"timezone":"America/New_York"}'{
"activity": {
"slug": "vehicle",
"name": "Buying a vehicle (car, bike)"
},
"place": {
"latitude": 40.7128,
"longitude": -74.006,
"timezone": -5,
"timezone_info": {
"source": "zone",
"offset_hours": -5,
"zone": "America/New_York",
"abbreviation": "EST",
"dst": false,
"dst_hours": 0,
"ambiguous_resolved_by_fold": null,
"note": "read from the IANA tz database at this instant, so daylight saving and historical offset changes are included"
}
},
"from": "2026-11-02",
"to": "2027-01-31",
"windows": [
{
"date": "2026-11-06",
"weekday": "Friday",
"starts": "2026-11-06T06:32:19-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-07T00:18:24-05:00",
"minutes": 1066,
"nakshatras": [
"Hast",
"Chitra"
],
"tithis": [
"Trayodashi"
],
"rules": [
{
"id": "MS-01",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the nakshatra is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Hast",
"Chitra"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-02",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the tithi is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Trayodashi (krishna)"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-03",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the weekday (sunrise to sunrise) is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Friday"
]
}
],
"within_it": {
"rahu_kaal": {
"starts": "2026-11-06T10:22:38-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-06T11:39:24-05:00"
}
}
},
{
"date": "2026-11-15",
"weekday": "Sunday",
"starts": "2026-11-15T12:59:06-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-15T15:31:40-05:00",
"minutes": 153,
"nakshatras": [
"Shravan"
],
"tithis": [
"Shashthi"
],
"rules": [
{
"id": "MS-01",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the nakshatra is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Shravan"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-02",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the tithi is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Shashthi (shukla)"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-03",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the weekday (sunrise to sunrise) is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Sunday"
]
}
],
"within_it": {
"rahu_kaal": {
"starts": "2026-11-15T15:23:34-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-15T16:37:56-05:00"
}
}
},
{
"date": "2026-11-16",
"weekday": "Monday",
"starts": "2026-11-16T17:50:08-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-17T06:45:16-05:00",
"minutes": 775,
"nakshatras": [
"Dhanishtha"
],
"tithis": [
"Ashtami"
],
"rules": [
{
"id": "MS-01",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the nakshatra is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Dhanishtha"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-02",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the tithi is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Ashtami (shukla)"
]
},
{
"id": "MS-03",
"status": "pass",
"rule": "the weekday (sunrise to sunrise) is one the activity allows",
"seen": [
"Monday"
]
}
],
"within_it": {
"bhadra": [
{
"starts": "2026-11-16T17:50:08-05:00",
"ends": "2026-11-17T06:47:49-05:00"
}
]
}
}
],
"count": 25,
"personal": false,
"see_also": null,
"about": {
"text": [
"These are good times to buy a car, a bike or any vehicle. Each time is chosen from the Hindu calendar. They look at the nakshatra (the star the Moon is in), the tithi (the lunar day) and the weekday.",
"The rules come from a published calendar and were checked against it, window by window. Pick any window that fits your plans."
],
"gaps": [],
"language": "en",
"detail": "standard"
},
"age": null,
"age_window": null,
"special_days": null,
"postponed_to": null,
"not_applied": {
"rahu_kaal": "published windows run straight through rahu kaal; it is returned beside each window, not cut out",
"bhadra": "163 hours of Vishti karana fall inside the published 2026 windows, including bhadra with the Moon in Karka, Kumbha and Meena -- so neither bhadra nor \"bhadra on earth\" is an exclusion here",
"panchaka": "Dhanishtha, Shatabhisha and Revati appear in the published windows",
"yoga": "every one of the 27 yogas, Vyatipata and Vaidhriti included, appears inside a published window",
"lagna": "the page names chara and dvisvabhava lagnas as good, but windows run for up to a day across every lagna; it is reported per window, not used to cut"
},
"not_computed": {
"varjyam": "read from a 27-row table of ghati offsets per nakshatra; not reproduced until the table is verified against a source",
"amrit_kaal": "same table family as varjyam; same reason",
"godhuli": "sources give different spans around sunset"
},
"provenance": {
"source": "A widely used published calendar, vehicle purchase muhurat, New Delhi (geoname 1261481), fetched 2026-09-16",
"derived_from": 2026,
"checked_on": 2027,
"agreement": {
"2026": "every one of the 88 published windows reproduced within 3 minutes at both ends; 96% of the hours returned are published hours",
"2027": "all 112 published windows reproduced within 3 minutes at both ends; 98.8% of the hours returned are published hours. Two of them needed MS-11, found afterwards on the property calendar"
}
},
"not_claimed": [
"no window is ranked above another and none is scored. Every returned window passes every rule of the activity",
"the rules are the published calendar's, measured against it window by window, not a single tradition's final word; a family astrologer may weigh further factors, and the payload names what is not applied so that is visible"
]
}Where the API returns it
| POST | /v1/muhurta/{activity} | Muhurta: good times to start an activity |
| GET | /v1/panchang/daily | Daily panchang for a date and place, no birth data |
| POST | /v1/transits/over/{graha} | When a transiting planet passes over a birth-chart point |
| POST | /v1/reading/daily | Daily reading for a chart |
| GET | /v1/rashi/{sign}/today | Daily reading for a Moon sign, no chart |
What the API reference says
Each line is quoted from the reference page of the endpoint named above it.
- POST /v1/muhurta/{activity} · Muhurta: good times to start an activityA muhurta is a good time to start something, chosen from the Hindu calendar.
- GET /v1/panchang/daily · Daily panchang for a date and place, no birth dataThe muhurta and festival endpoints use these same periods.
Feature page: Panchang and muhurat. Who uses it: Publishers and media. The classical rules the API follows are in the rulebook.
How we check the numbers
Every value here starts from planet positions worked out from NASA JPL planet data (DE440). We test them against NASA JPL Horizons, NASA's planet position service. On 25,571 positions from 1850 to 2149, the Sun and planets agree within 0.001 arc seconds. The Moon agrees within 0.011. On 2,000 random birth charts, the rising sign agrees with Swiss Ephemeris within 0.004 arc seconds. An arc second is 1/3,600 of a degree. A practicing astrologer reviews the rules behind these answers. See how we test.
Related terms
Free tools
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Today's panchang
Tithi (lunar day), nakshatra, sunrise, rahu kaal and the choghadiya (good and bad parts of the day) for your own city.
See today's panchang
From the blog
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Your first answer
John Doe, New York
- RisingVirgoHast
- SunCancerAshlesha
- MoonTaurusMrigashira
- MarsAriesKrittika
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