--- title: "Yamaganda Kaal: Jupiter's Eighth Part" slug: "yamaganda-kaal" canonical_url: "https://mahadasha.com/yamaganda-kaal" description: "Yamaganda Kaal turns out to be Jupiter's own eighth part of the daylight on all seven weekdays, which means the table is derived, not arbitrary." published_date: "2026-08-05 09:00:00" modified_date: "2026-08-05 09:00:00" author: "Pawan Acharya" keywords: "yamaganda kaal, yamaganda kalam, yamaganda timing today, yamagandam calculation, inauspicious time, panchang windows" locale: "en" --- # Yamaganda Kaal: Jupiter's Eighth Part > Yamaganda is usually taught as a table of seven numbers. Search the eighth-parts for Jupiter and the same seven numbers fall out on their own. # Yamaganda Kaal: Jupiter's Eighth Part Yamaganda Kaal is the second of the three inauspicious eighth-parts of the daylight, sitting alongside Rahu Kaal and Gulika Kaal. Like them it takes one of the eight equal divisions between sunrise and sunset, and which one depends on the weekday. It is almost always taught as a list of seven numbers to memorise. It is not a list. Every one of those seven numbers is the answer to the same question, and once you know the question you never need the table again. ## The question behind the table Deal the seven planetary lords onto the eight parts of the day, starting from the lord of that weekday and running in weekday order: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. On a Sunday the day's lord is the Sun, so part 1 is the Sun's, part 2 the Moon's, part 3 Mars's, part 4 Mercury's, part 5 Jupiter's. On a Monday it starts with the Moon, so Jupiter arrives one place earlier, at part 4. On a Tuesday, starting with Mars, Jupiter is at part 3. On a Wednesday, part 2. On a Thursday, Jupiter's own day, part 1. Now compare that with the traditional Yamaganda table, counting parts from sunrise: - Sunday: part 5 - Monday: part 4 - Tuesday: part 3 - Wednesday: part 2 - Thursday: part 1 - Friday: part 7 - Saturday: part 6 They are the same seven numbers. Yamaganda Kaal is Jupiter's eighth part of the day, on every weekday without exception. Friday and Saturday wrap around, since after Thursday the count starts over from the far end of the cycle, which is why the sequence reads 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and then jumps to 7 and 6 rather than continuing downward. We checked this against the site's own engine for all seven days and it holds in every case. The same search for Saturn produces [Gulika Kaal](https://mahadasha.com/gulika-kaal) , also on all seven days. The same search for Rahu produces nothing at all, because Rahu owns no hora, which is why [Rahu Kaal timing](https://mahadasha.com/rahu-kaal-timing) really does have to be memorised. ## Why the benefic gets the bad window This is the part that gives people pause. Jupiter is the great benefic. Guru. The graha you want strong in a chart. Why would his portion of the day be the one to avoid? The name helps. Yama is death, and *ganda* is a knot or a critical juncture, the same root that gives the Ganda and Atiganda yogas their names. So Yamaganda is not describing a malefic influence in the ordinary sense. It marks a juncture, a joint in the day. There is a coherent reading here, and it is worth stating without overclaiming. A benefic's hour is when things are most likely to be set in motion successfully, which makes it the worst hour to set the wrong thing in motion. The tradition does not explain itself on this point and the texts simply assign the window, so treat that as an interpretation rather than a doctrine. What is certain is the arithmetic: the window is Jupiter's, and it can be recovered rather than remembered. It is worth keeping the two Jupiters apart while you are here. Guru's hour being unfavourable for beginnings says nothing about Guru in a chart, where he remains the most protective of the nine and is read house by house in [Jupiter in different houses](https://mahadasha.com/jupiter-in-different-houses) . A timing window and a natal placement are not the same claim about the same planet. ## How long it runs, and where An eighth of the daylight, so the same stretch and slide as its companions. At Delhi across 2026 that meant roughly 77 minutes at the winter solstice and 104 at the summer one, moving with sunrise through the year. Its position through the week is more orderly than Rahu Kaal's. Because Jupiter advances one place earlier each day from Sunday to Thursday, Yamaganda walks steadily toward the morning across those five days, reaching the first part of the day on Thursday and then wrapping to the late afternoon on Friday and Saturday. That gives a practical rule of thumb worth more than the numbers. Early in the week the window sits mid-morning to midday; by Thursday it is the first thing after sunrise; on Friday and Saturday it has jumped to the last third of the afternoon. Set the daylight to a round twelve hours, sunrise at 06:00, and the walk is easy to see. Sunday 12:00 to 13:30. Monday 10:30 to 12:00. Tuesday 09:00 to 10:30. Wednesday 07:30 to 09:00. Thursday 06:00 to 07:30, the first ninety minutes of the day. Then Friday 15:00 to 16:30 and Saturday 13:30 to 15:00. Five days of steady retreat toward sunrise, then a jump to the far end. Anyone who has wondered why Thursday morning carries a caution in some traditions has the answer there: on Jupiter's own day, Jupiter's part is the first one, so the window opens the moment the Sun does. As with every table of this kind, those clock times assume a twelve-hour day that almost never occurs. They show the pattern, not the answer for your date. ## A worked example Take the same Wednesday used elsewhere in this cluster, 5 August 2026 at Delhi. The Sun was up from 05:45:50 until 19:08:12, giving eight parts of 100.3 minutes, and Wednesday puts Jupiter in part 2. Part 2 begins one part after sunrise, so add 100.3 minutes: 07:26. It closes at 09:06. The calculator returns 07:26:07 to 09:06:25 for that date, which matches. Note where the other two fell that day. Gulika ran 10:46 to 12:27, Rahu Kaal 12:27 to 14:07. All three inside the working day, all three about an hour and forty minutes, and none of them overlapping, since each takes a different one of the eight parts. Three eighths of that Wednesday's daylight carried a caution of some kind, which is five hours out of thirteen and a fair illustration of why these windows are weighed rather than obeyed absolutely. ## How seriously to take Yamaganda Kaal Of the three, Yamaganda is generally regarded as less severe than Rahu Kaal and is much less widely observed in daily practice. In South Indian tradition it is consulted more often than in the north, where Rahu Kaal dominates almost entirely. The restriction is the familiar one: avoid beginnings, particularly journeys and anything involving a formal undertaking. Work already in progress is unaffected. And as with all of these, it applies to the daylight only, since the eight parts are defined on the sunrise to sunset span. You will meet the window under several names, which makes searching for it harder than it should be. Yamagandam is the usual Tamil and Telugu form and is by far the most common spelling in South Indian almanacs. Yamakantaka appears in some Sanskrit sources, where *kantaka* means a thorn, and a few texts treat Yamakantaka as a separately computed point rather than as this window at all. If two almanacs disagree about where Yamaganda falls, checking whether they mean the same quantity is the first thing to do. Journeys attract the strongest version of the restriction, and specifically travel toward a particular direction on a particular day, which belongs to a related but separate system called disha shool. That system uses the weekday too, so the two are often printed side by side and just as often confused. They are independent: one restricts a time, the other a direction. If you are trying to find a clean window in a given day rather than avoid a dirty one, the more efficient approach is to work from [Choghadiya muhurat](https://mahadasha.com/choghadiya-muhurat) , which partitions the same daylight into eight labelled slots, and then check that your chosen slot does not collide with any of the three. That method is set out in [auspicious and inauspicious days](https://mahadasha.com/auspicious-and-inauspicious-days) . ## Frequently asked questions ### What is Yamaganda Kaal? One of the eight equal parts of the daylight, held inauspicious for beginnings. It is Jupiter's part on every weekday, which is why the traditional table reads 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 7, 6 from Sunday. ### Is Yamaganda worse than Rahu Kaal? Generally considered less severe, and much less widely observed. The two never overlap, since they occupy different eighth-parts of the same day. ### How long does Yamaganda Kaal last? One eighth of the daylight. At Delhi that ranges from about 77 minutes near the winter solstice to about 104 near the summer one, and it varies with latitude as well as season. ### Can I work out the window without a table? Yes. Deal the seven lords onto the day's parts starting from the weekday's own lord, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and take Jupiter's. That reproduces the table exactly. The [panchang calculator](https://mahadasha.com/panchang-calculator) computes it from your own sunrise and sunset. For the weekday that fixes it, see [vara in panchang](https://mahadasha.com/vara-in-panchang) .