Choose a town or city above, and a date if you want a day other than today, and this free tool gives the Amrit kaal and the Varjyam that begin between that day’s sunrise and the next sunrise, in your local time, with the nakshatra each one belongs to. It also lists the nakshatras of the day, and when the date is today it says whether either window is running now.
How it works
Both windows are set inside a nakshatra, not by the clock. Each nakshatra is counted as sixty ghatis of its own length, so a ghati here is a sixtieth of the time the Moon takes to cross that nakshatra. Varjyam, also called thyajyam and, in North India, visha ghati, is four of those ghatis starting at a set ghati for each nakshatra; Amrit kaal is four ghatis starting at another set ghati. Since the Moon’s speed changes, a nakshatra lasts between 20.8 and 27.2 hours over the years 1900 to 2074, and each window between 83 and 109 minutes.
The tool takes the Moon’s position from NASA JPL DE440 with the Lahiri ayanamsa, finds the start and end of every nakshatra to the second, and places the windows by the table. The starting ghatis follow Drik Panchang’s daily pages. For Varjyam they are the same as the thyajyam table it publishes (Ashwini ghatis 51 to 54, Bharani 25 to 28, and so on), and for Moola its daily pages give two windows, ghatis 21 to 24 and 57 to 60, so the tool gives both.
Reading the result
The answer gives the Amrit kaal and the Varjyam that start on the day you chose; a panchang day runs from sunrise to the next sunrise, so a window after midnight still belongs to it, and a window that started before sunrise belongs to the day before and is mentioned separately. A day can have one of each, two of one, or none, because nakshatras do not line up with days. The table shows each window with its nakshatra and its ghatis, and the nakshatras of the day with their start and end.
Drik Panchang lists Amrit kaal among the auspicious timings of the day and Varjyam among the inauspicious ones: tradition counts the first as good for a beginning and keeps new beginnings out of the second. Neither is a reason to stop ordinary work.
How we checked it
We compared the tool with 49 of Drik Panchang’s daily pages, 43 days in New Delhi and 6 in New York, between October 2026 and August 2027. Every day had the same number of windows. All 51 Varjyam windows, covering all 27 nakshatras and Moola’s second window, and all 47 Amrit kaal windows, covering all 27 nakshatras, started and ended in the same minute or one minute later in our list. We also recomputed the nakshatras and windows at 17 places and dates with the Swiss Ephemeris (pyswisseph, sidereal Lahiri): every start and end agreed within two seconds.
Where traditions differ
Drik Panchang describes thyajyam as part of Tamil astrology, and published tables do not always agree. Its own thyajyam table gives Moola only ghatis 57 to 60, while its daily pages mark ghatis 21 to 24 as well. That table also gives each window as degrees of the Moon; counting the ghatis by the Moon’s degrees instead of by time moves a window by 2.5 minutes on average and at most 6 minutes (every Varjyam of 2026 and 2027). We follow the times in Drik Panchang’s daily pages, as checked above. If your family follows a particular almanac, its times are the ones to keep.
What it does not do
It does not give Rahu kaal, Yamaganda or the dur muhurat; for those, see today’s timings and the dur muhurat tool. It does not compare the day’s nakshatra with your birth star. For the nakshatra at any single moment, use the nakshatra at a date and time tool.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is Varjyam?
Varjyam, or thyajyam, is a window of four ghatis in each nakshatra that tradition keeps new beginnings out of. Where it falls inside the nakshatra is set by a table for each of the 27 nakshatras.
↳ What is Amrit kaal?
Amrit kaal is a window of four ghatis in each nakshatra that tradition counts as good for a beginning. Like Varjyam, its place inside the nakshatra is set by a table.
↳ How long are Amrit kaal and Varjyam?
Four ghatis of the nakshatra, which over the years 1900 to 2074 comes to between 83 and 109 minutes, depending on how fast the Moon is moving.
↳ Why is there no Varjyam on some days?
A nakshatra lasts about a day, but not exactly, so on some days the Varjyam of one nakshatra starts before sunrise and the next one starts after the following sunrise. On other days two of them fall in one day.
↳ Why does Moola have two Varjyam windows?
Drik Panchang's daily pages mark two windows in Moola, ghatis 21 to 24 and 57 to 60, and the tool follows them.
↳ Are Amrit kaal and Varjyam the same in every city?
They follow the nakshatras, which change at the same moment everywhere, so the windows are at the same moment too. Only the clock time and sometimes the date differ, so choose your own town or city.