Yamagandam

What yamagandam is, and how it is calculated

Yamagandam — also written yamaganda or yama kandam — is the eighth of the day associated with Yama, who in the tradition presides over death and, by extension, over endings and over time itself. Like rahu kalam it marks a stretch of daylight that observant families keep clear of new undertakings, particularly journeys.

The daylight period — sunrise to sunset — is divided into eight equal parts, and one of them is assigned to this window by the day of the week. Because the parts are fractions of daylight rather than fixed clock hours, each one stretches in summer and contracts in winter, and each falls at a different clock time in every city. A window that runs 90 minutes in June may run 75 in December, and Hyderabad's will not be Delhi's.

Its weekday assignment differs from rahu kalam's: Sunday takes the fifth part, Monday the fourth, Tuesday the third, Wednesday the second, Thursday the first, Friday the seventh and Saturday the sixth. Read down that list and the pattern is visible — the window walks steadily earlier from Sunday to Thursday before jumping to the end of the day for Friday and Saturday.

In practice yamagandam is observed less widely than rahu kalam, and where both are kept, rahu kalam usually takes precedence when a decision has to be made. Neither is treated as a prohibition. The convention is about choosing a good hour when you have a choice, not about refusing to live during a bad one.

Every figure here is computed from the sunrise and sunset of the city in the header, so the window shifts through the year and differs between places by as much as the sunrise does.

Counted from sunrise. The width of each part is one-eighth of that day's daylight, so it changes with the season.