Hora sequence
How the hora sequence runs through the night
The 24 horas follow one order of seven planets that never restarts, which is why each sunrise begins with the next weekday’s planet. See two days of horas.
01 · Seven planets, twenty-four horas
The sequence runs on through the night, and lands on the next weekday’s planet at sunrise.
The horas follow one fixed order of seven planets and never restart at sunset. Twenty-four horas is three full rounds of seven plus three more, so each sunrise’s first hora is three places on from the last sunrise’s, and that is the next weekday’s planet.
One order, never restarted
A Panchang day has 24 horas, twelve from sunrise to sunset and twelve from sunset to the next sunrise, as how Hora and Choghadiya divide the same day shows. Each hora belongs to one of the seven classical planets, taken in a fixed order:
Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, then Sun again.
The order does not restart at sunset or at sunrise. The first night hora simply follows the last day hora, and the first hora of the next day follows the last night hora.
Why the next day starts where it does
Twenty-four horas are three complete rounds of seven, which is 21, plus three more. So each day’s run ends three places further round the cycle than it began, and the next sunrise begins three places on. Starting from the Sun on Sunday, three places on is the Moon, then Mars, then Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn: the weekday order, Sunday to Saturday. The first hora of each day is the planet of that day’s vaar.
In Delhi on Sunday 21 June 2026 the horas ran Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and round again; the 24th, just before Monday’s sunrise, was Mercury, and Monday began with the Moon. The same holds on 20 December, though every day hora was 18 minutes shorter and every night hora 18 minutes longer.
Where the order comes from
The seven-planet order is the old ranking of the planets from slowest to fastest against the stars: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. The horas run through it in that direction, starting from the Sun and wrapping from the Moon back to Saturn. The weekday names in many languages come from the same scheme, which is why the hora sequence and the week agree. The hora guide gives the traditional use of each planet’s hora.
See today’s horas on the Delhi Panchang, or explore another topic in Learn.