/v1/panchang/hora

Planetary hora ruling at moment.

What this tells you

Hora is the Vedic hour. Unlike the fixed 60-minute hour, a day hora is 1/12th of the time from sunrise to sunset and a night hora is 1/12th of the time from sunset to the next sunrise. So summer day horas are longer than 60 minutes and night horas are shorter. Each hora is ruled by one of the 7 planets in the fixed Chaldean sequence, starting with the weekday lord at sunrise. Astrologers use hora for fine-grained muhurta, e.g. "start the meeting in a Jupiter hora". This endpoint returns all 24 horas of the date in one call. For fixed 60-minute horas use /v1/panchang/hora-dinman.

Request

All requests require an Authorization header with your dv_live_* API key.

example request

curl "https://api.lifeastroapi.com/v1/panchang/hora?date=2027-01-15&tz=Asia%2FKolkata&lat=28.6139&lon=77.209" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Query parameters

Checked against the API: a parameter is marked required when the request fails without it.

Name	Required	Example	Description
`date`	yes	`2027-01-15`	Date (YYYY-MM-DD).
`tz`	yes	`Asia/Kolkata`	Timezone: IANA name (Asia/Kolkata) or UTC offset (+05:30).
`lat`	yes	`28.6139`	Latitude in decimal degrees.
`lon`	yes	`77.209`	Longitude in decimal degrees.

Response (200 OK)

The real response to the example request above, generated from the API itself. Long arrays are trimmed to their first two items. Field names are stable across versions.

200 response

{
  "date": "2027-01-15",
  "location": {
    "lat": 28.6139,
    "lon": 77.209,
    "alt": 0
  },
  "tz": "Asia/Kolkata",
  "horas": [
    {
      "index": 1,
      "lord": "Venus",
      "is_day_hora": true,
      "window": {
        "start_jd": 2461420.572762,
        "end_jd": 2461420.609306,
        "start_local": "2027-01-15 07:14:47",
        "end_local": "2027-01-15 08:07:24"
      }
    },
    {
      "index": 2,
      "lord": "Mercury",
      "is_day_hora": true,
      "window": {
        "start_jd": 2461420.609306,
        "end_jd": 2461420.645849,
        "start_local": "2027-01-15 08:07:24",
        "end_local": "2027-01-15 09:00:01"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Field reference

Every field in the response, with its type, a real example, and what it means.

Field	Type	Meaning
date	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	The requested date. The horas run from this date's sunrise to the next sunrise. example: `"2027-01-15"`
location	object	Echo of lat, lon and alt (metres). example: `{ "lat": 28.6139, "lon": 77.209, "alt": 0 }`
tz	string	Echo of the tz you sent. All *_local times are in this zone. example: `"Asia/Kolkata"`
horas	array (24 items)	All 24 horas of the day: 12 day horas (sunrise to sunset), then 12 night horas (sunset to next sunrise). example: `[…]`
horas[].index	integer (1–24)	1 = first hora after sunrise, 13 = first hora after sunset. example: `1`
horas[].lord	string	Planet that rules the hora: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn. Translated when you pass `locale` (e.g. locale=hi). example: `"Venus"` Jyotish: The first hora of the day belongs to the weekday lord. Each later hora takes the next planet in the Chaldean order Saturn → Jupiter → Mars → Sun → Venus → Mercury → Moon.
horas[].is_day_hora	boolean	true for horas 1–12 (sunrise to sunset), false for 13–24. example: `true`
horas[].window.start_jd / end_jd	number	Start and end of the hora as Julian Day in UT. example: `2461420.572762`
horas[].window.start_local / end_local	string (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)	Start and end of the hora in local time (request tz). example: `"2027-01-15 07:14:47"`

Usage tips

How to use it

Build a daily hora ribbon
One call returns all 24 horas. Render them as 12 day cells and 12 night cells, and mark the current hora by comparing the current time with `window.start_jd` / `window.end_jd`.
For travel, use Moon or Mercury hora
Classical picks: Moon hora for travel, Jupiter for study, Venus for romance, Mercury for communication.
Cache per date and place
The horas depend only on the date and the location; the `time` parameter does not change them. Cache the response keyed by (date, lat, lon) for 24 hours.

Errors

Every error follows the same envelope. Use the error.code field (not the message) for conditional logic in your integration.

401 Unauthorized

{
  "error": {
    "code": "unauthorized",
    "message": "missing or invalid API key",
    "request_id": "req_01hqy7k8c3e7m1n"
  }
}

402 Payment Required

{
  "error": {
    "code": "trial_exhausted",
    "message": "your free trial credits are exhausted — pick a plan to continue",
    "top_up_url": "https://lifeastroapi.com/pricing",
    "request_id": "req_01hqy7k8c3e7m1n"
  }
}

429 Too Many Requests

{
  "error": {
    "code": "rate_limited",
    "message": "rate limit exceeded; retry after 12 seconds",
    "request_id": "req_01hqy7k8c3e7m1n"
  }
}

Try it

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