Chennai Panchang January 2026

In January 2026 the sun rises in Chennai as early as 06:31 on all 3 days from Thursday 1 January to Saturday 3 January and as late as 06:35 on all 17 days from Thursday 15 January to Saturday 31 January — a spread of 4 minutes across the month. Sunset moves from 17:53 on Thursday 1 January to 18:09 on Saturday 31 January. The longest daylight is 11h 34m on Saturday 31 January and the shortest 11h 22m on Thursday 1 January.

That matters more than it sounds, because Rahu Kaal, Gulika and Yamaghanta are each one eighth of the interval from sunrise to sunset rather than fixed clock spans — so in Chennai in January 2026 an eighth runs from 85 minutes to 87 minutes, and a table quoting a flat ninety minutes is wrong here by up to 5 minutes. Rahu Kaal on 1 January, a Thursday, is 13:37-15:03 — the 6th of those eight parts, which is the one a Thursday always takes.

Because the weekday chooses the part, Rahu Kaal’s position on the clock swings much further than sunrise does. Across January 2026 in Chennai it begins as early as 07:57 on 5 January, a Monday, and as late as 16:40 on 25 January, a Sunday — 8h 42m apart, against a sunrise spread of only 4 minutes. There is no single “Rahu Kaal time” to memorise, here or anywhere.

Chennai sits 3.06° east of New Delhi, which on longitude alone would put its sunrise 12 minutes earlier. Measured against the national table it actually runs from 43 minutes earlier to 34 minutes earlier across January 2026. It is a range rather than a constant because latitude bends the figure with the season while longitude only shifts it, and here that bend is worth 9 minutes across the month. On the worst day in the table below the national panchang’s Rahu Kaal begins 35 minutes from Chennai’s. A national table would get Chennai’s tithi right and every one of its times wrong.

Tithi, nakshatra, yoga and karana are the same everywhere in India and are read at sunrise from the same DE421 table the rest of the site uses — listed here for completeness, not because they differ by city: across these 31 sunrises the nakshatra takes 27 of its 27 values and the tithi 29 of its 30. In January 2026 Purnima falls on 3 January; Amavasya on 18 January; the two Ekadashis on 14 January and 29 January.