This is a small box you can put on a yoga studio, Ayurveda centre or wellness website. It shows today’s kapha, pitta and vata parts of the day and of the night for one city, on that city’s own clock, and which part is running now. It moves on by itself as the parts change and as a new day begins, so there is nothing to update. It is free.
Choose your city and the colours below, check the preview, then copy the code and paste it into your page. Most site builders (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Google Sites) have an “embed” or “custom HTML” block for this. The box sets no cookies, stores nothing in the browser, runs no analytics and loads nothing from any other company: the box and its scripts come from this site, and the times are worked out in your visitor’s browser.
The code ends with one line of credit under the box, “Dosha clock by Nidarshana Vedh Ayurveda”, linking to the dosha clock page. Please keep that line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How it works
The rule comes from the Ashtanga Hridayam, Sutrasthana 1.8, which says that the doshas lead at the beginning, the middle and the end of the day and of the night: kapha at the beginning, pitta in the middle and vata at the end. The verse gives no clock hours. The box reads it the way the dosha clock does: the daytime runs from sunrise to sunset and the night from sunset to the next sunrise, and each is split into three equal parts, kapha, pitta and vata in that order. It uses the dosha clock’s own code and the same sunrise and sunset, for the upper edge of the Sun with standard refraction, so the box and the tool page show the same times to the minute.
Reading the widget
The box opens with the part running now and the time it ends. Before sunrise this is the last part of the night that began the evening before. Below it are the six parts of today, from this morning’s sunrise to tomorrow’s sunrise, with the part running now picked out. A part that ends after midnight shows the next date beside its end time. Under the list are the sunrise, the sunset and the next sunrise; a sunset after midnight, as in the far north in summer, shows its date too. All times are local clock time in the city, with daylight saving where the city keeps it.
Where traditions differ
Many teachers use fixed clock blocks instead: kapha from 6 to 10, pitta from 10 to 2 and vata from 2 to 6, in the morning and again in the evening. That is a later teaching convention and not a passage from a text. The box follows the sunrise reading, as the dosha clock and the daily routine planner on this site do, because the verse speaks of the beginning, middle and end of the day. The two readings agree best near the equinoxes in India and drift apart in summer and winter and far from the equator. The dosha clock page shows both side by side.
What it does not do
It does not tell anyone when to eat, sleep or take medicines, and no hour in it is good or bad for health. It describes a traditional rhythm and is educational only. Where the Sun does not rise or set on a date, as in the far north in midsummer and midwinter, the box says so and gives no times. Anyone who takes medicines at set times, has diabetes, works shifts, is pregnant or breastfeeding, or cares for a young child should keep the times their doctor has given them.