User:Izmi/sandbox

Sant Kabir mentions pahar in one of his Dohas as below.

पाँच पहर धंधे गया, तीन पहर गया सोय ।

एक पहर हरि नाम बिन, मुक्ति कैसे होय ॥

Meaning : [You] Went to work for five pahars, slept remaining three pahars, how will you attain salvation without chanting holy name of Lord for at least one pahar?

Specific pahars
Each pahar of a 24-hour day-night cycle has a specific name and number. Traditionally, night and day were each allocated four pahars. The first day pahar (or din pahar) was timed to begin at sunrise and the first night pahar (raat pahar) was timed to begin at sunset. This meant that the day pahars were shorter than night pahars in winter, the opposite was true in summer, and they were exactly equal on the equinoxes. Thus, the length of the traditional pahar varied from about 2.5 hours to 3.5 hours in the Indo-Gangetic plains.

The first pahar of the day, known as pehla pahar (Hindustani: pehla, meaning first), corresponds to the early morning. The second pahar is called do-pahar (Hindustani: do, meaning second). In the common speech of North India, Pakistan and Nepal, dopahar (दोपहर or دوپہر) has come to be the generic term for afternoon or midday. The third pahar is called seh pahar (Persian:seh, meaning three) and has generically come to mean evening, though the term is less commonly used than shaam.

The word pahar/peher literally means a watch (i.e. period of guard-duty); the same root is seen in the Hindustani words pehra (meaning to stand guard) and pehredar (literally guard).