Date Selection — Muhurta in Vedic Astrology
Date selection is the choice of a time at which an undertaking meets the least resistance. In Jyotish this branch is called muhurta (from the Sanskrit for a stretch of time of about 48 minutes). Its premise is simple: an event inherits the qualities of the moment in which it was begun, so for anything important it is worth choosing a day and an hour that are not merely convenient but suitable by the indications of the sky.
Muhurta does not cancel the circumstances of a life and does not replace the natal chart. It will not make an unsuitable marriage happy, nor turn a weak idea into a profitable business. Its task is more modest and more practical: not to begin at the worst available moment and, where there is a choice, to take the best of it.
What muhurta is made of
The basis of the choice is the panchanga, the five parts of the day: vara (the weekday), tithi (the lunar day), nakshatra (the lunar mansion), yoga and karana. Each answers for its own: the vara sets the ruling planet of the day and the general character of the action, the tithi its nourishment and growth, the nakshatra its nature, while yoga and karana refine the picture.
To the panchanga are added the indicators calculated from the chart of the moment itself: the lagna (the rising sign) and the house responsible for the event; chandra bala, the position of the Moon relative to the Moon of the participant's natal chart; tara bala, the count of nakshatras from the natal one. Separately one checks that the eighth house of the moment is not afflicted and that the house responsible for the matter is free of malefics.
Vara: the day of the week
The ruler of the day sets its character, and a matter is begun on the day of its own planet. Monday (the Moon) suits home, water, food and changeable affairs. Tuesday (Mars) suits rivalry, surgery and land; for peaceful undertakings it is taken reluctantly. Wednesday (Mercury) is for trade, negotiation, study and paperwork. Thursday (Jupiter) is the most auspicious day of all: rites, marriage, the beginning of study, anything meant to grow. Friday (Venus) is for marriage, beauty, purchases and art. Saturday (Saturn) is for the long and the solid — foundations, hiring, repairs — and is not used for joyful events. Sunday (the Sun) is for authority, service, approaching superiors and treatment.
Tithi: the lunar day
The thirty tithis of the month fall into five groups of five, and a tithi's place in its group matters more than its number. Nanda (1, 6, 11) is joy and beginning; bhadra (2, 7, 12) is welfare and stability; jaya (3, 8, 13) is victory and contest; rikta (4, 9, 14) are the empty tithis, avoided for beginnings; purna (5, 10, 15) is fullness and completion.
The waxing Moon is held better than the waning: a matter begun in the shukla paksha grows along with it. Amavasya (the new moon) is excluded outright, and for worldly affairs so are the parva days: ashtami and chaturdashi of both cycles. The full moon suits completions and celebrations, but not the start of a long undertaking.
Nakshatra: the nature of the matter
The twenty-seven nakshatras are divided by character, and that division says directly which matter belongs in which. Dhruva, the fixed ones (Rohini, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada), are for what must stand a long time: building, planting, taking office. Chara, the movable (Swati, Punarvasu, Shravana, Dhanishta, Shatabhisha), are for the road, vehicles and moving house. Mridu, the soft (Mrigashira, Chitra, Anuradha, Revati), are for art, clothing, ornament, friendship and marriage. Kshipra, the swift (Ashwini, Pushya, Hasta), are for trade, treatment, short matters and everything that must be done at once.
Three groups are closed to ordinary beginnings: tikshna, the sharp (Mula, Jyeshtha, Ardra, Ashlesha), ugra, the fierce (Bharani, Magha, Purva Phalguni, Purva Ashadha, Purva Bhadrapada), and mishra, the mixed (Krittika, Vishakha).
Yoga and karana
The yoga is one of twenty-seven combinations of the summed longitude of the Sun and the Moon. Most are neutral, but several count as spoiled and are not used in muhurta: Vishkumbha (its first part), Atiganda, Shula, Ganda, Vyaghata, Vajra, Vyatipata, Parigha and Vaidhriti.
There are eleven karanas: seven movable ones recur through the month, four stand in fixed places around the new moon. One of them matters above all — vishti, also called bhadra: that stretch is closed to any auspicious beginning.
The lagna of the moment
The day is chosen by the panchanga, the hour by the rising sign. Three things are asked of the lagna: that it be strong and suited by nature to the matter (fixed signs for long undertakings, movable ones for travel and trade); that its lord be unafflicted and not placed in the sixth, eighth or twelfth house; and that the eighth house of the chart of the moment stay empty, since it answers for how long the undertaking will live.
Next comes the house of the event: the seventh for marriage and partnership, the fourth for home and land, the tenth for service and business, the second and eleventh for money, the fifth for children and creative work, the sixth for treatment and debts. That house and its lord should be free of malefics, and a benefic in it or aspecting it is the best confirmation of the choice.
Chandra bala and tara bala
A muhurta is chosen not in the abstract but for a particular person. Chandra bala is the position of the transiting Moon relative to the natal one: the fourth, eighth and twelfth houses from the natal Moon are held weak and are not used for beginnings. Tara bala is the count of nakshatras from the natal one: of the nine taras, janma (1), vipat (3), pratyari (5) and vadha (7) are unfavourable, while sampat (2), kshema (4), sadhaka (6), mitra (8) and parama mitra (9) are favourable.
Both are reckoned from the natal Moon and therefore need a correct birth time. If the time is approximate, it makes more sense to go through rectification first and select the date afterwards.
What is nearly always excluded
Some stretches of time count as unsuitable for any beginning: eclipses and the day around them; amavasya; the karana vishti (bhadra); gandanta, the junction of sign and nakshatra at the border of the water and fire signs; the combustion of Jupiter and Venus for family rites; the intercalary lunar month adhika masa; and the daily inauspicious stretches — rahu kala, yamaganda and gulika kala. A waning Moon in its last quarter and a weak, lightless Moon are undesirable too: in muhurta the Moon answers for the mind and for whether an undertaking takes root.
Rahu kala is found like this: the daylight from sunrise to sunset is divided into eight equal parts. On Monday the second is inauspicious, on Saturday the third, on Friday the fourth, on Wednesday the fifth, on Thursday the sixth, on Tuesday the seventh, on Sunday the eighth. The stretch lasts about an hour and a half and moves with sunrise, so it is calculated for your own city rather than taken from someone else's calendar.
There is also a stretch of the opposite kind — abhijit muhurta, the eighth of the fifteen daytime muhurtas, roughly twenty-four minutes around local noon. It counts as suitable for almost anything and often saves the day when the date is good but no free hour with a decent lagna can be found in it.
How to use all this
The order of work usually runs as follows. First one establishes which house and which planet answer for the event: the seventh house and Venus for marriage, the fourth and the Moon for a home, the tenth with Saturn and the Sun for service, the second and eleventh for money. Then the permissible days are selected by the panchanga, within the day a stretch with a suitable lagna is looked for, and only at the end is the result compared with the natal charts of the participants.
If there is no choice — the date is fixed, the tickets bought, the operation scheduled — muhurta is not turned into grounds for refusal. In that case one takes the best of the available stretches and does not postpone what is necessary: the classical texts say plainly that forced and urgent actions are not bound by the rules of time selection.
A common error is to hunt for a flawless date: there are more than a dozen indicators, and a day on which all of them agree falls a few times a year, usually not when it is needed. The second is to treat the chosen date as a guarantee: muhurta sets the conditions of the start, after which the matter lives by the natal charts of those involved and by their own periods.
Sections
The rules for particular events are set out in the subsections: wedding, conception, moving home, travel, buying property, buying a car, starting a business, launching a project, signing a contract, a major purchase, starting studies, starting a job, a medical procedure, an important meeting.
The calendar indicators — tithis, nakshatras, ekadashis, eclipses and the ingresses of the planets — are gathered in the calendar. It is also worth looking at siddha yoga: these are combinations of weekday and nakshatra that count as a ready-made muhurta for beginnings in their own right.
Where the rules come from
This section draws on the classical treatises on muhurta. The main ones are: the "Muhurta Chintamani" of Rama Daivajna (16th century) with its commentary "Piyusha Dhara", the fullest compendium, arranged by kinds of undertaking; the "Muhurta Martanda" of Narayana Daivajna; the "Muhurta Ganapati"; the "Muhurta Dipika"; the "Kalaprakashika", a short and convenient handbook of nakshatras and lagnas; the "Brihat Samhita" of Varahamihira, which gives chapters on marriage, building and setting out; the "Vivaha Vrindavana", devoted to wedding muhurta; and the "Dharma Sindhu" and "Nirnaya Sindhu" on calendar prohibitions and ritual timing.