Shubh Muhurat · Vedic Timing
Shortlist the days that qualify
Pick an occasion and a month. We apply that occasion’s classical filters — tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga, karana — to the computed panchang for every day, and show what passed, what failed and why, and which stretches of the year are closed outright.
Occasion
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The closed periods in 2026
Some stretches of the year are shut for auspicious beginnings whatever the day’s panchang says. Most of these move substantially from year to year — and one of them, the intercalary month, does not exist in most years at all — which is why a list carried forward from an earlier year is unsafe.
- Shukra asta 26 November – 17 February
- Dhanu Kharmas 16 December – 14 January
- Holashtak 23 February – 2 March · regional
- Meena Kharmas 15 March – 14 April
- Adhika Jyeshtha 17 May – 15 June
- Guru asta 14 July – 13 August
- Chaturmas 25 July – 20 November
- Shukra asta 18 October – 30 October
- Dhanu Kharmas (next) 16 December – 14 January
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Book a full pujaWhat a muhurat actually is
A muhurat is an elected moment — a window chosen so that the planetary conditions at the start of an undertaking support it. The premise of Muhurta Shastra is that a beginning carries the signature of the moment it was made, which is why weddings, griha pravesh, business openings, naming ceremonies and the purchase of property are all traditionally timed rather than simply scheduled.
As a unit, one muhurta is a fixed division of the day: a thirtieth part, roughly forty-eight minutes. The daylight period holds fifteen of them, and Vedic timekeeping runs them from sunrise rather than from midnight — which is why a muhurat table for the same date differs from city to city.
The five limbs the calculation rests on
Muhurta is read from the panchang, whose five limbs are tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga and karana. Each contributes a constraint. The fourth, ninth and fourteenth tithis are the Rikta or 'empty' ones and are avoided for anything meant to endure, as is Amavasya; the eighth is avoided too for the samskaras — a marriage, a griha pravesh, a naming — though not usually for a purchase. Certain nakshatras are favoured for particular work: the four fixed ones, Rohini, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha and Uttara Bhadrapada, for anything meant to last. Among the karanas, Vishti — also called Bhadra — is avoided outright, and nine of the twenty-seven yogas are held inauspicious.
The weekday matters too, both in itself and through its ruling planet. Beyond the five limbs, a proper election also checks the Moon's position relative to the person's own birth chart, the strength of the lagna rising in the chosen window, and whether the relevant house lord is well disposed at that moment.
Rahu Kaal, Yamaganda, Gulika and the daily inauspicious windows
Every day carries fixed inauspicious stretches, and they are the first thing a muhurat has to avoid. Rahu Kaal is one-eighth of the daylight period — about ninety minutes when day and night are close to equal — and its slot rotates through the week by weekday. Yamaganda and Gulika Kaal are further eighth-parts, assigned the same way.
Because these are computed as fractions of the interval between sunrise and sunset, they shift with the season and with your longitude. A Rahu Kaal table for Delhi is simply wrong for Chennai, sometimes by more than half an hour, and this is the most common reason two apps disagree.
Abhijit Muhurat and the reliably auspicious windows
The best-known favourable window is Abhijit Muhurat, the eighth muhurta of the day — the roughly forty-eight minutes centred on local midday. It is traditionally held to be auspicious for most undertakings without further checking, with the standard exception that it is not used for south-facing travel, and it is not counted on Wednesdays in some traditions.
Brahma Muhurat, the window of about ninety-six minutes before sunrise, is the other widely observed one, though it is prescribed for study, meditation and worship rather than for transactions. Amrit Kaal and the Choghadiya divisions give further favourable slots, and Choghadiya in particular is what shopkeepers and travellers in western India consult day to day.
What this tool gives you
Pick an occasion and a month, and this page runs that occasion's classical filters over every day of the month: the favoured and avoided tithis, the preferred weekdays, the nakshatras assigned to that particular kind of work, the nine inauspicious yogas and the Vishti karana. It then removes the days that fall inside a period closed to new beginnings altogether — Kharmas, an intercalary Adhika maas, Chaturmas, Holashtak, or a spell when Jupiter or Venus is combust. What survives is a shortlist, and every day on it is shown with the panchang values that qualified it.
Two things follow from that, and both are the point. Every day it rejects is listed with the rule that rejected it, so you can check the whole thing against your own panchang instead of taking it on trust. And some months come back with nothing — a genuine answer, and the reason a tool that always returns four or five dates cannot be reading a panchang at all.
It is not an elected muhurat and it does not claim to be one. A wedding, a griha pravesh or the founding of a business is timed against the birth charts of the people involved: the lagna rising in the chosen window, the Moon's position relative to the natal chart, the disposition of the relevant house lord. That is a second pass no calendar can do. This is the first pass — narrowing a month to a handful of candidate days — which is the part a calendar can do honestly.
Frequently asked questions
What is Rahu Kaal and should I avoid it?
It is one-eighth of the daylight period — around ninety minutes — considered inauspicious for beginning anything new, with its slot rotating by weekday. Traditional practice avoids starting journeys, signing agreements or opening ventures during it, while ongoing work continues unaffected. Because it is a fraction of sunrise to sunset, its clock time changes with your city and the season.
What is Abhijit Muhurat?
The eighth muhurta of the day — roughly the forty-eight minutes centred on local midday. It is held to be auspicious for most undertakings without needing further checks, which makes it the usual fallback when no elected muhurat is available. The standard exceptions are travel to the south, and in some traditions Wednesdays.
Why does the muhurat differ between two websites?
Because every window is calculated from local sunrise and sunset, so latitude and longitude change the result — a Delhi table can be half an hour out for Chennai. Beyond that, panchang calculations differ by ayanamsa and by which regional tradition's tithi and nakshatra tables are used.
Why does this page return so few dates for a marriage?
Because it applies every limb at once instead of weighing them. A vivah date wants a favoured tithi, one of the ten vivah nakshatras, one of the four preferred weekdays, a yoga that is not among the nine inauspicious ones and a karana that is not Vishti — and the day must also fall outside Kharmas, Chaturmas, an Adhika maas and any spell when Jupiter or Venus is combust. Those conditions rarely coincide, and in a year carrying an intercalary month they coincide less often still. Printed lists look longer because they trade one limb against another, which is a judgement rather than a calculation, so this page shows the days that are one rule short separately instead of quietly folding them in.
Why are whole months closed for weddings and griha pravesh?
Five kinds of period close regardless of the day's panchang: Kharmas, while the Sun transits Sagittarius and later Pisces; an Adhika maas, the intercalary lunar month that occurs in roughly one year in three; Chaturmas, from Devshayani Ekadashi to Dev Uthani Ekadashi; Holashtak, the eight days before Holika Dahan, observed across much of North India but not in the south or Bengal; and Guru or Shukra asta, when Jupiter or Venus sits within about ten degrees of the Sun. The last one is the one printed lists skip, because unlike the others it cannot be worked out from a calendar — it needs an ephemeris for that specific year.
Do I need a pandit if I have a muhurat calculator?
For routine timing, a calculator is enough. For a wedding, a griha pravesh, a naming ceremony or a business launch, no — those are elected against the birth charts of the people involved, checking the lagna rising in the window and the disposition of the relevant house lord. A calculator only knows the date and the place.