When Weddings Pause: Asta, Kharmas, Holashtak, Chaturmas

Choose your town or city and a year from 1900 to 2074 above, and this free tool lists every stretch of that year in which the classical marriage rules put weddings off: Guru asta and Shukra asta (Jupiter and Venus combust) with the 3 days either side, Kharmas, the other solar months the marriage chapter leaves out, Chaturmas, Holashtak and any Adhika or Kshaya month. It then shows, month by month, the dates free of all of them, and the longest free stretch.

How it works

Each pause comes from a rule we can name, and each is worked out for your place in local time from the NASA JPL DE440 tables on this site, in the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa.

• Guru asta and Shukra asta. A planet is asta (combust) while it is too close to the Sun to be seen, and the Muhurta Chintamani (Shubhashubha prakarana, verses 46 and 47) lists the wedding among the acts not done while Jupiter or Venus is asta. The Surya Siddhanta, chapter 9, verses 6 to 9, gives the distances: 11 degrees for Jupiter, and for Venus 10 degrees when it sets in the east, which it does while moving direct, and 8 degrees when it sets in the west, while retrograde. The text gives these in degrees of time; this site applies them as degrees of longitude, as its muhurat finder does. From 1900 to 2074 a Jupiter asta lasted 27.8 to 30.3 days, a Venus asta while moving direct 72.8 to 83.2 days, and one while retrograde 9.9 to 10.2 days.
• Guru and Shukra bala and vriddha. The same verse 47 also names the old age and infancy of the two planets (vriddha and bala), the days just before the planet sets and just after it rises again. The text counts them in several ways (Samskara prakarana, verses 27 and 28): as Mahidhar Sharma gives verse 27, Venus is young for 3 days after rising in the east and 10 after rising in the west and old for 15 days before setting in the east and 5 in the west, and Jupiter 15 days each way, while verse 28 gives 10, 7 or 3 days. The tool follows the common panchang practice, the 3 days before setting and the 3 days after rising, as the muhurat finder does, counted in hours from those moments.
• Kharmas. The Sun in Dhanu or Meena, the two signs of Jupiter, from Dhanu Sankranti to Makara Sankranti and from Meena Sankranti to Mesha Sankranti. The marriage chapter of the Muhurta Chintamani (Vivaha prakarana, verse 13) gives the Sun’s signs for a wedding as Mithuna, Kumbha, Vrishabha, Vrishchika, Makara and Mesha, which leaves these two out.
• The Sun in Karka to Tula. The same verse also leaves out the Sun in Karka, Simha, Kanya and Tula. Most of this falls inside Chaturmas; at New Delhi from 1900 to 2074 it added from none to 19 days a year outside it.
• Chaturmas. From Ashadha Shukla Ekadashi (Devshayani) to Kartika Shukla Ekadashi (Prabodhini, or Dev Uthani), when Vishnu is said to sleep. Mahidhar Sharma’s commentary on that verse says the time from Harishayani Ekadashi is not fit for marriage. The tool counts it, as the muhurat finder does, from the start of the first Ekadashi tithi to the end of the second. At New Delhi from 1900 to 2074 Devshayani Ekadashi fell between 26 June and 27 July, and Prabodhini Ekadashi between 27 October and 27 November.
• Holashtak. The eight days before Holika Dahan, from Phalguna Shukla Ashtami (Muhurta Chintamani, Shubhashubha prakarana, verse 40). The tool counts from the first day Ashtami is current at sunrise to the day of Holika Dahan, which the festival engine of this site fixes. Because tithis vary in length, at New Delhi from 1900 to 2074 this ran 6 to 9 days, and 7 or 8 days in 155 of the 175 years.
• The Adhika month. The extra lunar month in which the Sun enters no new sign. The verses of the Muhurta Chintamani that put weddings off in asta (Shubhashubha prakarana, verses 46 and 47) put them off in this month too, and in a Kshaya month, one in which the Sun enters two signs; see Adhika masa. From 1900 to 2074 there were only two Kshaya months, in 1963 and 1983 (from the new moons of 16 November 1963 and 14 January 1983, Indian time), and the tool marks both, as well as every Adhika month. The vivah table of the muhurat finder marks only the Adhika month.

The verse numbers for the Muhurta Chintamani are those of the Khemraj Shrikrishnadas edition with the Hindi commentary of Pandit Mahidhar Sharma.

Reading the result

The first line gives how many days of the year are free of all the pauses, and the longest free stretch. The first table lists each pause that touches the year with its start, its end and its length; the times of Chaturmas are the start and end of the two Ekadashi tithis, and the row also gives the Ekadashi days as the festival pages keep them. The second table goes month by month: the free days, the free dates and the pauses that touch the month.

A free day is a date whose panchang day, from local sunrise to the next sunrise, is touched by none of these pauses at any hour. At New Delhi from 1900 to 2074 a year held between 53 and 179 free days, 121 on average. A free day is only the first sieve. A wedding day also needs a fitting nakshatra, tithi, weekday and lagna, and the vivah muhurat page and the muhurat finder check those.

Where traditions differ

The biggest difference between almanacs is in the asta dates. Some work out when the planet can actually be seen from your place, which depends on the planet’s distance from the ecliptic and the angle of the evening or morning sky, rather than the plain distance in longitude. Against one widely used online almanac that does this, for 2026 and 2027 at New Delhi, our Jupiter dates differed by up to 2 days at an end and our Venus dates by up to 16 days. The same Muhurta Chintamani verses (Shubhashubha prakarana, verses 46 and 47) also set aside the days of infancy and old age (bala and vriddha) just after and before each asta. Texts give them different lengths; the tool counts 3 days each way, as the common panchang practice and our muhurat finder do, so an almanac that counts more days will show a few fewer free days.

The verse on Holashtak names the lands of the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej rivers and Pushkar, and says other places need not keep it. The tool shows it for every place and counts it in the free days, so you can follow your own family’s custom; the muhurat finder on this site does not apply it.

Customs on the other pauses also vary by region and family. A family priest has the last word.

How we checked it

We rebuilt the whole day by day map with the Swiss Ephemeris (pyswisseph, sidereal Lahiri) for the eight places of our test charts, for the year of each chart and for 2026, and for 1900, 2074 and Tromso in the Arctic: 21 place and year pairs, 7,669 dates. Every date had the same pauses in both, and the free day counts were identical. The asta edges agreed within 29 seconds, the Sankrantis within 8 seconds, the Chaturmas edges within 5 seconds and the Adhika months within 2 seconds; the Holashtak start day matched on every one. The Kshaya months it marks, in 1963 and 1983, were checked the same way against new moons and Sankrantis found with the Swiss Ephemeris, at New Delhi and at Sydney: every marked date matched. The bala and vriddha days were checked against asta edges found with the Swiss Ephemeris, at New Delhi and at Sydney for 1952, 1963, 1983, 2026, 2027 and 2073: every marked date matched too.

What it does not do

It does not pick a wedding date, and it does not look at either partner’s chart. For that, use the vivah muhurat for a couple or the muhurat finder. For the Ekadashi and Holi pages, see Devshayani Ekadashi, Prabodhini Ekadashi and Holi.

Frequently asked questions