Bhoomi pujan is the worship of the ground before building begins, and the day chosen for it is the day the house is begun: griharambha in the texts. The Muhurta Chintamani gives the rules in its Vastu prakarana (chapter 12), verses 13 to 19. This page reads the ones a calendar can check and lists the days in New Delhi that meet them.
How it works
Verse numbers are those of the edition with Mahidhara Sharma’s Hindi commentary (Venkateshwar Press); for verse 18 we also follow Govinda’s Sanskrit commentary, the Piyushadhara.
Nakshatra (verse 15, with verse 18). Verse 15 accepts the fixed and gentle nakshatras, Shatabhisha, Swati, Dhanishta, Hasta and Pushya. Verse 18 then asks that panchaka be avoided, which the Piyushadhara explains as the five nakshatras from the second half of Dhanishta. That leaves Rohini, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha, Mrigashira, Chitra, Anuradha, Swati, Hasta, Pushya and the first half of Dhanishta.
Weekday and tithi (verse 18). Not Sunday and not Tuesday. Not a Rikta tithi (Chaturthi, Navami, Chaturdashi), not Amavasya and not Pratipada; both commentaries add Ashtami, so Ashtami is left out too. We apply these in both pakshas.
Solar month (verses 15 and 16). Verse 15 pairs months with the facing of the house, and verse 16 gives another view. Both accept the Sun in the same eight signs, Mesha, Vrishabha, Karka, Simha, Tula, Vrishchika, Makara and Kumbha, and neither accepts Mithuna, Kanya, Dhanu or Meena. We apply that common part.
The bull chakra (verses 13 and 14). Count the nakshatras from the one the Sun is in, as 1, to the one the Moon is in, with Abhijit counted in its place between Uttara Ashadha and Shravana, which makes 28. Counts 1 to 7 fall on the bull’s head and front feet (fire and emptiness), 8 to 18 on its hind feet, back and right flank (stability, prosperity and gain), and 19 to 28 on its tail, left flank and mouth. Only 8 to 18 are accepted. Abhijit is taken as the text defines it in the Vivaha prakarana, verse 55: the last quarter of Uttara Ashadha and the first fifteenth of Shravana.
Jupiter, Venus and the leaped month (chapter 1, verses 46 and 47). Beginning a house is on the list of acts not begun while Jupiter or Venus is combust (asta) or in a leaped month. Asta is taken as Venus within 10 degrees of the Sun moving direct or 8 retrograde, and Jupiter within 11.
Infancy and old age of Jupiter and Venus. Verse 47 also names the days of infancy and old age (bala and vriddha), just after Jupiter or Venus rises from asta and just before it sets. Chapter 5, verses 27 and 28 count those days in several ways: as Mahidhara Sharma gives them, 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 before setting in the west, and Jupiter for 15 days each way; other views give 10 days or 7, and only 3 in an emergency. The common panchang practice leaves out the 3 days before the planet sets and the 3 days after it rises, and we follow it, so those days are left out as well as the asta itself. If your family counts more days, your astrologer can strike them.
Sun and Jupiter in one sign, and a short paksha (chapter 1, verse 48, not applied). Mahidhara Sharma reads this verse as holding back the same acts as asta while the Sun and Jupiter are in the same sign (guru-aditya), and in a paksha that holds only thirteen sunrises because tithis are lost in it (vishvaghasra). Readings differ: the common panchang practice uses neither bar, and we follow it, so no day is left out for either.
As on every page here, Vishti karana and the yogas Vyatipata and Vaidhriti are avoided (chapter 1, verse 34).
Reading the result
The days are few, because many separate conditions must meet on the same day. Each listed day has a window of at least five minutes in which every one holds; the window, nakshatra and tithi are shown, and a window after midnight belongs to the day before. Look at where the window falls within the day before you choose the hour of the puja. For a plot in another city use the muhurat finder.
Where traditions differ
The text ties the month to the facing of the house (verse 15) and adds a second view (verse 16) that names months counted from the full moon; we apply only the solar months the two share, so a day here may still fail the pairing your astrologer uses for your facing. Readers also differ on panchaka: verse 15 names Shatabhisha and Dhanishta for building and verse 18 rules out panchaka, and we follow the Piyushadhara in letting verse 18 decide. Vastu practitioners often add their own checks for the plot, which are outside this text. Verse 48 of the first chapter also holds these acts back while Jupiter is in Simha or Makara, and verses 49 to 52 then limit or lift that part by region and by where in the sign Jupiter stands; some teachers, Mahidhara Sharma notes, also keep them back for 28 days when Jupiter is retrograde or moving fast (vakra and atichara). Readings differ; the common panchang practice holds these acts back for neither, and we follow it, so this page does not apply those parts.
What it does not do
It does not check the lagna at the hour (verse 18 asks that it not be a movable sign, with benefics away from the 8th and 12th), the direction in which to dig the first pit (verse 19), the tithi against the facing of the door (verse 17) or the owner’s own chart. Those depend on the plot, the hour and the family, and are for your astrologer and builder. Chapter 1, verses 34 and 35 also name things every auspicious act avoids that this page does not check: the person’s own birth nakshatra, month and tithi and a parent’s shraddha day; a day touched by three tithis or a tithi that touches three days (tithi kshaya and vriddhi); kulika, the half-prahara and mahapata; and the opening part of the yogas Vishkambha, Vajra, Shoola, Ganda, Atiganda and Vyaghata and the first half of Parigha. An almanac that applies them may list fewer days. The lost (kshaya) month that verse 34 also names, a lunar month in which the Sun enters two signs between one new moon and the next (as Mahidhara Sharma explains it), is left out; from 1952 to 2073 there are two, beginning with the new moons of 16 November 1963 and 14 January 1983, Indian time. For moving into a finished house, see the griha pravesh muhurat; for buying land or a flat, the property purchase page.