Setting out on an important journey is one of the oldest uses of a muhurat, and the Muhurta Chintamani gives it a whole chapter, the Yatra prakarana (chapter 11). This page reads the three verses a calendar can check, verses 9 to 11, with the weekday rule of direction known as disha shool, and lists the days in New Delhi that meet them. To leave out the days closed to your direction of travel, use the muhurat finder and choose the direction there.
How it works
Verse numbers are those of the edition with Mahidhara Sharma’s Hindi commentary (Venkateshwar Press).
Nakshatra (verse 9). Ashwini, Punarvasu, Anuradha, Mrigashira, Pushya, Revati, Hasta, Shravana and Dhanishta.
Tithi (verse 9). Not Shashthi, Dwadashi or Ashtami, not Shukla Pratipada, not Purnima or Amavasya, and not the Rikta tithis (Chaturthi, Navami, Chaturdashi).
Disha shool (verse 10). Each weekday closes one direction for starting a journey:
| Weekday | Direction closed |
|---|---|
| Sunday | West |
| Monday | East |
| Tuesday | North |
| Wednesday | North |
| Thursday | South |
| Friday | West |
| Saturday | East |
The table below lists days for any direction; in the finder, choose a direction and the days closed to it are left out. The same verse also closes one direction on each of four nakshatras, but none of them is among the nine travel nakshatras, so on these days only the weekday half matters.
Time of day (verse 11). Some groups of nakshatras are kept from certain hours. Of the nine travel nakshatras, Ashwini is not used in the last third of the day, Anuradha and Revati not in the first third of the night, and Punarvasu and Dhanishta not in the last third of the night, while Mrigashira, Pushya, Hasta and Shravana suit any hour. We take the day (sunrise to sunset) and the night (sunset to sunrise) each in thirds.
Jupiter, Venus and the leaped month (chapter 1, verses 34 and 47). Travel is on the first chapter’s 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. Chapter 1, 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.
Reading the result
Each listed day has a window of at least five minutes in which every condition holds, with the nakshatra and tithi shown. The table here covers every direction; the date shows the weekday, so you can read the direction it closes from the table above. A window after midnight belongs to the day before, and the disha shool of that day applies to it. The weeks with no days are mostly the periods of asta.
Where traditions differ
Almanacs print other travel items next to the disha shool, such as the direction of the Moon (chandra vasa) and of Rahu, and families keep such rules in different ways. The text writes for a king setting out on an expedition (verse 1), so how far its rules reach for an ordinary trip is a matter of family judgement. We apply verse 47 of the first chapter where it keeps a new journey out of the weeks of asta; families who do not keep that rule for a short trip can ignore those gaps. The infancy and old age of Jupiter and Venus that verse 47 adds are left out too, 3 days each way, as said above. 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
The chapter also weighs the traveller’s own birth star (tarabala), the Moon’s sign counted from the birth sign (ghata chandra, verse 27 of the same chapter; see the Ghatak chakra calculator), Venus facing the traveller, the lagna at the moment of leaving, and omens on the road. Those depend on the person and the hour and are for the astrologer. This page does not tell you the direction of your destination; work that out from where you start. Nothing here replaces travel advice or safety checks. 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 buying a vehicle, which this method treats separately, see the vehicle purchase page. The muhurat hub has the other events.