A Hindu wedding is the one sacrament for which families routinely ask for a muhurat months ahead, because the venue, the priest and the guests all depend on the date. The traditional texts treat the choice with more care than any other, and the classical rules for marriage are the longest of the set. This page sets them out in plain words and then lists the days that meet them.
What the Vivaha prakarana asks for
The Muhurta Chintamani gathers its marriage rules in one chapter, the Vivaha prakarana. The conditions fall into four groups.
The first is the Moon’s star. Eleven nakshatras are accepted: Rohini, Mrigashira, Magha, Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Swati, Anuradha, Moola, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada and Revati. Within them three quarters are set aside because they sit at the junction between two nakshatras, a point the tradition treats with caution under the name gandanta: the first quarter of Magha, the first quarter of Moola and the last quarter of Revati. Some astrologers also hesitate over Uttara Phalguni, because tradition places the marriage of Rama and Sita under it and remembers their later hardships. We keep it, as the text lists it, and leave the choice to your astrologer.
The second group is the Sun’s month. Marriage is allowed while the Sun is in Mesha, Vrishabha, Mithuna, Vrishchika, Makara or Kumbha, measured by the sidereal zodiac. That one rule removes a great deal of the year, including the months of Karka to Tula, which cover the monsoon half, and the two months known as Kharmas, when the Sun is in Dhanu or Meena, in mid-December to mid-January and mid-March to mid-April.
The third group is the calendar. Chaturmas is excluded: the four months from the Ekadashi of Ashadha Shukla, when Vishnu is said to go to sleep, to the Ekadashi of Kartika Shukla, when he wakes. The leaped month, adhika masa, is excluded as well.
The fourth group trims by the small limbs. Marriage is held on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. The Rikta tithis, Chaturthi, Navami and Chaturdashi, and Amavasya are avoided. The Vishti karana and the three fixed karanas, Shakuni, Chatushpada and Naga, are avoided, and so are the two yogas Vyatipata and Vaidhriti.
Jupiter and Venus
The text treats Jupiter as the guardian of the bride’s good fortune and Venus as the planet of married love, and asks that neither is combust. We use the separations of the Surya Siddhanta, measured along the ecliptic: Venus is asta within 10 degrees of the Sun while moving direct and within 8 degrees while retrograde, and Jupiter within 11 degrees. A day touched by asta at any hour from sunrise to the next sunrise is dropped.
The infancy and old age of these planets, the days just after they rise and just before they set, are counted by some texts and almanacs. They are counted differently from one source to the next, so we do not apply them. If your family follows them, your astrologer can strike the few days at the edges of each asta period.
What the table does not claim
Every date in the table passes the conditions above for at least part of the day, and the time window shows when. That is a check of the day, and a good wedding date needs more. The ascendant at the time of the pheras, the position of the Moon against each partner’s birth Moon, and the matching of the two charts are all for the family astrologer. Nothing here predicts how a marriage will go, and a date missing from the table is not a bad omen: it only fails one of the classical conditions for this method.
Some families also follow the custom of their community or region, which can add or relax a rule. A family that keeps Holashtak in the days before Holi, or that avoids a certain month of the lunar year, will want to strike those dates. We have not applied them because the text does not require them.
How to use the list
Look first at the months in which dates appear. A long gap, as in the middle of the year, is not an error. Chaturmas takes the monsoon months out, and Kharmas and the solar months the text avoids remove more. Note that a window after midnight belongs to the previous day, so a wedding that ends after midnight is judged by the day on which it begins.
Take three or four dates to your astrologer, with the birth details of both partners, and ask which hour on each suits the couple. If you are marrying in another city, use the muhurat finder, because the times at which the nakshatra and tithi change depend on where you are. For the ceremony itself, read about vivaha as one of the sixteen samskaras, and for how the sky is read, the pages on nakshatras and the tithis explain the units used above.
Related reading
Chaturmas ends with Prabodhini Ekadashi, whose date is on the Ekadashi page. The leaped month is explained under adhika masa. For the other events in this section, return to the muhurat hub.
Planning around the dates
Because the days are few, good dates are booked early, and venues and caterers fill up first for the weekends nearest a listed day. Families often settle two or three candidate dates with the astrologer before approaching a hall, and then book the first one that is free. Remember that the window within a day is a window for the muhurat itself, the moment of the main rite, and that the other events around a wedding, from the engagement to the reception, are usually held with less formality and can fall on neighbouring days. Check which of them your family treats as needing a muhurat of their own.