Kala vs Hora Distinction, Best Activity per Planet's Kala & True Abhijit Muhurta

Kala — The 1.5-Hour Division of Time

What It Is

• Day and night together are divided into 16 equal parts (the day into 8). Each Kala is about 1.5 hours and is ruled by a planet.
• The epoch is sunrise. Hora (1 hour each) is counted from the same epoch.
• PVNR does not remember the table of lords in class: he believes the first kala of the day goes to the weekday lord and that the night sequence is different. He says to read the Kala lord from the software.
• Ketu has no kala.

Kala vs Hora

• Example of Hora: if Sun is your 10th lord, Sun's hora is good for joining a job, accepting an offer, starting your work.
• Example of Kala: in Surya kalam everybody in your town had better go to a temple.

What Each Planet's Kala Is Good For

• In some parts of India people start nothing auspicious in Rahu kalam, and stop what they are doing for its length: "Either meditate or don't do anything."
• "Jupiter only gives you ideas. Mercury makes you absorb them."
• A movie seen in Shukra kalam you have a better chance of liking; in Rahu kalam you will wonder why the review called it good.
• Go to help someone move in Shani kalam and you will work hard and not feel bad about it.
• PVNR checks the software: the kala changed to Brihaspati kalam shortly after the class began. "We never planned it that way."

Kala Depends on the Place

• A student asks whether the kala is the same across a time zone. No. In one time zone sunrise can differ by 40 minutes; Boston and Philadelphia are in the same zone and not in the same kala.
• Do not convert India's kalas by the 9½-hour clock difference. Recompute for the place.
• Panchangas print the kalas from a 6 o'clock epoch and tell you to add or subtract the sunrise difference. In India sunrise stays within about half an hour of 6. In the US it moves by 1.5 hours, so be careful.

Mahakala vs Sunrise

• Kala and Mahakala are not two things. They are one thing computed from two epochs.
• Pandit Sanjay Rath's view, as PVNR reports it: the clock on the wall stands for Mahakala, time personified, who does not care about Sun and Moon; so the epoch can be 6 o'clock — clock time, or sometimes 6 AM local mean time. The sunrise-based reckoning belongs to Yama Dharmaraja, who respects the Sun. He uses the clock-based one mostly for prasna.
• PVNR's view:

"If you ask me, sunrise is sacrosanct. … As far as I am concerned, Sunrise is the epoch. Other epochs are nonsense."

• He keeps the Mahakala values in the software only because others use them.
• Clock time is moved at will (daylight saving: yesterday's 5 o'clock is today's 6 o'clock). That is whim, not Mahakala, who is systematic — "one nanosecond, one nanosecond." 6 AM local mean time never shifts, so if anything deserves the name Mahakala it is that.
• JH settings ("Hora and weekday start options"): the true (satya) hora can start at sunrise or at 6 AM LMT; the Mahakala hora at 6 AM LMT or 6 AM standard time. Defaults: true hora from sunrise, Mahakala hora from 6 AM LMT.
• Do not use Mahakala hora for a muhurta. Sanjay Rath uses it only for some prasnas. For the ruler of the year he too uses the sunrise-based hora.

Local Mean Time

• Hora and kala are a delta from sunrise. Change the time zone and the clock time of sunrise moves with it; the delta does not.
• Illustration: Boston, zone 5 hours west, sunrise 7:10:48 standard time. Switch the software to local mean time (zone 4:46) and sunrise reads 7:24. Same instant.
• "Never click the local mean time button" unless you are entering an old chart from a book (Dr. Raman gives birth times in LMT). Give people times in the standard time everybody uses.

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Hora — The 1-Hour Planetary Hour

The Hora Lord Is the King

• The hora lord at the beginning of something rules the whole of it.

"Hora at the beginning of something, hora at an epoch, controls the nature of that whole thing."

• Tithi Pravesha chart: the hora lord at the start of the year is the ruler of the year. Monthly chart: he controls the month. Daily chart: he is the ruler of the day.
• Joining a job: he is the lord of the job for the whole tenure in that company.
• Starting to read a book (say the Jaimini Sutras): he is the king of that reading.
• He is not a panchanga element. "It is above the panchanga element." The lords of tithi, vara, nakshatra, yoga and karana are five ministers — one controlling happiness, one disturbances, one achievement and so on. The hora lord is the king.

Choosing a Hora for a Muhurta

• The hora lord should be well placed in the muhurta chart and, more important, be a good planet in your own horoscope.
• Sanjay Rath's advice: to join a job, take the hora of your 10th lord. That is not always possible. Take a planet that is good for your 10th house:
  • 9th lord in the 10th; lagna lord in the 10th;
  • 10th lord in the 5th → take the 10th lord;
  • a planet aspecting or occupying the 10th, having argala on the 10th, joining the 10th lord or aspecting the 10th lord;
  • judged from the rasi chart and the dasamsa.
• Avoid the wrong one: if your 8th lord aspects the 10th house (changes in career) and you join in his hora, you are very unlikely to stay long.
• Marriage: the hora of a planet that beneficially influences your 7th house or your Upapada.
• There are 7 hora lords and 24 hours, so each hora comes about 3.5 times a day: 3 or 4 possible lagnas. One of them is hopefully a good lagna. If the 7th-lord or 10th-lord hora gives a terrible lagna, do not be hell-bent on it.

Summary Given in Class

• The hora lord of a muhurta is the king during the entire activity. Look at his ownership and placement in the natal horoscope, and if possible in the chart of that moment too.
• Kala is not only for the beginning: an activity succeeds better when it is in tune with the nature of the time through its whole length.

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Five-Minute Signs; Day Signs and Night Signs

• Sanjay Rath's prasna technique: divide each hora into 12 equal parts of 5 minutes and give each a sign. The software shows this "5-minute sign" next to the hora. He reads the influences on that sign to answer the prasna.

• The first 5 minutes take a sign ruled by the hora lord; the next 5 minutes the next sign; and so on cyclically through the zodiac until the hora ends.

• Each planet rules two signs. In a daytime hora start from its day sign; in a night hora from its night sign. Mars hora at night starts from Aries.

• Night-strong signs: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Sagittarius, Capricorn

• Day-strong signs: Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Aquarius, Pisces

• One would expect six signs in a row for Moon (night) and six for Sun (day). There is a reversal in the last four. The list is in PVNR's book and in BPHS. He does not know the reason: the explanation he was given was "so vague that I do not even want to repeat it."

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Abhijit Muhurta — What Is Behind It

The Belief

• A student brings it up: start anything at 12 noon and you need not worry about the other defects of the muhurta.
• PVNR: that is "a corruption of Kali Yuga" — people rely on what others tell them, and when one person makes a mistake everybody follows it.
• Move the clock for daylight saving and yesterday's 12 o'clock is 11 or 1.

"It's all nonsense to take that 12 o'clock and assume that this is an auspicious time just because your clock says 12:00. It means nothing. The real thing behind that is when Sun is exactly in the 10th house cusp, that is auspicious."

The Rule

• Sun in the 10th house at the same degree as the lagna, 90° from it. Lagna 10° Leo with Sun 10° Taurus. Lagna 12°13' Cancer with Sun 12°13' Aries.
• It does not happen at 12 o'clock, but close to it.
• Why: the Sun on the 10th cusp is on top, at his most powerful. The 10th is the house of karma and Sun is the karaka of karma. "When the blesser Sun is in your house of karma, he will take care of your karma."
• Same degree, minute and second = the perfect muhurta. It lasts a few seconds.
• If not that, match degree and minute. If not that, at least the degree. The looser the match, the more doshas touch you.

Caveats

• When the classics say no dosha touches you in Abhijit, "it's only relative." Half an hour off and you are not protected.
• Sun in the 10th does not save a chart with the lagna lord in the 8th and the 8th lord in lagna. "Don't blindly go by it."
• Take it if the other factors are reasonably fine. If you must compromise everything else to get it, it is not worth it.

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Yamagandam and Gulika Kala

• A student asks what these are. PVNR says he has to refresh his memory on how they are computed and will answer in the next class.
• They use the same 1.5-hour division. One kala is given to Yamaghantaka — called Yamagandam or Yama kalam — and one to Gulika.

"Typically, stay away from those times. That is the bottom line."

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