Why Muhurat Dates Differ: 9 Reasons Two Lists Disagree

You look up wedding dates for next season on three websites, ask the family pandit, and get four lists that agree on some days and not on others. It is natural to wonder who is wrong. Usually no one is — the lists were made with different rules, with a different calendar or for a different city. Sometimes, of course, a list simply has a mistake.

These are the nine reasons we see most often, roughly in order of how many days they move.

1. Simhastha Guru: the Strict Books or the Printed Calendar

When Jupiter is in Leo, Muhurta Chintamani and Dharma Sindhu close weddings and other major rites — in every region while Jupiter is in the first 16°40′ of Leo, and in some regions for the whole sign. Many popular printed calendars do not apply this rule. Jupiter enters Leo on 31 October 2026, so for November 2026 to January 2027 a strict pandit's list is empty while a printed calendar shows dates from 21 November. Simhastha Guru 2026–27 has the dates and the regional readings.

2. Combustion: by Degrees or by Sight

Weddings are not held while Venus or Jupiter is combust (asta) — too close to the Sun to be seen. Calendars decide "too close" in two ways. Some use the classical distance in degrees from the Surya Siddhanta tradition: for Venus 10°, or 8° when it is retrograde; for Jupiter 11°. Others use the days when the planet actually cannot be seen at dawn or dusk. The two usually differ by a few days at each end, and sometimes by two weeks or more.

On top of that, the books add "child" and "old" days around combustion — the days just after a planet reappears and just before it sets. How many depends on the region and the authority, usually from three days to ten. So one list can reopen a week earlier than another.

Some lists for January 2026 showed wedding dates while Venus was combust by the classical distance: it was within 10° of the Sun from late November 2025 to mid-February 2026. The next combustions are Venus from 19 to 29 October 2026 and from 6 July to 17 September 2027, and Jupiter from 16 August to 15 September 2027.

3. Months by the Sun or by the Moon

Muhurta Chintamani names the wedding months by the Sun's sign: weddings with the Sun in Mesha, Vrisha, Mithuna, Vrischika, Makara or Kumbha. Narada names lunar months instead — Magha, Phalguna, Vaishakha and Jyeshtha as good, Kartika and Margashirsha as middling. Some authorities prefer a day on which both agree. A calendar that follows one rule will open and close the season on different days from one that follows the other. Kharmas is the solar rule in its popular form; Kharmas 2026–27 gives its dates.

4. Amanta or Purnimanta

North India ends each lunar month at the full moon (purnimanta); Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana end it at the new moon (amanta). The bright half carries the same month name in both systems, but the dark half is named after different months — Diwali's new moon is Kartika Amavasya in one and Ashwin Amavasya in the other. Rules written by lunar month, such as the months for entering a new house, can therefore land on different days.

5. Regional Customs

Many regions add months of their own. In Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka the lunar month of Ashadha is widely avoided for weddings. Many Tamil families avoid Aadi and Margazhi, and in Kerala Karkidakam is avoided. Gujarat calls Kharmas Kamurta. Holashtak — the eight days before Holika — is limited by Muhurta Chintamani to the region of the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej and to Pushkar, but is observed more widely in North India today. A list made for one region will simply not fit another.

6. Which Almanac Arithmetic

Not every panchang is calculated the same way. In Tamil Nadu, Vakyam panchangams use traditional tables while Thirukkanitha panchangams use modern astronomy, and their nakshatra and tithi times can differ by hours. In Bengal the traditional Gupta Press panjika and the Bishuddha Siddhanta panjika differ in the same way. When a nakshatra ends a few hours earlier or later, a day can gain or lose its wedding window.

ProxaAI computes with modern astronomy (the Swiss Ephemeris) — the same approach as the Thirukkanitha and Bishuddha almanacs and the Government of India's Rashtriya Panchang. A family that follows a Vakyam panchangam or the Gupta Press panjika should expect some times to differ.

7. The Ayanamsa

Vedic astrology measures positions from a sidereal starting point, and schools place that point differently. The Lahiri ayanamsa, the Indian government standard, stood at about 24°14′ in 2026; the B.V. Raman ayanamsa at about 22°47′ — some 1°27′ apart. That gap moves the end of a nakshatra by about two and a half hours and a sankranti by about a day and a half. Slow planets move much further: with Raman's ayanamsa, Jupiter enters Leo around 20 October 2026, about eleven days before the Lahiri date. The KP ayanamsa is only about 6′ from Lahiri: it moves the end of a nakshatra by about ten minutes and a sankranti by about two hours. (The tithi does not depend on the ayanamsa at all: it is the distance between the Moon and the Sun.)

8. Your City and Time Zone

A Hindu day runs from sunrise to sunrise, and sunrise depends on where you are. On 21 November 2026 the Ekadashi tithi ends at about 6:30 am IST. In Kolkata the sun has already risen, at about 5:52 am, so the Kolkata panchang shows Ekadashi at that day's sunrise. In Delhi and Mumbai, where the sun rises at about 6:48 am, it has already ended, so their panchangs show Dwadashi. A rule that looks at the tithi at sunrise then gives two different answers for the same date.

The windows inside a day move too: Rahu Kaal, the choghadiyas and the lagna times are all counted from local sunrise and sunset. Compare today's panchang for Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, or open the choghadiya for your city. For a wedding abroad, the times must be computed for that city and its own time zone.

9. How Strict the List Is

Finally, lists differ in how many optional rules they apply:

• Bhadra. Muhurta Chintamani counts Bhadra (the Vishti karana) as harmful only when it "dwells on earth" — when the Moon is in Karka, Simha, Kumbha or Meena. Many calendars avoid every Bhadra.
• Gulika. Kalaprakasika, the Tamil-tradition manual that gives the Rahu Kaal table, says Gulika is not inauspicious; many calendars cut it anyway.
• Tuesday. Many families do not hold weddings on a Tuesday, and the books agree: Vasishtha, quoted in Muhurta Chintamani, and B.V. Raman both reject it. Other calendars list Tuesday dates.
• Inauspicious yogas. For most events the books avoid only the opening part of the lesser bad yogas; some lists avoid the whole day for everything.
• Other optional rules. The minority view on a retrograde Jupiter, whether a Godhuli lagna is accepted, and how many hours around a sankranti are avoided: each adds or removes days or hours.

A stricter list is not automatically more correct, and a longer one is not careless: they answer different questions.

And Sometimes, a Plain Mistake

Lists get copied. A page for next year can carry last year's weekdays, a list computed for one city can be printed for the whole country, and a window can fall inside Rahu Kaal for a family that avoids it. A good list tells you its city, its month system and its rules. If it tells you none of them, treat it with care.

How to Compare Two Lists

How ProxaAI Handles It

We compute with the Swiss Ephemeris and the Lahiri ayanamsa. Our panchang and Choghadiya pages are computed for the city you pick. A muhurat you ask for in chat is computed for the place saved in your kundli; choosing a different city for the event is not available there yet. For wedding dates we give two views — the calendar view, tested against published lists for Gurgaon (2026) and for Mumbai, Kolkata and Gurgaon (November 2026 to February 2027), and the strict view — and every "no" names its rule and the book it comes from. Customs are labelled as customs. We do not tell you that one list is the only right one; we tell you why the lists differ, so that your family and your pandit can decide. The details are on our methodology page. For a wedding, begin with kundli matching: a muhurat is chosen for two people, not for a date alone.