Vaara and hora

The vaara (weekday) is the day of the week, Sunday to Saturday, and each vaara is ruled by a graha (planet). A hora is a smaller piece of time: one of the 24 equal parts of a Vedic day, each ruled by a graha too, its hora lord. The vaara at a birth is one of the five limbs of the panchaanga, the almanac of the moment on the chart page, beside the tithi (lunar day), the nakshatra (constellation), the Sun-Moon yoga and the karana; the chart page gives the hora with them.

The day starts at sunrise

Both rest on the Vedic day, which turns at sunrise, not at midnight: it runs from one sunrise to the next. The vaara is the weekday of the sunrise that opened it. So a birth after midnight but before the Sun is up belongs to the Vedic day that began the morning before, and its vaara is the previous weekday, whatever the calendar says.

When the Sun rises depends on the place and on the sunrise definition chosen in the form: which point of the Sun's disc must touch the horizon, and whether refraction counts. Near the poles a birth in polar night or under the midnight sun may have no sunrise before or after it, and then it has no Vedic day, no vaara and no hora.

The lords of the weekdays

The seven visible grahas rule the seven weekdays: the Sun Sunday, the Moon Monday, Mars Tuesday, Mercury Wednesday, Jupiter Thursday, Venus Friday and Saturn Saturday. Rahu and Ketu rule none.

Twenty-four horas

The Vedic day, from sunrise to sunrise, is cut into 24 equal horas. Do not take a hora for a clock hour: it starts at sunrise, not on the hour, and it is a 24th of the Vedic day, which can be a few minutes longer or shorter than 24 hours of the clock.

The first hora belongs to the vaara's lord. After it the lords follow a fixed round of the seven: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and then Saturn again. The round lists them from slowest to fastest as seen from the Earth. Saturn takes about 29 years to go once around the zodiac, Jupiter about 12 and Mars about 2; the Sun takes a year. Venus and Mercury never stray far from the Sun, but they can outpace it, Venus at up to about 1¼° a day and Mercury at up to about 2°, against the Sun's 1°. The Moon goes around in less than a month.

The table

Since the round has seven lords, every seventh hora has the same lord: the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd share one, and so on. The table gives, for each vaara, the lord of each hora, as the app works it out.

Twenty-four horas are three rounds of seven and three more, so the first hora of the next Vedic day, the 25th counted from today's sunrise, falls on the fourth lord of today's round. From the Sun, the fourth is the Moon; from the Moon, Mars; and so on. That is why the weekdays come in the order they do.

Two worked examples

On 1 January 2000 at 12:00 UT, at Greenwich (see the chart):

1. The Sun rose at 08:05:47 that Saturday and rises again at 08:05:41 on Sunday. The Vedic day is 6 seconds short of 24 hours, so each hora is a quarter of a second short of an hour.
2. The sunrise was on a Saturday, so the vaara is Saturday, and its lord is Saturn.
3. Noon is 3 h 54 min 13 s after sunrise: three horas are over and the 4th is running. Counting from Saturn, the round gives Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun: the hora lord is the Sun.

Six hours earlier, at 06:00 UT on the same date and at the same place (see the chart):

1. The Sun is not up yet. The Vedic day began at sunrise on 31 December 1999, at 08:05:49, and ends at the next sunrise, at 08:05:46.
2. 31 December 1999 was a Friday, so the vaara is Friday, and its lord is Venus, although the calendar already says Saturday.
3. The birth is 21 h 54 min 11 s after that sunrise. The Vedic day is 3 seconds short of 24 hours, so 21 horas are over and the 22nd is running. The 22nd shares the 1st hora's lord: Friday's Venus. The table's first row says the same.

In the chart

The panchaanga on the chart page gives the vaara with its lord, and the number of the hora with its lord; both values link to this page. The Vedic day above it gives the sunrises they are counted from. The vaara takes its weekday from the date of the sunrise in the clock of the birth time, so a stated UTC offset far from the place's own time can put it a day off; the chart page warns when that may be so.

Next comes the panchaanga: the five limbs of the moment together, and the almanac named after them.

Book reference: P.V.R. Narasimha Rao, Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach, chapter 1, § 1.3.11. Where to get the book