Griha Pravesha Muhurta is the auspicious date and time for formally entering a home, drawn from the Vedic muhurta tradition. The rules differ by entry type — a first entry into a newly built house (apurva) is held to a stricter standard than returning to your own home after a journey (supurva) or re-entry after damage and rebuilding (dvandva) — and the same day can be excellent in one city and excluded in another, since it depends on that city’s own sunrise, tithi and nakshatra timings.
What Griha Pravesha Muhurta Checks
The rules used here come from the Griha Pravesha chapter (chapter 13) of the Muhurta Chintamani, a standard reference work on electional astrology by Rāma Daivajña, read through the Pīyūṣadhārā Sanskrit commentary of Govinda. For a first entry into a newly built house, the chapter sets out roughly a dozen distinct conditions. The ones evaluated automatically today are:
| Factor | Rule for first entry (apurva) |
|---|---|
| Ayana | Uttarayana (Sun north of the equator) required |
| Lunar month | Best: Māgha, Phālguna, Vaiśākha, Jyaiṣṭha. Chaitra and Āṣhāḋha excluded outright |
| Weekday | Sunday and Tuesday excluded |
| Tithi | Rikta (4, 9, 14), tithis 1 and 8, and Amavasya excluded; dagdha/viṣa/hutāśana weekday–tithi combinations excluded |
| Paksha | Shukla paksha preferred; Krishna paksha permitted only through the 10th tithi |
| Lagna (ascendant) | Chara (movable) lagnas excluded: Mesha, Karka, Tula, Makara |
| Nakshatra | Favored: the four Dhruva nakshatras (Rohini, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha, Uttara Bhadrapada) and four Mridu nakshatras (Mrigashirsha, Chitra, Anuradha, Revati) |
| Nakshatra exclusion | Pushya, Dhanishta and Shatabhisha are reserved for old-house re-entry and excluded from a first entry |
| Combustion | Venus and Jupiter must not be combust |
| Jupiter placement | Excluded while Jupiter transits Simha or Makara |
| Balya / Vardhakya | Venus and Jupiter excluded in their infancy or old-age windows around heliacal rise and set |
A handful of conditions named in the same chapter — the door-direction-dependent nakshatra and tithi tables, Venus’s position relative to the entrant, and the 21 mahā-doṣas inherited from the marriage chapter — are not yet automated, and any report generated here says so explicitly rather than silently skipping them.
Why It's Computed Per City, Not Copied From India
Every one of the conditions above is timed against a tithi, nakshatra or lagna boundary, and all three shift with sunrise. A date that is Rikta tithi at sunrise in Chennai can already have rolled into the next tithi by the time the sun rises in Raleigh or Toronto. Reusing an Indian panchang for a US or Canadian date can put the muhurta on the wrong day entirely — the same problem this site's daily panchang exists to solve for festival dates is just as real here.
Three Kinds of Entry
The source text treats first entry, return entry and rebuilt-house entry as genuinely different rites, not variations on one rule set:
| Apurva | Supurva | Dvandva | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meaning | First entry, newly built house | Return to your own house after a journey | Re-entry after damage and rebuilding |
| Ayana requirement | Uttarayana required | Waived | Waived |
| Combustion / Balya-Vardhakya / Jupiter placement | Checked | Explicitly waived by the source text | Explicitly waived by the source text |
| Pushya / Dhanishta / Shatabhisha nakshatras | Excluded | Permitted | Permitted |
The waiver for supurva and dvandva is stated twice in the source (once in the Griha Pravesha chapter, once independently in the Yatra/travel chapter), which is why those two entry types are fully computable today while apurva — the case most home buyers actually need — still has a short list of conditions the engine flags as unevaluated rather than guesses at.
Personalizing With Your Nakshatra
Beyond the general rules above, a personal check compares the candidate date's nakshatra against your own janma (birth) nakshatra using Tarabala — the traditional nine-fold classification of how a transiting nakshatra sits relative to your birth star — and excludes your own janma nakshatra outright, per the source text's direct instruction. For a couple, the two individuals' compatible nakshatra sets can be intersected, so a recommended date is genuinely favorable for both people, not just one.
Sources
- Muhūrta Cintāmaṇi, Rāma Daivajña, with the Pīyūṣadhārā Sanskrit commentary of Govinda and the Pītāmbarā Hindi exposition of Kedāradatta Jośī — Grihapravesha prakarana (ch. 13) and Yatra prakarana
- Śubhāśubha prakaraṇa — dagdha/viṣa/hutāśana tithi tables
Related
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between apurva, supurva and dvandva entry?
Apurva is a first entry into a newly built house, the strictest of the three. Supurva is returning to your own already-lived-in house after a journey. Dvandva is re-entry after the house was damaged (such as by fire) and rebuilt. The source text waives several of the strictest conditions -- combustion, Jupiter placement, Balya/Vardhakya -- for supurva and dvandva, but not for apurva.
Why does the recommended date depend on my city?
Tithi, nakshatra and lagna all change at specific moments, and which one is active at sunrise -- the reference point most of these rules use -- depends on your city's own sunrise time. The same calendar date can carry a different tithi at sunrise in different time zones, which can move a date from excluded to permitted or back.
Does this replace consulting a purohit or astrologer?
No. It automates the conditions from the Muhurta Chintamani that can be computed from public astronomical data -- tithi, nakshatra, lagna, weekday, planetary combustion and placement. A handful of conditions in the same source chapter, such as the door-direction-dependent tables and the 21 maha-doshas from the marriage chapter, aren't automated and are listed as unevaluated rather than silently assumed favorable.
See today's date and timing for your city.
View your city's Panchang →