Planetary Hours in Vedic Astrology

Planetary Hours in Vedic Astrology gives us a logical clue about How names of days of week were formed. Hora is one of the most important part of muhurta.  Horas are determined on the basis of ‘srishtiyadi ahargana’ (number of terrestrial days passed from the day of creation) with the first Hora being ruled by Surya.
The 24th part of a Vara (day) is a known as Hora, English word, hour,” is derived from Hora. The Horas are ruled by the seven planets in order of the slowest moving planet to the fastest: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The first Hora of the Vara is ruled by the lord of the Vara, with the succeeding Horas following in the order given.

In Vedic system, the day is split into two periods, daytime and night time. 

Day time – From Sunrise to sunset.

Night Time - Sunset to sunrise of the next day. 

The planetary hours of the day and the planetary hours of the night will be of different lengths except on the Equinoxes, when light and darkness are balanced.

This concept of Horas considers lordships of seven planets. The seven planets, their horas and the seven weekdays together form a concept which is found in written form in Yavana Jataka

To understand why Monday comes after Sunday, Why not other day we will first have to understand the positions of the planets, in the space. 

In Vedic system, the day is split into two periods, daytime and night time.

Day time – From Sunrise to sunset.

Night Time - Sunset to sunrise of the next day.

Then these two periods are each divided into twelve equal length hours, which are known as the planetary hours.

The planetary hours of the day and the planetary hours of the night will be of different lengths except on the Equinoxes, when light and darkness are balanced.

Hora is one of the most important part of mahurat and the basis for determining the order of the weekdays.

Horas are determined on the basis of ‘srishtiyadi ahargana’ (number of terrestrial days passed from the day of creation) with the first Hora being ruled by Surya. It is said that  

Hour is derived from Sanskrit word hora (होरा)

People think that Hora is a Greek word, but Varahamihira clarified that it was derived from Ahoratra.

‘AHORATRA’, which means day(aho) and night(Ratra) taken together.

Omitting the first letter ‘A’ and the last three letters ‘T’,’R’,’A’, the word ‘HORA’ is coined from which, the English word ‘HOUR’ originated.

There are 24 Horas in all. The division of 12 signs into 24 horas is based on the 24-hour duration of a day.

This concept of Horas considers lordships of seven planets. The seven planets, their horas and the seven weekdays together form a concept which is found in written form in Yavana Jataka

At the first glance, Planetary Hours are like ordinary hours which all of us are used to.

A Planetary Day consists of 24 Planetary Hours, and an ordinary day consists of 24 hours.

But Planetary Day begins at the moment of sunrise in the given place, while ordinary day begins at midnight. Since the moment of sunrise is generally different for different places, every place on the Earth has its own Planetary Day, while ordinary day is the same for all the places in the same time zone.

Ordinary hours always have the same continuity (60 minutes), while the length of Planetary Hours varies around the year, and Day Hour is usually not equal to Night Hour. Vedic Astrology divides each day into 24 Horas. 

 

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon in order of their respective distance from sun and speed w.r.t. to earth around zodiac. The rule used for allocating houses to planets. (Saturn is slowest and Moon is fastest).

Therefore, Saturn is the Slowest and highest or the farthest planet. Below the Saturn is Jupiter, below Jupiter is Mars, below the Mars is Sun, below the Sun is Venus, below Venus is Mercury, and below Mercury is Moon which is fastest.

Figure 2 shows the sequence of weekdays indicated by arrows.

The Lord of the first HORA is the Sun. In the beginning of the creation, the Sun was visible first and for that very reason, it has been considered as the lord of the first Hora and the first day has been named after it.

 The next Hora is named after ‘Shukra’ (Venus, which is the lord of the second Hora, and whose orbit is just below the Sun.

The lord of the third Hora is ‘Buddha’ (Mercury) whose orbit is just below that of Shukra (Venus).

The lord of the fourth orbit is the Moon, whose orbit is below that of Venus and so on.

So, moving on in this order lord of 8^th /15^th and 22^nd Hora is again Sun.

In this way, the lord of the 24^th Hora is again Mercury.

After 24^th Hora day ends and next is Hora of Moon so the next day start with Moon Hora, therefore it be Monday.

The following chart clearly shows the positions of the planets (horizontally) in order, and the days of the week (vertically) in order.

Now we understand, that the Moon is the lord of the first Hora (Hour) of the second day(Monday), hence the next day after Sunday is called Monday.

• Similarly, the lord of the first Hora of the third day is Mars (Tuesday),
• The lord of the first Hora of the fourth day is Mercury (Wednesday),
• The lord of the first Hora of the fifth day is Juniper (Thursday),
• The lord of the first Hora of the sixth day is Venus (Friday) and
• The lord of the first Hora of the Seventh day is Saturn (Saturday).
• Therefore, the name of the days in order are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturn day.

 

Use of Hora

1. The Hora has a direct influence on the houses and this knowledge is extensively used by the intelligent astrologer in planning his activities.

2. All activities started during the Hora ruled by the Lord of the related Bhava (House) in the birth chart shall surely fructify.

3. Similarly, activities started during the Hora of the Badhakesh from the concerned Bhava shall suffer obstruction and activities started during the Hora of the Rogesh (8th Lord) from the concerned Bhava shall suffer annihilation