Hora: The Root of Hora Shastra

Overview

Hora is derived from the word. ‘Aho-Ratra meaning day and night which formed the first basis of classification of time. As explained earlier the basic zodiac already had 12 signs and if each sign ha...

Hora: The Root of Hora Shastra

Hora is derived from the word. ‘Aho-Ratra meaning day and night which formed the first basis of classification of time. As explained earlier the basic zodiac already had 12 signs and if each sign had a day and night half of 150 each then there would be 24 hora in the zodiac. Thus the time period of 24 hours or 24 horas was evolved.

Seven oceans of areas swept by geo-centric motions of planets

All motion is relative in space. If we keep the earth fixed, then all the other planets and the Sun would move in ellipsoid orbits carving out areas that would slightly overlap. Thus, seven concentric areas would be seen around the earth with Saturn at the outer area followed by Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon as one comes closer to the earth (Fig 2.1)

The Sunrise and Sunset was the junction of this day & night division and it was a natural choice to pick up the Sunrise as starting of the day. These seven areas are referred to as the seven oceans in the Srimad Bhagavatam and this inner and outer radii have been accurately calculated using a yojana (= 8.5 miles approx).

Relative speeds of Planets

From the Geocentric viewpoint, the relative speeds of the planets in the order of slowest to the fastest is - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. This is the basic technical root for the derivation of the order of the rulership of the hours or horas’ of the day.

WEEKDAYS & HORA RULERSHIP.

The Sun being the most dominant star in the sky initiates the weekdays as well as the hora. Thus, the first hora of Sunday given the Lordship of the Sun. the subsequent hora are ruled by the planets in the order of the oceans/areas moving towards the earth. Thus, the order of ruler ship of the hora is Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter & Mars. Since there are 24 hora in a day, after completing 3 cycles of 7 planets each the fourth planet in the fourth cycle will be the first hora of the next day. This planet will also be the Lord of the day.

For example let us determine the 24 horas of Sunday as well as the Lord of the day following Sunday.

Table: HORA TABLE FOR SUNDAY

<strong>Planet Sun Venus Mercury Moon Saturn Jupiter Mars</strong>

CY I 6-7 AM 7-8 AM 8-9 AM 9-10 AM 10-11 AM 11-12 PM 12-1 PM

CY II 1-2 PM 2-3 PM 3-4 PM 4-5 PM 5-6 PM 6-7 PM 7-8 PM

CY III 8-9 PM 9-10 PM 10-11 PM 11-12 AM 12-1 AM 1-2 AM 2-3 AM

CY IV 3-4 AM 4-5 AM 5-6 AM

|CY I||||6-7 AM|7-8 AM|8-9 AM|...Next Day|

| :- | :- | :- | :- | :- | :- | :- | :- |

The next day is MONDAY or Moon-Day as the lord of the first hour (6-7 am) is the Moon. In this manner Sunday must be followed by Monday. If we continue the table, we find the order of the weekdays as Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (Mars), Wednesday (Mercury), Thursday (Jupiter) and Saturday (Saturn).

From Table 2.1, we see that the fourth hora of the fourth cycle initiates the first hour of the next day (6-7 AM) and this is ruled by the Moon. Thus, the next day following Sunday is ruled by the Moon and is called Monday. In this manner, taking every fourth planet the subsequent weekdays shall be Mars-day (or Tuesday), Mercury-day (or Wednesday), Jupiter-day, (or Thursday), Venus-day (or Friday) and Saturn-day (or Saturday). The weekdays are called ‘Vara’.

Lesson: Hora (Hour) and Vara (weekday) are closely interlinked and can be substituted in determining auspicious election time.