Rama Daivajna: the Muhurta Chintamani · Chapter 1 of 3

#The book and its author

#The Muhurta Chintamani

The Muhurta Chintamani ("wish-jewel of times") of Rama Daivajna, written at Varanasi about 1600, is the standard North Indian book on muhurta — the choosing of times — and on marriage matching. Rama also wrote his own commentary on it, the Pramitakshara, which explains the verses and, crucially for matching, gives the points for each part of the comparison.

A generation earlier, Narayana wrote the Muhurta Martanda, dated by its colophon to Shaka 1493, about 1571, covering much of the same ground and adding several rules the Chintamani does not state — including the famous threshold of eighteen points for a marriage.

This book keeps the teaching of these two North Indian books together.

#The editions read

The research behind this website read:

• the Muhurta Chintamani with the Pramitakshara (Venkateshwar Press, about 1928), chapter 6, Vivaha-prakarana ("on marriage"), pp. 180–190, checking doubtful readings against the page images;
• a Hindi edition with Pyarelal Mishra's commentary (1939), which prints the matching tables used by most modern software;
• a Marathi translation (1911);
• the Muhurta Martanda with the Martanda-vallabha commentary (Nirnaya Sagar, 1904).

The Sanskrit is long out of copyright. References are to chapter and verse of the Muhurta Chintamani (MC 6.21) and to verse of the Martanda's marriage chapter (MM v.1).

#What the books cover

Like the Kalaprakasika in the south, the Muhurta Chintamani covers the times for every rite and undertaking: the panchanga and its faults, the life-cycle ceremonies, journeys, house-building, and so on. Its sixth chapter, on marriage, is the most used today, because it contains the Ashtakoota, the eight-part comparison of horoscopes that underlies the "guna milan" of North India.

#Summary

• The Muhurta Chintamani of Rama Daivajna (Varanasi, about 1600), with his own Pramitakshara commentary, is the standard North Indian muhurta book.
• The Muhurta Martanda of Narayana (about 1571) covers similar ground and adds rules such as the threshold of eighteen.
• Their marriage chapters are the source of North Indian matching.

#Exercises

1. Who wrote the Muhurta Chintamani, where and when?
2. What is the Pramitakshara, and why does it matter for matching?
3. Which book states the threshold of eighteen points?

Answers: 1. Rama Daivajna, at Varanasi, about 1600. 2. Rama's own commentary; it gives the points for each part of the Ashtakoota. 3. Narayana's Muhurta Martanda.