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Time Shaktis: The Simple Wisdom of Watching the Planets

DateFebruary 21, 2009

One of the missions of our founder, Sri Dattatreya Siva Baba, is to share the wisdom of Vedic Astrology with the modern world. To assist with that, He directed the creation of a free tool at Astroved called Planetary Watch to help everyone watch what planet is ruling at any given hour. The name echoes a famous poem:
“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
when a new planet swims into his ken”
~ John Keats, poet

Ancient sages taught that each hour or “hora” of any day is ruled by a planet. The horas are ruled by the visible planets (called “grahas” in Sanskrit), i.e., Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The invisible nodal planets, Rahu and Ketu, do not rule any horas. However, in a future Time Shakti blog we will look at the “Rahu Kala” or “Rahu Time” of each day as Rahu does impact a period of time each day.

A fresh energy for each day begins at sunrise. So at sunrise of each day, the first hour of the day is ruled by the planet that rules the day. (Our Tips page gives some simple information about greeting the Sun right at sunrise if you wish to “catch” that first energetic wave of the day.)

For example, the first hour of Sunday is ruled by the Sun, the first hour of Monday is ruled by the Moon, the first hour of Tuesday is ruled by Mars, the first hour of Wednesday is ruled by Mercury, the first hour of Thursday is ruled by Jupiter, the first hour of Friday is ruled by Venus and the first hour of Saturday is ruled by Saturn.

Sunrise occurs at different times in different geographic areas, so it is important to set “Current Location” on the Planetary Watch to your actual physical location for the day in order to see the correct hora information. The Current Location feature will pick up information regarding sunrise time in that current location and then calculate out all the planets which rule the horas for that day.

The horas always come in a certain order. One way to understand that order is to consider the visible planets in terms of how long they take to physically move through a Zodiac sign, going from slowest to fastest. Our sense of time on earth is affected by the movement of celestial bodies.

Saturn is the slowest moving planet, taking about 2 1/2 years to move through a Zodiac sign or “rasi” as it is called in Sanskrit.

Jupiter is next slowest, taking a year or so to travel through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

Mars is next, sometimes taking 6 weeks to move through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

Sun is next, taking about a month to transit through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

Venus is next, sometimes taking 3 weeks to move through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

Mercury is next, sometimes taking 2 weeks to go through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

The Moon is the fastest, taking about 2 ½ days to move through a Zodiac sign or “rasi”.

These are rough guidelines, and things like a planet going retrograde can make the planet take a different amount of time than what is listed here. However, as a rule of thumb, this information helps us remember the visible planets in this order, going from slowest to fastest:

  • Saturn
  • Jupiter
  • Mars
  • Sun
  • Venus
  • Mercury
  • Moon
The order of this list is constant for purposes of the horas, regardless of whether a planet has gone retrograde or not.As already mentioned, at sunrise, the first hour of the day is ruled by the planet that governs the day. So if sunrise on Friday is at 6:33 AM in a particular geographic location, from 6:33 AM to 7:33 AM will be a hora ruled by Venus. This is because Venus rules Friday.

The next hour of the day will be ruled by whatever planet comes “after” the planet that rules the day in the above list. So, in this example, Mercury comes after Venus in the list. And it is true, Mercury rules the second hora on Friday, and in our example, Mercury would rule 7:33 AM to 8:33 AM on Friday in that area.

The hours of the day will continue to be ruled by whatever planet comes next in the list and when the bottom of the list is reached, just cycle through the list again from the top.

In our example, the third hour of Friday is ruled by the Moon, from 8:33 AM to 9:33 AM, and the fourth hour of Friday is ruled by Saturn (cycling through the list again from the top), from 9:33 AM to 10:33 AM. At 10:33 AM Jupiter will rule the next hour of Friday until 11:33 AM, and so on.

On a different day of the week, such as Tuesday, the first hour would be ruled by Mars, the next hour by the Sun, the third hour by Venus and so on. Always start with the planet that rules the day as the planet that rules the first hour of sunrise and then go down through the list and keep cycling through it for that day.

The Planetary Watch tool makes this very easy to see.

We can use the tool to make a short prayer to the planet that rules the hour, and just that simple act of inner connection helps create an opening for divine energies to shift your time for that hour so that it becomes more productive.

In addition, people who create a free AstroVed User Account can also use the Planetary Watch tool to record a simple observation of how that hour went for them, whether it was positive, negative or neutral. You can select one of these from a dropdown near the hour and click on SAVE to record the data.

Later on, if you keep a record for several days or weeks, and then click on REPORT, you will see a graphic representation that makes it very easy to self-assess some things about your current relationship with the planets. For example, if you see that Jupiter hora is always positive for you that can help you in planning your day. If you see that Mercury hora is often challenging for you, you may schedule important appointments for a different hora, or you may do some targeted remedies for Mercury to improve your inner connection.You can choose to do remedies for planets that you see are associated with negative self-evaluations, and you can improve your time management so that you consciously receive more of the positive energies of each planet for your important activities. You may find your productivity increasing just by remaining alert to the planet that rules each hour during the day.

We hope you enjoy the Planetary Watch feature!

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