Kharmas 2026: Why No Vivah Muhurat From Dec 16 to Jan 14

Every winter the wedding calendar goes quiet for a month, and every winter families are told a different reason why. Kharmas 2026 begins at 10:29 AM IST on Wednesday 16 December, when the Sun enters sidereal Dhanu, and it does not lift until Makar Sankranti is observed on Friday 15 January 2027. Thirty days, no vivah muhurat anywhere in the country. This page gives you the exact moments from DrikPanchang, the dates on either side of the gap, and — the part nobody publishes — what is still perfectly permitted inside it.

Kharmas 2026 start date and end date, to the minute

The period opens at Dhanu Sankranti — the instant the Sun crosses from Vrishchika into Dhanu. DrikPanchang’s New Delhi panchang puts that moment at 10:29 AM IST on Wednesday, 16 December 2026, with the Punya Kala running from 10:29 AM to 4:00 PM and the Maha Punya Kala from 10:29 AM to 12:13 PM.

It closes at Makar Sankranti, when the Sun enters Makara. Here the calendar plays a trick: the transit itself happens at 09:14 PM on Thursday 14 January 2027, after sunset, so the festival and its Punya Kala are observed the following day. DrikPanchang lists Makar Sankranti for New Delhi on Friday, 15 January 2027, Punya Kala 07:15 AM to 05:46 PM.

That gap of a day is the single biggest source of confusion online. Some pages say Kharmas ends on 14 January, others say 15 January. Both are describing the same event — one is quoting the astronomical transit, the other the observed festival. Weddings resume on 15 January either way, because Sankranti day itself is not used for marriage.

Why marriages stop when the Sun enters Dhanu

Kharmas is a solar-month rule, not a piece of folklore about unlucky days. Dhanu (Sagittarius) and Meena (Pisces) are the two signs owned by Guru — Jupiter. Jupiter is the karaka of marriage, of dharma and of a bride’s married life, and the classical position is that while the Sun occupies Guru’s own house, Guru’s ability to sanctify a samskara is compromised.

The same logic explains why there is a second Kharmas every spring, when the Sun moves into Meena around mid-March. Families who know only the winter one are always surprised by the March block. Both are called Malmas in the north and Dhanurmas or Meenamas by the month involved.

The rule bites on the sixteen samskaras that need a lagna: vivah, griha pravesh, mundan, upanayana, and the formal opening of a business. It does not touch worship. That distinction is the whole point of the tradition, and it is the part that popular explainers usually leave out. Read more on the underlying framework of Hindu astrology if the vocabulary is new.

The dates on either side of the gap

All timings below are IST for Delhi, taken from DrikPanchang with the location set to New Delhi, and cross-checked against VedicFeed, VedicMatch and the classical-rule list published by Dr R.P. Sharma. DrikPanchang is our tiebreaker where they differ.

Date	Day	Tithi	Nakshatra	Muhurat window (IST, Delhi)	Consensus
11 Dec 2026	Friday	Shukla Tritiya	Uttara Ashadha	03:04 – 07:04 AM (12 Dec)	Some sources (3 of 4)
12 Dec 2026	Saturday	Tritiya, Chaturthi	Uttara Ashadha	07:04 AM – 03:27 AM (13 Dec)	All sources — last date of 2026
16 Dec – 14 Jan	—	—	—	No muhurat published	All sources agree
15 Jan 2027	Friday	Shukla Saptami	Revati	07:15 AM – 02:13 PM	All sources — first date after
18 Jan 2027	Monday	Shukla Ekadashi	Rohini, Krittika	09:05 – 09:12 PM	Some sources (3 of 4)
19 Jan 2027	Tuesday	Dwadashi, Trayodashi	Rohini, Mrigashira	07:49 AM – 07:14 AM (20 Jan)	Some sources (3 of 4)
20 Jan 2027	Wednesday	Shukla Trayodashi	Mrigashira	07:14 AM – 04:17 PM	All sources

DrikPanchang labels 16 December as partially overlapping the prohibited solar month, then marks every day from 17 December to 13 January simply “Prohibited Solar month” with no window at all. 14 January is again a partial overlap. The first clean day is 15 January. Our auspicious marriage dates 2026-2027 guide carries the full run on both sides.

What is still permitted during Kharmas

This is where most pages stop at “nothing auspicious can be done”, which is simply wrong. Dhanurmasa is one of the most devotionally active months in the Hindu year. What pauses is the lagna-dependent samskara; what continues, and in many traditions intensifies, is worship.

• Daily puja, japa and vrat — expressly encouraged. Ekadashi fasting continues on its normal cycle.
• Vaikuntha Ekadashi — falls on Sunday 20 December 2026 for Chennai, squarely inside the block. The Ekadashi tithi runs from 10:09 PM on 19 December to 08:14 PM on 20 December, with parana on 21 December between 06:26 and 08:43 AM.
• Charity, annadana and pilgrimage — the Sankranti days at both ends are among the most recommended days of the year for daan.
• Kundali matching, horoscope consultation and lagna planning — no restriction whatsoever. These are preparatory, not ceremonial.
• Registration of an already-planned marriage — a civil formality, treated separately from the Vedic ceremony by most families.

Put plainly: Kharmas 2026 stops the pheras. It does not stop the planning, the paperwork or the prayers. Families who understand that distinction use the month; families who do not, lose it. If the two families have not yet compared charts, this is the ideal window — Sahita’s free kundali matching app runs the full Ashta Koota offline, so there is nothing to book and nobody to wait for.

Dhanurmasa and Margazhi: the South Indian view

Travel south and the same thirty days carry the opposite emotional charge. DrikPanchang notes it directly: the Dhanur solar month is what the Tamil calendar calls Margazhi. Since Dhanu Sankranti falls on 16 December 2026 and Thai Pongal on 15 January 2027, Margazhi 2026-27 occupies exactly the Kharmas window.

In Vaishnava temples this is the holiest month of the year. Worship is offered before dawn during the Dhanurmasa puja; Andal’s Tiruppavai and Manikkavachakar’s Tiruvempavai are recited daily through the month in Tamil Nadu, and the Vaikuntha Dwaram is opened on Vaikuntha Ekadashi. Chennai’s December music season is built around the same weeks.

So a Tamil family will tell you Margazhi is the most auspicious month of all, and a Delhi family will tell you nothing auspicious can be done in it. Both are right, because they are talking about different categories of act — temple worship versus household samskara. Weddings are avoided in both regions. Our Tamil muhurtham astrology guide covers how the Tamil calendar handles wedding timing the rest of the year.

Bengal draws the same line differently again, restricting weddings through the month of Poush. If your two families straddle these systems, our Bengali Poush and Sankranti wedding rules guide explains where the two calendars overlap and where they do not.

Engagements and roka: the question families actually argue about

Can you hold a sagai, roka or nishchayathartham during Kharmas? Honestly: it depends on your family’s tradition, and you will find respectable opinion on both sides.

The permissive view is that an engagement is a social contract between two families, not one of the sixteen Vedic samskaras, so it needs no vivah lagna and can be held on any ordinarily good day. Many North Indian families do exactly this, and the December-January break is convenient precisely because relatives are free.

The strict view is that in most communities the nishchayathartham is itself performed with a muhurat and a small homa, which makes it a ceremony like any other and therefore subject to the same block. South Indian practice tends this way.

The practical answer: ask your own family purohit before fixing anything, and do not take a website’s word for it — including this one. What nobody disputes is that the matching itself can and should be done now. The 36 Guna calculation runs offline in seconds on Sahita on Google Play.

Where the sources disagree, and how we resolved it

Three disagreements are worth naming, because you will hit all three if you search for these dates yourself.

First, the Makar Sankranti moment. Circulating figures put it anywhere from mid-afternoon to late night on 14 January 2027. DrikPanchang’s New Delhi page is unambiguous: the Sankranti moment is 09:14 PM on 14 January, the observation date is 15 January, and the Chennai Thai Pongal page gives the identical 09:14 PM. We use that and discard the rest.

Second, the end date. Pages that say “Kharmas ends 14 January” are quoting the transit; pages that say 15 January are quoting the observed festival. Neither is wrong, but only one of them tells you when you can marry, and that is 15 January.

Third, the January date count. Three panchang engines publish nine dates for January 2027; the classical-rule list gives five. They agree on 15, 20, 24 and 27 January. The extra dates in the longer list, such as the seven-minute window on 18 January, are real but hard to use.

One more caution about stale pages. Several of the top-ranking Kharmas explainers were written for an earlier cycle and still show the previous year’s Sankranti times without a visible date stamp. Always check that the page you are reading names 16 December 2026 and 15 January 2027 specifically.

Use the month: what to finish before 15 January

A thirty-day pause is not dead time, it is preparation time — and January 2027 opens with nine dates and a nationwide scramble for venues. Families who arrive at 15 January with the matching already settled get the date they want. Families who start on 15 January do not.

1. Run the 36 Guna Ashta Koota and the Manglik check for both charts. The free Sahita kundali matching app does this offline, in eleven languages, with no login.
2. Resolve any Nadi, Bhakoot or Manglik question in writing, with the cancellation rule that applies, before the pandit meeting.
3. Collect accurate birth details — date, time, place — for both sides. Correct a doubtful birth time now, not in January.
4. Shortlist two dates from January 2027, not one, and check them against your own city’s panchang.
5. Hold the venue provisionally during Kharmas; contracts are a commercial matter, not a ceremonial one.
6. Book the pandit’s lagna consultation for the first week of January so the hour is fixed before the date opens.

Do the matching first, because it is the step everything else waits on. Run the free kundali matching tool for the full koota-by-koota breakdown, or use the free Sahita app if two households in two cities need to read the same screen at the same time.

For the year ahead, our auspicious wedding dates 2027 page maps every window from January to the next Chaturmas. Regional readers can work from the same panchang in their own language: vivah muhurat 2027 in Hindi, vivaha muhurta 2027 in Kannada, or lagna muhurat 2027 in Gujarati.

Frequently asked questions

What are the kharmas 2026 start and end dates?

Kharmas begins at Dhanu Sankranti, 10:29 AM IST on Wednesday 16 December 2026, and ends with Makar Sankranti, observed on Friday 15 January 2027 for New Delhi. The Sun’s actual entry into Makara is at 09:14 PM on 14 January, after sunset, which is why the festival and the resumption of weddings both fall on the 15th.

Why is marriage not allowed during Kharmas?

Because the Sun is transiting Dhanu, one of Jupiter’s two signs. Jupiter is the karaka of marriage and of dharma, and the classical view is that while the Sun occupies Guru’s own house, Guru cannot properly sanctify a samskara. The restriction covers vivah, griha pravesh, mundan and upanayana — the rites that need a lagna — not worship or charity.

Is Kharmas the same as Dhanurmas and Malmas?

Broadly yes, though the words are used loosely. Kharmas is the common north Indian name; Dhanurmas names the solar month by the sign the Sun occupies; Malmas is used for both the Dhanu and Meena periods, and confusingly also for the intercalary Adhik Maas. In every case the practical effect on weddings is the same.

Can we do an engagement or roka during Kharmas 2026?

Traditions differ. Many North Indian families treat an engagement as a social contract rather than a Vedic samskara and hold it freely; South Indian practice usually fixes a muhurat for the nishchayathartham, which brings it under the same restriction. Ask your family purohit before fixing a date. Kundali matching itself is unrestricted throughout.

What is the first wedding date after Kharmas 2026?

Friday 15 January 2027, with a Delhi window of 07:15 AM to 02:13 PM under Revati nakshatra on Shukla Saptami. All four sources we checked agree on this date. The next ones are 18, 19 and 20 January, though the 18 January window is only seven minutes long and 20 January is the more practical choice.

Is Vaikuntha Ekadashi inside Kharmas, and can we observe it?

Yes to both. Vaikuntha Ekadashi falls on Sunday 20 December 2026 for Chennai, well inside the block, and observing it is entirely appropriate — Dhanurmasa is among the most devotionally significant months in the Vaishnava calendar. The restriction applies to marriage and other lagna-based ceremonies, never to fasting, puja or pilgrimage.

Related reading: Auspicious wedding dates 2027 · Auspicious marriage dates 2026-2027 · Vivah muhurat 2027 in Hindi