Prashna: The Chart of a Question

The Chart of a Question

What prashna is, and how it differs from a birth chart and a muhurta.

A chart with no birth in it

Prashna means question. A prashna chart is cast not for a birth but for the moment a question is understood, and it is read for that one question and nothing else.

The reasoning is the one the Muhurta chapter gave: a thing that begins at a moment carries the character of that moment. A birth begins a life. A sincere, pressing question also has a moment it comes into being, and prashna treats that moment as the question's own chart.

No birth data is needed. That's a large part of why prashna has always been popular: it works for someone who doesn't know their birth time.

Three charts, three directions

You now know three ways a moment becomes a chart:

| | The moment is | Read for |
|---|---|---|
| Natal | Given: a birth | A whole life's promise and timing |
| Muhurta | Chosen: a beginning you elect | The conditions a venture starts under |
| Prashna | Arriving: a question is understood | One answer to one question |

The methods overlap (lagna, lords, dignity, aspects all work the same way), but the scope is completely different. A natal chart can be read for a hundred questions over a lifetime. A prashna chart answers the question it was cast for, and then it's done.

Where it comes from

Prashna is a full branch of Jyotish with its own literature. Two texts come up constantly: Prashna Marga, a classical text of the Kerala tradition, where prashna practice is especially elaborate, and Prashna Tantra, attributed to Neelakantha.

This chapter names them so you recognise them. It doesn't quote them. What it teaches is the core that Parashari prashna practice widely shares: who the lagna is, where the matter lives, what the Moon is doing, and how those lean an answer.

What this app does, and doesn't

Plainly: the app does not yet cast prashna charts with any special handling. There's no prashna module in the engine.

You don't need one to learn this. A prashna chart is an ordinary chart cast for the moment and place of the question, exactly as if that moment were a birth. The same whole-sign houses, dignities and aspects apply. What's different is entirely in how you read it, and that's what the rest of this chapter teaches.

KP horary is a different method

You'll also meet KP horary, the question method of Krishnamurti Paddhati. It's a separate system, with its own way of fixing the chart, its own significator rules and its own ayanamsa. KP always uses its own ayanamsa, never the Pushya-paksha default.

It is taught in the KP chapter. Don't mix its rules into the Parashari prashna in this one. A reading that borrows half of each method answers neither correctly.

Remember it

Natal is given, muhurta is chosen, prashna arrives. One question per chart, the chart is an ordinary chart of that moment, and KP horary lives in its own chapter.

Terms introduced here

What prashna is

A chart cast for the moment a question is understood, read for that one question.

Natal, muhurta, prashna

Natal reads a given moment for a life, muhurta chooses a moment for a beginning, prashna reads the moment a question arrives for one answer.

KP horary is a separate method

Krishnamurti Paddhati has its own horary technique with its own rules. It is covered in the KP chapter and not mixed in here.