Auspicious Dates (Saait) of Nepal: Marriage, Bratabandha, Pasni & Griha Pravesh

A saait (Nepali: साइत; from Sanskrit muhurta) is an astrologically auspicious window of time for beginning an important life event. In Nepal the four most-searched saait are for bibaha (marriage), bratabandha (the sacred-thread or upanayana ceremony), pasni (annaprashan, the first rice-feeding of an infant) and griha pravesh (entering or moving into a new house). Choosing the right saait is treated as essential for the ceremony to be socially and religiously valid, which is why families and priests consult the annual almanac before fixing any date.

The authoritative source for these dates in Nepal is the Nepal Panchanga Nirnayak (Bikas) Samiti, the state calendar-determination committee based at the Narayanhiti Durbar complex in Kathmandu and operating under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. Every year it reviews and approves the panchanga (Hindu almanac) and publishes the list of shubha muhurta and saait for the coming BS year. The dates listed on this page are attributed to that official published list; they are reproduced here as a directory, not independently generated by astrology software.

It is important to understand what the Samiti actually certifies. It fixes the calendar tithis, festivals and the saait windows on which vittepatro (wall-calendar) and patro publishers must agree. Since a 2077 BS (2020-2021 AD) formation order gave it regulatory teeth, calendars that contradict the Samiti's decisions can be barred, and publishing an unapproved patro can attract a fine. That legal backing is why the Samiti's saait list, rather than any single private patro app, is the reference used throughout this article.

For BS 2082 the Samiti-approved almanac provides 39 marriage saait days. They fall in five months only: Baisakh, Jestha, Mangsir, Magh and Falgun. There are no marriage saait during the long Chaturmas period (roughly Ashadh to Kartik), when Vishnu is held to be asleep, nor in months where Guru (Jupiter) or Shukra (Venus) are combust or set, which are traditionally barred for weddings.

Baisakh 2082 is the single richest month with 12 marriage days, and Jestha adds 8, making the spring window (mid-April to early June 2025) the busiest of the year. The winter and late-winter window in Mangsir, Magh and Falgun (November 2025 to mid-March 2026) supplies the remaining 19 days. AD equivalents below are computed in-house from the BS-AD conversion for 2082 and are approximate to the day at the month boundaries; always confirm the exact civil date against a current patro.

The most heavily booked window is typically late Falgun, because in 2082 that stretch is free of major fasting festivals; wedding venues in Kathmandu report this as their peak. Couples who cannot secure a hall on a Baisakh or Falgun saait often move to the quieter Mangsir dates.

Bratabandha (the upanayana or sacred-thread ceremony marking a boy's initiation into Vedic study) has far fewer valid days than marriage, because its saait requires an even stricter alignment of tithi, nakshatra and planetary positions, and it is confined mostly to the spring months. For BS 2082 the Samiti list gives only 8 bratabandha days across three months, which was widely reported in the Nepali press as an unusually short window.

As with marriage, bratabandha is avoided when Jupiter or Venus is combust and during Chaturmas, which is why the 2082 dates cluster in Baisakh and again in Falgun-Chaitra at the two ends of the astrologically open season. Families planning a joint bratabandha-and-wedding often try to align a boy's initiation with one of these narrow windows.

Pasni (annaprashan), the ceremony when an infant is first fed solid rice, has the most generous saait of the four events because it is not blocked by the same marriage-season restrictions. For BS 2082 the Samiti almanac lists 21 pasni days spread across almost every month of the year, so families have wide flexibility to match the ceremony to the child's age (traditionally around six months for girls and a slightly different count for boys).

Griha pravesh (formal entry into a new or newly built house) is the most restricted of all: BS 2082 offers only 3 saait days, all in the late-winter months of Magh and Falgun. Because valid griha-pravesh dates are so scarce, families building homes often plan the completion of construction around these windows well in advance. If none is workable, priests may prescribe a shanti (propitiation) rite to enter on a lesser date.

For the following year, BS 2083, the Samiti-approved list again concentrates weddings in Baisakh, Ashadh, Mangsir, Magh and Falgun. Reported counts place the year at roughly 40 marriage saait days, with Falgun once more emerging as the standout month; venue operators single out the Falgun 15-20 stretch (late February to early March 2027) as the year's most booked window. Because sources reproducing the 2083 list show minor day-to-day variation, the dates below should be treated as indicative and confirmed against the printed Samiti patro for 2083.

The 2083 bratabandha list is broader than 2082's, running through Baisakh, Ashadh, Magh, Falgun and Chaitra. Pasni again has the widest availability across nearly every month, while griha pravesh remains limited to a handful of Baisakh and Falgun dates. As always, the definitive per-day list is the one printed in the Samiti-approved 2083 almanac.

A saait is not a single fixed rule but the product of five almanac elements, the panch-anga (literally 'five limbs') that give the panchanga its name: tithi (lunar day), vaar (weekday), nakshatra (lunar mansion or star), yoga (a sun-moon angular combination) and karana (half-tithi). A date qualifies as auspicious for a given event only when these five align favourably for that event and no major dosha (defect) is present.

For weddings, astrologers additionally check the lagna (rising sign at the chosen moment) and require that Guru (Jupiter) and Shukra (Venus), the karaka planets for marriage, are not asta (combust or set). Periods when either is combust are barred outright, as is the Chaturmas span when marriages are traditionally not solemnised. Malefic yogas and inauspicious tithis are similarly excluded, which is why only a few dozen days in a year survive as valid marriage saait.

Each event has its own additional criteria: bratabandha demands a suitable nakshatra for study and initiation, pasni looks to a benign tithi and star for a child's health, and griha pravesh requires a stable, fixed-sign lagna and avoidance of the months when the house-entry is doctrinally prohibited. The Samiti's astrologers apply these classical rules uniformly so that the whole country works from one approved set of dates, and the individual time-of-day muhurta within an approved day is still confirmed by the family priest.

A practical caution: an approved saait day sets the auspicious window, but the exact ghadi (time) for the ritual on that day is worked out by the officiating priest against the family's and couple's particulars. Treat the dates here as the official day-list and confirm the precise timing locally.