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In short
Prashna is horary astrology: a chart cast for the moment a question is asked, at the place of asking, and read for that one question rather than for a whole life. This app's Prashna engine follows a curated subset of Daivajna Vallabha, a horary text attributed to Varahamihira, and answers five kinds of question.
What the term means
Prashna means "question". A Prashna chart is cast not for a birth but for the moment someone asks a specific question, at the place where they ask it. The chart is built exactly like a kundali: the same grahas, signs, houses and Lagna. What changes is the moment and the method of reading: it answers one question, such as whether a journey will happen, instead of describing a life.
Where the term comes from
Daivajna Vallabha, attributed to Varahamihira, opens by calling itself a work "dealing with the science of Horary Astrology". Its first chapter lists ten states (avasthas) of a planet, from Diptha (in exaltation) to Dina (in debilitation), and asks that a query "be put once only". Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. II, p. 20) defines Prasna as the prediction of events in the immediate future "by drawing up a chart of the moment". BPHS Ch. 78 Sl. 3-4 uses the Prasna Lagna, the "Query chart", to recover birth details when they are unknown, and Saravali Ch. 48 does the same "through horary method". Saravali Ch. 4 says its rule for temporary friendship applies to horary charts as well as birth charts.
How this app computes it
- The chart is cast for the current moment and the asker's location with the same astronomy as a birth chart.
- The reading follows a curated part of Daivajna Vallabha: planetary states (Ch. 1), gains (Ch. 3), travel (Ch. 4), recoverability of lost items (Ch. 9), two relationship-timing slokas (Ch. 12) and general house favourability (Ch. 15). Chapters on war, death, guessing games, rainfall and the sex of a child are deliberately not built.
- Five of the ten avasthas are read from the planet's dignity, and a combust planet is read as Mushita; the rest need sub-systems the app does not build and are left out.
- There are five question types: general yes/no, money and gains, travel, lost and found, and relationship timing. The words of the question are stored for display only; the answer comes from the moment and the type.
- It is not used to reconstruct a birth time, the use BPHS Ch. 78 puts the query chart to. The feature needs a signed-in account.
Pages that use this term
- Prashna - the feature that answers a question from the chart of the moment.
- Prashna calculator - the same engine as a calculator.
- When the birth time is unknown - Prashna as a method that needs no birth time, and why it does not recover one.
- Nakshatra sub-lord and birth time - checks the prashna text among its sources.
- Ishta Devata and the Karakamsa - also reports what the prashna text does not say.
Related terms
Dignity, Combustion (asta), Upachaya and Muhurat.