Asalha Puja, the Dharma Day

Asalha Puja, or Dharma Day, is kept on the full moon of the lunar month Ashadha, and it commemorates the Buddha's first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana, at the Deer Park in Sarnath. The wheel of dharma is the image. The next day traditionally begins the rains retreat, Vassa, for the monastic community. That full moon would be the wrong moon for Shravan's Shiva Mondays, which belong to the following lunar stretch and to a different deity, and wrong for Navratri, which begins on a Shukla Pratipada, a first bright tithi, not on a Purnima. The civil date moves. This page will not assign a July or August number from a past year. The panchang or the Buddhist calendar of the year in question names the Purnima. The essence is the sermon and the lunar day, repeated annually.

In a kundli the 9th house is also called dharma: teachers, inherited duty, pilgrimage, the father. The Buddhist use of dharma for the teaching that was set rolling at Sarnath is not a prediction about your 9th lord. A strong 9th can describe someone drawn to a teacher. It does not make them a Buddhist, a Hindu, or neither. Jupiter is the natural significator of teachers and can aspect the 9th. None of that is caused by Ashadha Purnima. People born on a full moon have a Moon opposite the Sun, a natal tithi of Purnima, which is a chart condition of the luminaries. It is not this festival stamped on the lagna. If you keep Asalha Puja, you are keeping a historical and lunar anniversary. Your Vimshottari period that week is still the one calculated from your birth nakshatra.

Observe it as the communities who hold it observe it: recollection of the first sermon, often a visit to a vihara, and attention to the start of the rains retreat where that applies. It is not a muhurta for a Hindu wedding, and it is not a forbidden day in a kundli sense unless you are inside a tradition that says so for its own members. It does not require a gem, a colour, or a rashi. Comparing it with Navratri or with Mangal puja only helps to keep the calendars apart. Those are Devi and Mars. This is the Buddha's dharma talk at Sarnath, timed by Ashadha's full moon. If you want a personal religious reading, open the 9th house on an ordinary day. The Purnima will not do that work for you, and it does not need to.