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Birth time is the moment when the infant touches ground resting beside her mother. Most popular and accurate view is that bhopatana should be regarded as birth time. Some babies do not give out a cry (actually it is only a cracking noise caused by gushing of air to its lungs!) and cutting of umbilical chord will take some more time As such they can not be regarded as time of birth. The first ever independent exercise on the part of the infant is breathing and it should be taken as birth time. In large number of cases there would not be much difference between all these events. Further, as everyone sports a watch the birth time is accurately recorded these days. In ancient times recording of birth time was not so accurate and so rectification techniques as propounded in Khanda I of Uttarkalamrita and Nastajatakadhyaya of Brihat Jataka were used.
WHAT IS TIME OF BIRTH?
But in my humble experience spread over 30 years and more, I do not find these methods much dependable. The rectification of birth SHOULD only be employed in the doubtful cases - to draw nearer to the birth time and should not be used to correct every birth time. Uttarakalamrita gives some set of time when the birth under that star is tangible and assumes during the other intervals of 3-4 minutes no birth is possible. In my humble experience, I found this method unsuitable to verify the birth time of twins!   The other methods are to match the events with a particular cuspal sub or a divisional chart or match events with dasha /bhukti.  This method largely depends on the analytical skill and intuition of the astrologer and is lot of time consuming.

Some people think their birth time may only be approximate. One should leave it to the astrologer to decide whether the reported time can be used for making a chart or not and to what extent it would be usable. I would give an example: On 23.4.04 kataka lagna operated from 11:26 to 13:39 in Hyderabad. If the birth was between 12:00 to 12:30, it still falls in the same lagna and we can accept the birth time. But when the client reports the birth time as between 11:20 to 11:28 his lagna could be either kataka or mithuna! It is not that all the reported birth time would fall in the junction period. The astrologer will check up two arguments with both the lagnas by asking questions regarding the profession, marital status, number of brothers/sisters, field of education etc., and decide on one lagna -either kataka or mithuna which produces such a result. For even such simple rectification (barring elaborate mathematical calculations) the astrologer should be experienced. Hobbyists should NEVER VENTURE to rectify the birth time at all. Yes, there may be some differences even for 2-3 minutes in bhava chakra or certain divisional chart. However, the chart so made can be reasonably used without sacrificing accuracy in prediction.

In case, the birth time is not known, (any time between 00:00 to 23:59), then Prashna (horary) chart can be used based on the numbers the client selects and time of approach. This has very restricted scope as it answers one or two questions burning in his mind. Prashna Marga is an ideal classic work which can be relied upon.  In Prashna Shastra, the houses and planets assume different roles.  For example, in a question regarding the disease, lagna is the patient, 7th is the disease, 11th the cure and 9th represents the doctor. In reading a prashna chart, tajaka yogas are used. These yogas are not similar to western astrology.  In the western astrology the opposition is called difficult aspect and such an aspect between two benefics like guru and shukra is considered  bad. In Indian astrology, the nature of planets is taken into account and opposition between benefic planets is not bad.
The tajaka yogas are approaching and separating aspects between the significators of the prashna.  As we plan every move with reference to time, the client meets the astrologer at a particular time (pre-planned), the world has become a small i-village due to vast advancement in communication. The astrologer is in India while the client is in Australia. Which time should be taken is the prashna!  Various methods of selecting numbers were practiced since long. Selecting certain number of beetle leaves, selecting numbers from 1-108, number selection in KP system from 1 to 249 are examples.  As the numbers restrict your choice, I have thrown open complete number system. To have a clear time-scale I have devised a procedure - selection of  3 numbers from zero to infinity (fractions, decimals included) at a given place. More number choices will increase accuracy, like different spreads in a tarot reading.

As I said earlier, the prashna chart is not a replacement for the natal chart.  This does not show flexibility.  Also, the astrologer may relay on a fanciful thought that happened to the client - unlike a reliable event of birth in natal chart.  If the client is quite a fickle minded person, the astrologer can never give accurate results. Whenever such a client comes to me, I am terrified and wish to visit another astrologer!