The Kimstughna karana

a birth, or an activity begun, in the Kimstughna karana, one of the four fixed karanas, occurring once each lunar month

What the tradition reads

Kimstughna, also transliterated Kaustuva, is one of the four fixed karanas and falls at the first half of Shukla paksha Pratipada, the very start of the bright fortnight, making it the only fixed karana that opens a fortnight rather than closing one near the new moon. Astrogle.com names Kubera, lord of wealth, as its presiding deity, and calls it the best of all eleven karanas for undertaking any work when it coincides with that first tithi of the waxing moon, a span the same source names the Vaisvadeva yoga; the same reading, mixed with a warning, calls the karana's native intelligent but sometimes drawn to poor conduct, capable of being heartless or unpopular despite good fortune. Astrobelief.com's animal tradition gives Kimstughna the moth, read there as a sign of luck, wealth, good education and a charitable disposition, a gentler picture than astrogle.com's. Wikipedia's article on the panchanga confirms only the calendrical placement, leaving the character readings to the specialist sources, which agree chiefly that fortune, rather than difficulty, is the karana's dominant note.

The story

Kubera, the deity astrogle.com gives for Kimstughna, is described in the Puranas as the grandson of the sage Pulastya and son of Vishrava, and he rises to become the wealthiest of the devas, guardian of the north and king of the yakshas, the semi divine beings who serve him. His story turns on his half brother Ravana, who wins a boon from Brahma and uses it to drive Kubera from his city of Lanka, seizing along with it the flying chariot Pushpaka Vimana; only after Ravana's death in the Ramayana is the vimana returned to its rightful owner. Kubera does not contest the loss by force but withdraws to Gandhamandana, near Mount Kailash, and builds a new capital at Alaka rather than reclaiming Lanka itself. That readiness to hold wealth without needing to hold the last word, settling for what remains rather than what was lost, sits behind the tradition's reading of Kimstughna as the most fortunate of the fixed karanas, generous in what it grants and unconcerned with what it does not.

Written from

Corpus key karana:Kimstughna.