Varjyam is a period computed from the running nakshatra and avoided entirely for new work. Each nakshatra has a fixed proportional point at which its Varjyam begins, so the start time moves every day as the nakshatra changes, and the period lasts roughly one and a half hours.
Derived from the nakshatra, not the weekday
This is what distinguishes Varjyam from Rahu Kalam and its companions. Those are placed by weekday within the daylight; Varjyam is a proportion of the running nakshatra's total duration, so it can fall at any hour, including at night, and it can occur twice in a civil day when a nakshatra changes over.
Each of the twenty-seven nakshatras has its own assigned proportion — expressed in the traditional reckoning as a number of ghatikas out of the nakshatra's sixty — and the almanac converts that to clock times for the day and the place.
How strictly it is kept
Varjyam is among the more strictly observed periods in Telugu practice, and it is the one most often responsible for a ceremony start time that looks arbitrary — a muhurtham set at 10:47 rather than 10:30 is frequently a Varjyam boundary.
The convention concerns beginnings. Work already under way is customarily continued, and as with the other periods a calculated muhurtham that a Purohit has selected takes precedence over the general rule.
Where the general rule stops
Because it is derived from the nakshatra, Varjyam has to be taken from a panchangam computed for your date and place. There is no weekday table for it, and a general rule of thumb will not produce it.
Every timing on this page is computed for Hyderabad and Indian Standard Time. For a consequential date, confirm the window with the Purohit conducting the ceremony rather than acting on a published table.
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