The hunt for the horoscope!

Now, you have decided that your son or daughter is ready for marriage, and you either have a horoscope or you have to get the horoscope done. Hmm, if you don't have the horoscope on hand, the ideal way is to either get a good astrologer to draft one for your son, or drop into the nearby computer center that advertises "You can get horoscopes here", and get the current superpower to generate on based on the date of birth, time and place of birth of your kid.

Why do we need a horoscope anyway? There are a few specific things about a person's birth
1. Gotram
2. Nakshatram aka star
3. Planetary positions

The Gotram factor comes from predecessors. It is said that each person is a descendant of a sage from centuries ago. There are 20 gotrams, and they are "Aatreya, Agastya, Bhadarayana, Bharadwaja, Gargya, Harita, Kanva, Kashyapa, Kowndinya, Kowsika, Kutsa, Mowdkalya, Naitruvakaasyapa, Paraasara, Sandilya, Shatamarshana, Srivatsa, Sunkriti, Vatula and Viswamitra". I am sure most of us know some of these rishis, Agastya being a sure shot. So the first condition for prospective match is that the gotrams should not be the same. For example, if both the boy and the girl are from Bharadwaja gotram, they are seen as from the same lineage, and hence become brother and sister.

The Nakshatram aka star is the second factor that is considered. There are 27 stars in the horoscope world (thankfully not all the millions in the sky!). Starting from Ashwini and ending with Revathi, these stars have their compatibility matrices. For example, Uthiram isn't compatible with Chittirai, nor is Kettai friendly with itself (same goes for any star). Some stars are by default branded in terms of marriage - for example, moolam in a girl is generally seen as adverse if both parents of the boy are alive, but if only one of them is alive, then it is flagged green. One might ask if all these have any relevance, but with no bias to either side, I can safely say I have seen marriages involving the same stars fail badly. However, I am no expert on these and these are purely for information.

Planetary positions is a complex topic, and it is here people calculate factors such as yogam, dosham, dasai etc. The compatibility of the boy and girl  (as shown by their horoscopes) is determined under various factors such as temperament, mutual love, strength of the marital bond, financial prosperity after marriage, progeny, sexual compatibility etc. some of which are assigned greater weightages. A good match is one in which at least 70% score is obtained. This is called "poruththam parthal".

After all these compatibility tests are done, and the family background, earning potential, educational background etc checks (based on relevance) are complete, the families go to the next important step called "Pen parthal". Oh yes, before that, the photographs of the girl and the boy are exchanged along with the horoscope, and the overall consent is usually based on both the horoscope and the photograph :)