How Many Gun Should Match for Marriage?

At least 18 gunas out of 36 should match for marriage, by the rule most North Indian families and pandits follow. A score of 24 or more is treated as a good match. The total is only half the answer, though, because a 0 in nadi or bhakoot can make even 28 gunas unacceptable to a pandit.

In Hindi the question is "kitne gun milne chahiye", and the short answer is "kam se kam 18".

Why 18 Is the Usual Minimum

18 is exactly half of 36. Families and pandits across North India have used it for a long time as the line between a match worth taking forward and one to leave.

Drik Panchang's bands are close to this. When bhakoot is favourable, it reads 17 to 20 as middling and 16 or below as inauspicious. So 17 or 18 is the edge in both readings.

Score Bands, from 0 to 36

This table puts the common family reading next to the bands from Drik Panchang's matching page, for the case where bhakoot is favourable.

When bhakoot is unfavourable, Drik Panchang moves every band down. Then 0 to 20 is inauspicious, 21 to 25 is middling, and 26 to 29 is very good. No score counts as excellent.

Why the Total Is Not Everything

The 36 gunas come from 8 kootas of different weight. Nadi alone is 8 and bhakoot is 7. A pandit reads these two before he looks at the total.

The 28 with nadi at 0 worries a pandit more than the 22 with both full. This surprises many parents who see "28" on a software report and stop reading.

Same nakshatra couples need extra care. Two people born under the same star always share a nadi, so the report shows nadi at 0. Some astrologers make an exception when the padas or rasis are different. Our 36 gun milan guide has the nadi list for all 27 stars.

Is 27 Out of 36 a Good Match?

Yes. 27 is in the 21 to 30 band that Drik Panchang calls very good, and most families would be happy with it.

Check the breakdown before celebrating. If nadi is 8 and bhakoot is 7, then 27 is a solid score. If either one is 0, the 27 is hiding a dosha, and the pandit will want to look at it.

Low Total but Good Kootas

A score of 18 to 20 with nadi and bhakoot both full is often approved. The missing points in such a match usually come from the small kootas such as varna, vashya or tara, which pandits do not weigh heavily.

Many pandits also look at the full charts at this stage. They check the 7th house, the strength of Venus and Jupiter, and the dasha periods running for both. This is beyond the 36-point table, and a software report will not do it for you.

Very Low Scores, Under 10

A score under 10 usually means several kootas, often including nadi or bhakoot, scored 0. Most families do not take such a proposal forward on the astrology side.

Some do. If the families know each other well, or the boy and girl have already decided, the parents may ask the pandit about remedies and go ahead. That is their call. The pandit's job is to tell them what the charts show, plainly, and a good one will not frighten them.

Regional Differences, North and South India

The 36-point gun milan is mostly a North and Central Indian practice. Families in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra commonly use it.

Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayali families more often use porutham, a list of ten pass-or-fail matches, as listed on Prokerala's porutham page. There is no "out of 36" in porutham, and many Tamil astrologers treat rajju as a must-pass. The kundli milan guide compares the two.

When the two families come from different regions, agree on the system first. Otherwise one side will talk about gunas and the other about poruthams, and both will be right about different things.

Manglik Is Checked Separately

Manglik dosha is not part of the 36 gunas. A couple can score 30 and still be told the match needs care because one of them is manglik.

So the full answer to "is this a match?" has three parts: the score, the nadi and bhakoot check, and the manglik check. Read what is manglik for how that check works.

Make Sure the Score Is Worked Out from the Right Star

Every one of the 36 points comes from the nakshatra and rasi. If the time of birth on the biodata is off by 20 minutes on a day the moon changed stars, the score is for the wrong person.

Print the nakshatra and rasi from the family horoscope on the biodata, and check them against the birth time. You can make a biodata with the horoscope worked out from the date, time and place of birth, then change any value to match the horoscope your family trusts.

Other questions on matching and doshas are answered in our kundli matching section.