Mercury Combust Dates

Mercury is combust more often than any other graha, several times a year, usually for about three weeks at a stretch. Parashara and Surya Siddhanta give the orb as fourteen degrees, and twelve when Mercury is retrograde. Mercury never travels far from the Sun, so it is often in the glare.

The Sun is neutral toward Mercury in Parashara's table, and Mercury counts the Sun a friend. Combustion here is a familiar condition, and the texts treat it more lightly than for other grahas. Mercury's significations, speech, intellect, trade, writing, travel and the nervous system, are muted for the weeks in question. Judgement is clouded by the Sun's ego, and the person speaks from pride where they should speak from reason.

A combust Mercury that is also retrograde, at the inferior conjunction, is the shorter of the two, often under a fortnight. It is the more careful period. Both states call for a second look at every message and every contract. The combustion at the superior conjunction, with Mercury moving direct, lasts longer and passes more quietly.

The house where the combustion happens, from the Moon and from the lagna, names the field. Phaladeepika lists the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth and eleventh as Mercury's favourable transit houses. A combustion there is a short pause in a productive stretch. In the third, seventh or twelfth, misunderstandings multiply.

Mercury combust shows how one holds the mind when it is not its own master. It reveals the habit of speaking for effect, since the Sun's pride has the louder voice for those weeks. A person who says less says it better.

• Read every message twice and sign nothing that can wait three weeks.
• Worship Vishnu and give green cloth or moong on Wednesday, the dana Parashara names for Mercury.
• Recite Om Budhaya Namah, and offer water to the Sun at dawn.