Bhadra Kaal today in Mysuru

Muhurta Chintamani places Bhadra in one of three worlds by the sign the Moon is in, and says its result is felt in that world:

कुम्भकर्कद्वये मर्त्ये स्वर्गेऽब्जेऽजात्त्रयेऽलिगे ।
स्त्रीधनुर्जूकनक्रेऽधो भद्रा तत्रैव तत्फलम् ॥

The gloss usually quoted after it (Piyush Dhara): Bhadra in swarga does good, in patala brings wealth, and on the earth spoils every undertaking.

Where traditions differ: many families and almanacs avoid only an earthly Bhadra and treat swarga and patala Bhadra as harmless; many others avoid every Bhadra for an auspicious start whatever its loka. For Raksha Bandhan and Holika Dahan the almanacs wait for any Bhadra to end. This page prints the loka and leaves the choice to the family's custom.

The tithi that holds a Bhadra is divided into eight praharas, each of seven and a half ghatis measured on the Moon. Bhadra's mukha (mouth) is the first five ghatis of one prahara and its punchha (tail) the last three ghatis of another, by the tithi — the classical table below. The mukha is avoided for any rite; the punchha is the part some rites may use, as the Holika bonfire does when Bhadra runs past midnight.

A karana is half a tithi, and Vishti is the seventh of the seven karanas that repeat through the lunar month — so it comes eight times a month, half a tithi each time: the second half of Shukla Chaturthi and Ekadashi and of Krishna Tritiya and Dashami, the first half of Shukla Ashtami and Purnima and of Krishna Saptami and Chaturdashi.

In the Puranic telling Bhadra is the daughter of Surya and the sister of Shani, given a place in the panchang to keep her fierce nature in check. The muhurta texts close her half-tithi to every auspicious beginning — a wedding, a griha pravesh, a purchase, the rakhi — and keep it for forceful, destructive work.

A tithi is twelve degrees of the Moon's lead over the Sun and a karana is six. Bhadra begins and ends where that lead crosses the Vishti karana's edges, found to the second from the Swiss Ephemeris — the same instants the Raksha Bandhan and Holika Dahan pages print, and within two minutes of AstroSage's Bhadra list. The loka is the Moon's sidereal (Lahiri) sign, cut at the minute it changes sign.