Introduction
"Raja yoga" makes people picture a king, a minister or high office. The texts use those words because they were written in the age of kings. Today they are read as responsibility, recognition and openings to grow.
BPHS gives many forms of raja yoga (a long list in ch. 39). But the most basic and most used rule is the link between the lord of a kendra and the lord of a trikona.
Vishnu sthanas and Lakshmi sthanas
BPHS (41.28) calls the kendras (1, 4, 7, 10) Vishnu sthanas and the trikonas (5, 9; the lagna counts as both) Lakshmi sthanas. Just as Vishnu and Lakshmi belong together, a relationship between the lords of these two kinds of houses is taken as a raja yoga.
BPHS (39.33-34) likens the lord of the 9th to a minister, and gives the lord of the 5th even more weight.
The rule: how the lords connect
According to BPHS (34.11-12), these links form a raja yoga:
- The kendra lord and the trikona lord exchange signs.
- The two sit together in a kendra or a trikona.
- There is a full aspect between them.
- A trikona lord sits in a kendra, or a kendra lord in a trikona (ePandit marks this as a "supporting placement").
ePandit mainly counts three links: exchange, conjunction in the same sign, and mutual full aspect. Each pair is shown with the houses its planets rule.
Yogakaraka: BPHS (34.13) says a single planet that owns both a kendra and a trikona is a special yogakaraka. For example Saturn for Vrishabha and Tula lagnas, Mars for Karka and Simha lagnas.
Conditions and cautions
BPHS (34.15) gives an important condition: if the kendra or trikona lord also owns a difficult house (6, 8 or 12), mere relation does not make a raja yoga. In the translator Santhanam's note, the planet's moolatrikona sign decides which lordship prevails.
Besides this:
- BPHS (ch. 41) grades the outcome by the divisional dignities of the planets involved.
- Tradition holds that a raja yoga shows more in the dasha and antardasha of the planets that form it.
- One chart can hold several raja yogas and several difficult combinations at once. The whole chart is read together.
How ePandit shows it
In the "Yoga" tab each raja yoga appears as a pair, for example: "lord of the 4th and lord of the 9th in the same sign". With it come the kind of link, the planets' signs and, if a 6th, 8th or 12th lordship is also involved, the BPHS 34.15 note.
Vipareeta raja yoga and neecha-bhanga raja yoga follow different rules and have their own pages.
An example
Take a Simha lagna. Mars then rules both the 4th house (Vrishchika) and the 9th house (Mesha), so a single planet owns a kendra and a trikona: Mars is the yogakaraka for this lagna.
Now suppose Venus, lord of the 10th (Vrishabha), and Jupiter, lord of the 5th (Dhanu), sit in the same sign. That conjunction of the 10th and 5th lords is counted as a raja yoga. ePandit also checks whether either planet rules the 6th, 8th or 12th; here Jupiter also rules the 8th (Meena), so the BPHS 34.15 note is shown alongside.