Introduction
"Shad" means six. Shadbala counts six separate balas for each planet from the Sun to Saturn and adds them. The unit is the shashtiamsha (virupa); 60 shashtiamshas = 1 rupa.
ePandit follows B. V. Raman, Graha and Bhava Balas, which follows Śrīpati and underlies many Indian shadbala programs. We checked every component against the book's own worked example. Rahu and Ketu get no shadbala.
The six balas and their parts
- Sthana bala (position): uccha bala (distance from the debilitation point), saptavargaja bala (sign and friendship in D1, D2, D3, D7, D9, D12, D30), ojayugma bala (odd or even sign and navamsa), kendra bala (angle, succedent or cadent) and drekkana bala.
- Dig bala (direction): the Sun and Mars get full dig bala in the 10th house, Jupiter and Mercury in the 1st, the Moon and Venus in the 4th, Saturn in the 7th. Raman measures the distance from the house midpoints.
- Kala bala (time): natonnata (day or night birth), paksha (the Moon's phase), tribhaga (thirds of day and night), the lords of year, month, weekday and hora, ayana bala (the planet's declination), and yuddha bala when two planets are very close.
- Cheshta bala (motion): for Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. As in Raman's example, the Sun's and Moon's cheshta bala are not added to the total; the table shows "–".
- Naisargika bala (natural, the same in every chart): Sun 60, Moon 51.43, Venus 42.86, Jupiter 34.29, Mercury 25.71, Mars 17.14, Saturn 8.57.
- Drik bala (aspects): aspects from natural benefics minus aspects from natural malefics, divided by four. It can be negative.
Required minimum and the ratio
Raman gives a required minimum for each planet:
| Planet | Required (shashtiamsha) | Rupas |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | 300 | 5 |
| Moon | 360 | 6 |
| Mars | 300 | 5 |
| Mercury | 420 | 7 |
| Jupiter | 390 | 6.5 |
| Venus | 330 | 5.5 |
| Saturn | 300 | 5 |
ePandit shows each planet's ratio: total shadbala ÷ required minimum.
- Above 1 means the planet has more than the traditional minimum to work with in its themes.
- Below 1 says nothing bad. It only means that, for those themes, other factors in the chart, such as the dasha, a house lord or another planet, lead.
- We put no label on a planet from these numbers, and no remedy follows from them.
Why other software shows different figures
Software such as Jagannatha Hora (JHora) may give somewhat different shadbala. The cause is method, not error:
- Dig bala: JHora measures from lagna ± 90°, Raman from the house midpoints. A few shashtiamshas.
- Natonnata bala: JHora counts by angle, Raman by time from midnight.
- Saptavargaja bala: JHora uses a different rule; ours reproduces Raman's example exactly.
- Drik bala: JHora uses the BPHS aspect curves; Raman adds the special aspects separately.
- Ayana bala: a different way of finding the declination.
Cheshta, paksha, tribhaga, weekday, hora, year, month and naisargika bala come out nearly the same in both, and both leave the Sun's and Moon's cheshta out of the total.
The book has a few small printing and addition slips in its example; our calculation uses the corrected sums.
How ePandit uses shadbala
- Shadbala depends entirely on the birth time. Without it, we do not show it.
- The kundli's "technical" tab gives the six balas, the total (shashtiamsha and rupa), the required minimum and the ratio, as numbers only.
- In a reading it only helps decide which planet to talk about first. The reading from the chart, dasha and transits stands without it.
Tradition holds that one planet's number is not the whole picture; the whole chart is read together.