What are yogas in a birth chart?

Introduction

"Yoga" simply means joining. In a birth chart, a yoga is a situation where planets connect with each other, or with a house, according to a defined rule. For example: Jupiter in a kendra from the Moon gives Gajakesari yoga; Mars in its own sign and in a kendra gives Ruchaka yoga.

The old texts list hundreds of yogas. Their rules are found in Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra (BPHS), Phaladeepika, Saravali and Brihat Jataka, and B. V. Raman explained three hundred of the important ones, with their rules and example charts, in Three Hundred Important Combinations.

One thing to clear up first: the panchang also has "yogas" (the 27 yogas such as Vishkumbha and Priti). Those come from the Sun's and Moon's longitudes and are an entirely different thing. This page is about chart yogas.

How yogas are formed

Most yogas are built from these pieces:

• House position: which house a planet occupies counted from the lagna, the Moon or the Sun. Sunapha, Anapha and Durudhura, for example, come from the houses on either side of the Moon.
• Sign dignity: whether a planet is in its own sign, exaltation sign or moolatrikona. The Pancha Mahapurusha yogas rest on this.
• House lords: where the lord of a house sits and whom it connects with. Raja and dhana yogas come from this.
• Kinds of link: sitting in the same sign, a mutual full aspect, or an exchange of signs (each sitting in the other's sign).

ePandit counts whole-sign houses and uses Parashari aspects: every planet's 7th aspect, plus Mars on the 4th and 8th, Jupiter on the 5th and 9th, and Saturn on the 3rd and 10th.

Why the whole chart matters

It is tempting to jump to conclusions from a yoga, but the texts themselves do not. Raman writes that the results of a yoga are qualified by the condition of the planets that form it; the same yoga looks very different from one chart to another. BPHS, after its wealth combinations, says they should be read only after weighing the favourable or unfavourable dispositions of the planets involved.

So read a yoga like this:

• A yoga is one factor among many in the whole chart.
• Tradition holds that it is felt more in the dasha of the planets that form it.
• Several yogas (Vesi, Vasi, Budha-Aditya) occur in almost every chart, so on their own they carry little special meaning.
• No yoga is a promise of position, money or marriage, and no yoga is a reason for fear.

How ePandit checks yogas

In the "Yoga" tab of ePandit's free kundli, every yoga comes with four things:

1. The rule: in plain words, the condition that formed it.
2. How it forms in your chart: which planets, in which house and sign.
3. The source: which text and chapter. Where we could not find the name in the classical texts in our library (for example Budha-Aditya), the yoga is labelled "tradition".
4. Cancellations and conditions: the texts that give a yoga often give its conditions and cancellations too. ePandit always shows them alongside.

Without a birth time the lagna is unknown. Then only the yogas counted from the Moon and the Sun are checked, and the page says so.

The main groups

• Moon yogas: Gajakesari, Sunapha, Anapha, Durudhura, Kemadruma, Adhi, Chandra-Mangala.
• Sun yogas: Vesi, Vasi, Ubhayachari, Budha-Aditya.
• Pancha Mahapurusha yogas: Ruchaka, Bhadra, Hamsa, Malavya, Shasha.
• Raja yogas: the link between kendra and trikona lords; vipareeta raja yogas (Harsha, Sarala, Vimala); neecha-bhanga raja yoga.
• Dhana yogas: the 2nd and 11th lords linked with the 5th and 9th lords; Lakshmi yoga.
• Others: Amala, Saraswati, Parivartana.

Each group has its own page with the rules, sources and cancellations in detail.