Chapter 10 · योग Yoga
Yogas
Yogas are the named combinations of classical Jyotish: the patterns the texts say produce wealth, fame, learning or difficulty. This chapter introduces the best-known families, and the most important caution about them.
- What a yoga is, and why most need strength to work
- The five Pancha Mahapurusha yogas
- Gajakesari yoga
- How raja yogas link angles and trines
1. What a yoga is
A yoga is a specific combination of planets, signs and houses that the classical texts say produces a particular result. There are hundreds; this chapter covers some of the best known. One rule matters more than any list: a yoga only gives its full result if the planets forming it are strong and the dashas activate it. Many yogas found in a chart are weak or cancelled.
2. The five great-person yogas
The Pancha Mahapurusha yogas form when Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn occupies its own or exaltation sign in an angle (1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house) from the ascendant. Try it.
3. Gajakesari yoga
Formed when Jupiter is in an angle (1st, 4th, 7th or 10th) counted from the Moon. It is said to give wisdom, reputation and lasting prosperity. Because Jupiter and the Moon are often in such a position, it is common, and its strength varies greatly.
4. Raja yogas
Parashara’s most important combinations link the lords of angles with the lords of trines, by conjunction, mutual aspect or exchange of signs. These are raja yogas, combinations for status and success. The yogakaraka you met in chapter 6 is a raja yoga in a single planet. Our first published sutra, parivartana yoga, describes an exchange of signs.
Worked example · Albert Einstein
Two classical yogas
Malavya yoga: Venus is exalted in Pisces, in the 10th house, an angle. Gajakesari yoga: Jupiter in Aquarius is 4th from the Moon in Scorpio. By contrast, exalted Mars is in the 8th, not an angle, so there is no Ruchaka yoga; Mercury is in the 10th but debilitated, so there is no Bhadra yoga.
Try it: choose Gemini, Venus and Pisces in the first checker above.
Birth data: 14 March 1879, 11:30 local time, Ulm, Germany; Rodden rating AA (from the birth record), as listed by Astrotheme from Astro-Databank. Positions converted by LotusAstro to the sidereal zodiac (Lahiri ayanamsa, about 22°10′ in 1879), whole-sign houses. One famous chart illustrates a technique; it proves nothing on its own.
Worked example · Indira Gandhi
A raja yoga in one planet
Her chart has none of the five Pancha Mahapurusha yogas, and no Gajakesari yoga: Jupiter is 5th from the Moon, not in an angle from it. Its key combination is Mars as yogakaraka, lord of an angle and a trine in one planet, which is itself a raja yoga, and strengthened by being vargottama.
Birth data: 19 November 1917, 23:11 local time, Allahabad (now Prayagraj), India; source given as her own account (Rodden rating A), as listed by Astrotheme. Positions converted by LotusAstro to the sidereal zodiac (Lahiri ayanamsa, about 22°42′ in 1917), whole-sign houses. One chart illustrates a technique; it proves nothing on its own.
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