Yogas and their cancellations

Open any horoscope report and you will meet a list of yogas with impressive names. The classical texts describe hundreds of them. Each one is a rule — a planet in a certain sign and house, two lords together, an empty house beside the Moon — that a calculation can check. This lesson explains what a yoga is, walks through the best-known ones and their cancellations, and puts their frequency in perspective.

What a yoga is

In a horoscope, yoga means “union”: a defined combination of placements to which the texts attach a traditional meaning. It is not the same as the Panchang yoga, which is one of 27 divisions of the combined motion of the Sun and the Moon. Whether a chart meets a yoga’s rule is a calculation. What the yoga is said to signify is interpretation, and astrologers always weigh it against the strength of the planets involved and the running dasha.

Most yogas are defined through groups of houses. The kendras (angles) are houses 1, 4, 7 and 10; the trikonas (trines) are 1, 5 and 9; the dusthanas are 6, 8 and 12; and the upachayas are 3, 6, 10 and 11.

The Pancha Mahapurusha yogas

The five “great person” yogas each need one of the five true planets in its own sign or its exaltation sign, placed in a kendra from the lagna.

• Ruchaka — Mars in Mesha or Vrishchika (own) or Makara (exalted).
• Bhadra — Mercury in Mithuna or Kanya (Kanya is both own and exaltation).
• Hamsa — Jupiter in Dhanu or Meena (own) or Karka (exalted).
• Malavya — Venus in Vrishabha or Tula (own) or Meena (exalted).
• Shasha — Saturn in Makara or Kumbha (own) or Tula (exalted).

Example: with Kanya lagna, count Kanya 1, Tula 2, Vrishchika 3, Dhanu 4. Jupiter in Dhanu is in its own sign in the 4th house, a kendra, so the chart has Hamsa yoga.

Moon yogas: Gajakesari and Kemadruma

Gajakesari (“elephant and lion”) is formed when Jupiter is in a kendra from the Moon — the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th sign counted from the Moon sign. Four of the twelve signs qualify, so by simple proportion about a third of all charts have it. Some texts add conditions, such as Jupiter not being debilitated or combust; this site applies none of them and says so.

Kemadruma is the opposite picture: no planet other than the Sun, Rahu and Ketu in the 2nd or the 12th sign from the Moon. The texts read it as an unsupported Moon. They also give cancellations, and the site evaluates them: a planet other than the Sun and the nodes in a kendra from the lagna or from the Moon, a planet in the same sign as the Moon, or Jupiter aspecting the Moon. These conditions are broad, so an uncancelled Kemadruma is uncommon.

Raja and Dhana yogas

A Raja yoga is formed when a lord of a kendra and a lord of a trikona are associated — together in one sign, aspecting each other, or exchanging signs. The lagna lord counts as both. A single planet that rules both a kendra and a trikona is a yogakaraka. For Simha lagna, Mars rules Mesha (the 9th) and Vrishchika (the 4th), so Mars is the yogakaraka; Saturn plays this role for Vrishabha and Tula lagnas, and Venus for Makara and Kumbha.

Dhana (wealth) yogas follow the same idea with the lords of the 2nd, 5th, 9th and 11th — the houses the tradition links with income and fortune. When two of these lords are associated, a Dhana yoga is named.

Neecha bhanga: cancelled debilitation

A planet in the sign opposite its exaltation is debilitated (neecha). Phaladeepika (ch. 7) gives conditions under which the debilitation is cancelled, called neecha bhanga. Take the Sun, debilitated in Tula. The lord of Tula is Venus; the Sun’s exaltation sign is Mesha, whose lord is Mars; and the planet exalted in Tula is Saturn. If Venus, Mars or Saturn stands in a kendra from the lagna or the Moon, the debilitation is read as cancelled. Modern manuals add further conditions; the site shows those as partial.

How common yogas are

Because there are so many rules and many of them are broad, most charts meet several. Gajakesari alone appears in about a third of charts, and almost every chart has at least one kendra lord linked to a trikona lord. A yoga in your chart is therefore not a rare marker of destiny. The example below lists the yogas the engine found for your saved birth details, or for the sky right now, each with its rule, its source and any cancellation.

Texts differ in their definitions: some count the Mahapurusha yogas from the Moon as well, some add strength conditions to Gajakesari, and the lists of neecha bhanga conditions vary. This site counts whole-sign houses from the lagna by default and names the rule and source for each yoga it shows.