The nine grahas: Sun to Ketu

Jyotish works with nine grahas: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, which are bodies, and Rahu and Ketu, the ascending and descending nodes of the Moon, which are points. Each graha signifies a cluster of things in life, owns signs, has friends and enemies among the others, and takes a turn as lord of a dasha.

What each graha signifies

Graha	Sanskrit	Signifies	Dasha years
Sun	Surya	Self, authority, father, vitality, government	6
Moon	Chandra	Mind, mother, emotions, the public, nourishment	10
Mars	Mangala	Energy, courage, siblings, property, conflict	7
Mercury	Budha	Speech, intellect, trade, learning, youth	17
Jupiter	Guru	Wisdom, teachers, children, wealth, faith	16
Venus	Shukra	Love, beauty, comfort, art, spouse (in a man's chart)	20
Saturn	Shani	Discipline, delay, service, old age, longevity	19
Rahu	Rahu	Ambition, obsession, foreign things, sudden rise	18
Ketu	Ketu	Detachment, past-life skill, spirituality, loss	7

The dasha years add up to 120, the span of the Vimshottari cycle (lesson 16).

Natural friendships

The grahas have standing friendships that matter for matching, for reading a planet's comfort in a sign, and for the friend and enemy numbers of numerology.

Graha	Friends	Neutral	Enemies
Sun	Moon, Mars, Jupiter	Mercury	Venus, Saturn
Moon	Sun, Mercury	Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn	none
Mars	Sun, Moon, Jupiter	Venus, Saturn	Mercury
Mercury	Sun, Venus	Mars, Jupiter, Saturn	Moon
Jupiter	Sun, Moon, Mars	Saturn	Mercury, Venus
Venus	Mercury, Saturn	Mars, Jupiter	Sun, Moon
Saturn	Mercury, Venus	Jupiter	Sun, Moon, Mars

Benefics and malefics

The tradition calls Jupiter, Venus, the waxing Moon and an unafflicted Mercury natural benefics, and the Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu natural malefics. The words mean easing and hardening, not good and bad: a chart needs both, and a well-placed Saturn gives the discipline a chart of benefics lacks.

Rahu and Ketu

The two nodes always sit exactly opposite each other and move backwards through the zodiac, completing a circle in 18.6 years. Rahu is read as hunger and ambition, Ketu as release and detachment; together they mark the axis of a chart where life pulls hardest. The Kundli generator shows both with the (R) mark omitted, since they are always retrograde.

Worked example

In the chart for 14 August 1990, 12:00, Mumbai, the Sun, Jupiter and Venus are together in Karka and Ketu joins them, while Rahu sits opposite in Makara. Saturn is retrograde in Dhanu, Mars in Mesha, Mercury in Simha, the Moon in Vrishabha. Reading what those placements mean is the work of modules 2 and 3.

Calculate yours

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