What is a yoga in Vedic astrology?

A yoga is a named combination of planetary positions defined by a classical text, together with the result that text attaches to it. It is a rule, not a rating: the condition either holds in a chart or it does not. Examples are Gajakesari, where Jupiter is in a kendra from the Moon, and Ruchaka, where Mars sits in a kendra in its own or exaltation sign.

How many yogas does this tool check?

The engine carries source attribution for 145 named yogas, plus two templated families whose members are generated rather than listed individually: the Viparita trio and the twelve Graha-Malika yogas. A chart typically forms far fewer than that. Only the yogas actually present in your chart appear in the results.

What is Pancha Mahapurusha Yoga?

It is a set of five yogas from Brihat Jataka, one for each of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The condition is the same in every case: the planet must occupy its own sign, its moolatrikona or its exaltation sign, and that sign must fall in a kendra, meaning house 1, 4, 7 or 10 from the ascendant. The five are named Ruchaka for Mars, Bhadra for Mercury, Hamsa for Jupiter, Malavya for Venus and Shasha for Saturn. A combust planet does not form one here.

What does yoga-bhanga mean?

Bhanga means the breaking or cancellation of a yoga. This engine grades it by BPHS chapter 45: a participating graha in its own sign or exalted is Jagrat and gives full results, in a friend's or neutral sign it is Swapna and gives medium results, and in an enemy's sign or debilitated it is Sushupti and gives none. Conjunction with a malefic and combustion weaken it further. A yoga can therefore be present in a chart and still be graded cancelled.

Why do two yogas in my results have the same name?

Because the classical corpus reuses names across unrelated rules. Musala, for instance, names both a Phaladeepika VI.44 bhava rule and a Nabhasa Aashraya shape, and the two carry opposite results. The engine identifies a yoga by its source and bhava rather than by its name, so both cards are shown with their sources attached instead of being merged into one misleading entry.

Is Gajakesari Yoga from Phaladeepika?

Not under that name. The rule is Jataka Parijata VII.116-117. Phaladeepika VI.14 gives the same combination but calls it Kesari, not Gajakesari, which is why this app cites Jataka Parijata for it. The distinction matters if you are checking a result against a printed edition, because searching Phaladeepika for the word Gajakesari returns nothing.

Can yogas be identified without an exact birth time?

Partly. Yogas defined purely by sign placement or by planet-to-planet relationships survive an uncertain time, since only the fast-moving Moon changes sign within a day. Yogas defined by house position do not, because the ascendant moves through a whole sign roughly every two hours, and a wrong ascendant renumbers every house in the chart and with it every house-based rule.

Does a yoga in my chart guarantee its result?

No, and this page does not claim it does. The engine reports which named combinations are formed, what condition their grahas are in under the BPHS chapter 45 grading, and which text the rule comes from. The result a text attaches to a yoga is that text's statement, shown with its citation, and it is presented as a cited reading rather than as a forecast about your life.

Yoga Calculator - Raj Yoga, Dhana Yoga, Pancha Mahapurusha

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What a yoga is, and what this page checks for

A yoga is a named planetary combination defined by a classical text, and this page tests one birth chart against 145 such named rules, listing the ones that are actually formed in it.

Each rule is a deterministic condition on placement: a planet in a particular kind of sign or house, two lords in a defined relationship, a set of houses occupied or empty. The engine evaluates the condition and reports the result. It does not guess, and it does not score a chart out of anything.

The families checked include the five Pancha Mahapurusha yogas, the Parashari kendra-trikona raja yogas, the dhana yogas of wealth, the lunar and solar yogas counted from the Moon and the Sun, the 32 Nabhasa shapes, parivartana or exchange yogas, neechabhanga and viparita raja yogas, the D9 raja yogas read in the navamsa, the Jaimini raja yogas, the Phaladeepika bhava yogas and the daridra and arishta sets. A yoga that is not formed is simply absent from the results.

Every yoga carries the text it comes from

Each detected yoga is attributed to a named source. The Pancha Mahapurusha set, the Nabhasa shapes and the lunar and solar yogas are cited to Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka. The raja, dhana, adhi, mahabhagya, parivartana and neechabhanga rules are cited to Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. Saraswati, Amala and Shakata are Phaladeepika; Budhaditya is Saravali; Gajakesari is Jataka Parijata VII.116-117, where Phaladeepika VI.14 carries the same rule under the name Kesari rather than Gajakesari.

Where a rule circulating under a classical name turns out to be a modern author's, it is labelled that way rather than given a chapter and verse it does not have. That distinction is visible on the results: a source badge tells you whether the reading behind a card traces to a classical text or to a modern synthesis, so you can weigh the two differently instead of being asked to treat them alike.

Formed is not the same as operative

A yoga is a promise made by particular grahas, and whether the promise is kept depends on the condition those grahas are in. BPHS chapter 45 supplies the grading the engine uses: a graha in its own sign or exalted is Jagrat and gives full results, one in a friend's or a neutral sign is Swapna and gives medium results, and one in an enemy's sign or debilitated is Sushupti and gives nil.

Two further states from the same chapter act as additional weakeners: Vikala, where the graha is conjunct a malefic, and Kopa, where it is eclipsed by the Sun.

Each card therefore shows both whether the combination is present and whether it is graded active, weakened or cancelled. There is deliberately no percentage score behind that: the texts grade in three tiers, not on a scale, and inventing a number would present as classical something the sources never state.

The aggregation rule for a yoga formed by several grahas is the app's own and is labelled as the app's wherever it appears, because BPHS grades a graha and not a yoga.

The 32 Nabhasa yogas and why only some of them operate

The Nabhasa yogas overlap by construction. The seven Sankhya yogas key on nothing but the count of occupied signs, from one for Gola up to seven for Veena, and seven grahas always occupy between one and seven signs, so a Sankhya card would otherwise fire on every chart ever cast. The texts are explicit that this is not how to read them, and four witnesses say so: BPHS 35.17, Brihat Jataka XII.10, Phaladeepika VI.39 and Saravali 21.19.

The rule applied here is that a Sankhya yoga is suppressed whenever any other Nabhasa yoga is derivable, and that an Aashraya yoga is suppressed when it is mixed with another Nabhasa yoga, per Brihat Jataka XII.12 and Saravali 21.7. The suppressed yoga is not deleted from the results, because it really is formed; it is shown with the shape that prevails over it, which is what the Nabhasa chapters are actually about.

Why two cards can share a name

The classical corpus reuses names freely across unrelated rules. Phaladeepika VI.44's twelfth-bhava Musala and the Nabhasa Aashraya Musala are different rules with opposite results, and there are several more such collisions. Anything that identified a yoga by its display name would silently weld those two cards into one, so the engine keys a yoga on the pair of source and bhava instead, and the display name is only a label.

That is why you may see the same word twice in one result set with different sources attached. It is not a duplicate. Read the source line to see which rule each card is, since the two frequently do not say the same thing about the same chart.

Frequently asked questions

What is a yoga in Vedic astrology?: A yoga is a named combination of planetary positions defined by a classical text, together with the result that text attaches to it. It is a rule, not a rating: the condition either holds in a chart or it does not. Examples are Gajakesari, where Jupiter is in a kendra from the Moon, and Ruchaka, where Mars sits in a kendra in its own or exaltation sign.
How many yogas does this tool check?: The engine carries source attribution for 145 named yogas, plus two templated families whose members are generated rather than listed individually: the Viparita trio and the twelve Graha-Malika yogas. A chart typically forms far fewer than that. Only the yogas actually present in your chart appear in the results.
What is Pancha Mahapurusha Yoga?: It is a set of five yogas from Brihat Jataka, one for each of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The condition is the same in every case: the planet must occupy its own sign, its moolatrikona or its exaltation sign, and that sign must fall in a kendra, meaning house 1, 4, 7 or 10 from the ascendant. The five are named Ruchaka for Mars, Bhadra for Mercury, Hamsa for Jupiter, Malavya for Venus and Shasha for Saturn. A combust planet does not form one here.
What does yoga-bhanga mean?: Bhanga means the breaking or cancellation of a yoga. This engine grades it by BPHS chapter 45: a participating graha in its own sign or exalted is Jagrat and gives full results, in a friend's or neutral sign it is Swapna and gives medium results, and in an enemy's sign or debilitated it is Sushupti and gives none. Conjunction with a malefic and combustion weaken it further. A yoga can therefore be present in a chart and still be graded cancelled.
Why do two yogas in my results have the same name?: Because the classical corpus reuses names across unrelated rules. Musala, for instance, names both a Phaladeepika VI.44 bhava rule and a Nabhasa Aashraya shape, and the two carry opposite results. The engine identifies a yoga by its source and bhava rather than by its name, so both cards are shown with their sources attached instead of being merged into one misleading entry.
Is Gajakesari Yoga from Phaladeepika?: Not under that name. The rule is Jataka Parijata VII.116-117. Phaladeepika VI.14 gives the same combination but calls it Kesari, not Gajakesari, which is why this app cites Jataka Parijata for it. The distinction matters if you are checking a result against a printed edition, because searching Phaladeepika for the word Gajakesari returns nothing.
Can yogas be identified without an exact birth time?: Partly. Yogas defined purely by sign placement or by planet-to-planet relationships survive an uncertain time, since only the fast-moving Moon changes sign within a day. Yogas defined by house position do not, because the ascendant moves through a whole sign roughly every two hours, and a wrong ascendant renumbers every house in the chart and with it every house-based rule.
Does a yoga in my chart guarantee its result?: No, and this page does not claim it does. The engine reports which named combinations are formed, what condition their grahas are in under the BPHS chapter 45 grading, and which text the rule comes from. The result a text attaches to a yoga is that text's statement, shown with its citation, and it is presented as a cited reading rather than as a forecast about your life.