The Grahas

Graha is the Sanskrit word, and it means something closer to "the one that grips" than "wanderer". A graha takes hold of a part of your life and does not let go until you have learned what it came to teach. The nine grahas are the seven visible bodies the old world knew, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu, the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not used in classical Jyotish, and I do not add them to the Vedic side of a reading. They have their own pages in the Western Planets set and they stay there.

Every placement on this page is sidereal, about 24 degrees back from the Western zodiac. The Sidereal and Tropical page explains why.

Benefic and malefic

Jyotish sorts the grahas into benefics and malefics, and the words put Western readers off before they have started. Jupiter, Venus, a waxing Moon and a well placed Mercury are the benefics. They give. Saturn, Mars, Rahu, Ketu and the Sun are the malefics. They ask.

Malefic does not mean bad. In my experience the malefics do the heavy lifting in a chart. Saturn builds the discipline, Mars finds the courage, the Sun burns off what is not yours, and Rahu and Ketu show you what you are chasing and what you have already finished with. A chart with no malefic pressure anywhere is a pleasant life with nothing much built in it. So when you read "malefic" below, read "hard working".

The Sun, Surya

The Sun is the soul in a Vedic chart, the part of you that is simply you, before anyone named it. It is also the father, authority, the spine and the will. The Sun rules Leo and is exalted, which means at its strongest, in Aries. It is counted a mild malefic because it is hot and dry and it scorches whatever sits too close to it. A graha within a few degrees of the Sun is said to be combust, dimmed by the glare. The Sun is read after the Moon in Jyotish, and the Rashis pages give the sidereal Sun in each sign.

The Moon, Chandra

The Moon is the mind, the whole moving surface of feeling, memory, mood and need, while the intellect belongs to Mercury. It is the mother, the home, the body's rhythms and the way you receive the world. Jyotish puts the Moon first because the Moon is how life is actually experienced. The Moon rules Cancer and is exalted in Taurus. A waxing Moon, from New to Full, is benefic. A waning Moon is treated as a mild malefic, a mind turned inward and a little tired, and I read that as description. The Moon's sign is the rashi and the Moon's nakshatra is the lunar mansion it occupies, and between them they are the heart of the whole system. The Nakshatras and The Rashis pages carry them.

Mars, Mangala

Mars is energy, courage, heat and the willingness to fight for something. It is brothers, soldiers, surgeons, engineers and anyone who cuts so that something can mend. Mars rules Aries and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn, where all that fire gets a job and a timetable. It is a malefic, and the plain version of that is this: Mars breaks things. Sometimes the thing needed breaking. A strong Mars is decisive, a weak one is either timid or reckless, and most of us swing between the two until Mars settles.

Mercury, Budha

Mercury is the intellect, speech, learning, trade and the quick connecting mind. Budha means the awakened one, and Mercury wakes you up to detail. It rules Gemini and Virgo and is exalted in Virgo, its own sign, which is unusual among the grahas. Mercury is a benefic when it keeps good company and takes on the colour of whatever sits with it. Mercury beside Jupiter is wise speech. Mercury beside Saturn is careful speech. Mercury beside Mars has said the thing before it checked.

Jupiter, Guru

Jupiter is called Guru, the teacher, and also Brihaspati, priest of the gods. It is wisdom, faith, children, teachers, expansion and the sense that life is on your side. Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces and is exalted in Cancer. It is the great benefic, and Jyotish leans on it hard. A planet Jupiter looks at is said to be protected, and a house Jupiter sits in tends to grow. The one caution I give with Jupiter is that growth is not the same as discernment. Jupiter says yes. Something else in the chart has to say which yes.

Venus, Shukra

Venus is love, beauty, pleasure, art, marriage and the comforts of the body. It rules Taurus and Libra and is exalted in Pisces, where desire turns into devotion. Venus is the other great benefic, and where Jupiter gives wisdom, Venus gives grace. In a Vedic chart Venus also carries partnership of every kind, so its sign and house say a lot about how you love and what you expect love to feel like.

Saturn, Shani

Saturn is time, discipline, limits, old age, grief, patience and the work nobody applauds. Shani is the slow one, taking about twenty nine and a half years round the zodiac, and a Saturn lesson arrives on Saturn's timetable. It rules Capricorn and Aquarius and is exalted in Libra, where it becomes fairness rather than fear. Saturn is the great malefic of the classical texts and the most misunderstood graha of the lot. I have watched Saturn in a chart look like a sentence and turn out to be a trade: effort now for something that lasts. The Saturn page in the Western Planets set says the same thing from the other side of the fence.

Rahu and Ketu, the shadow planets

Now the two that are new to a Western reader.

Rahu and Ketu are the lunar nodes, the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's path in the sky. Rahu is the north node, where the Moon crosses heading north. Ketu is the south node, where it crosses heading south. They are always exactly opposite each other, they move backwards through the zodiac, and they take a little under nineteen years to go round once, about eighteen months a sign. They have no body. Jyotish calls them shadow planets and reads them as planets anyway, because eclipses happen where they are, and anything that can put out the Sun deserves a seat at the table.

The old story has them as one demon who drank the nectar of immortality and was cut in two for it. The head, Rahu, lives on with endless appetite and no body to fill. The tail, Ketu, lives on with a body and no head to want anything. That story tells you most of what you need.

Rahu is obsession, hunger, ambition, the foreign, the new and the not yet had. It shows where you are driven, often without quite knowing why, and it tends to overshoot. Ketu is release, renunciation, the already known, the skill you did not have to learn and the thing you keep walking away from. It shows what you have finished with, often before the rest of you agrees. Rahu points at the unfinished. Ketu points at the renounced. Together they draw the axis of a life, what you are chasing and what you are letting go, and they are the pair I look at when a client says they feel pulled in two directions at once.

Most schools give Rahu its exaltation in Taurus and Ketu its exaltation in Scorpio, though the texts disagree more about the nodes than about anything else, so I hold that loosely. Both are counted malefic, and both are, in the hard working sense. Rahu asks you to want something enough to go after it. Ketu asks you to put something down.

If you know your Western chart, you have met them before. The North Node and South Node in a Western reading are the same two points, moved back about 24 degrees. The Jyotish reading simply takes them more seriously.

How I judge a graha's strength

Three questions, in this order.

First, the sign. A graha in its own sign or its exaltation sign is at home and acts cleanly. A graha in the sign opposite its exaltation is said to be debilitated, which means it has to work through a medium that does not suit it. Debilitated is not broken. Some of the most interesting people I have read for have a debilitated planet doing something nobody expected.

Second, the house. The same graha behaves differently in the first house and the twelfth. The Bhavas page walks through all twelve and says which houses give a graha room to work and which make it earn its keep.

Third, who it sits with and who looks at it. Grahas in the same sign share a room and colour each other, as Mercury does. Grahas also cast aspects, and in Jyotish every graha aspects the sign opposite it, while Mars, Jupiter and Saturn each have extra signs they reach. A graha with Jupiter's eye on it is steadied. A graha with Saturn's eye on it is slowed. None of this is good or bad on its own. It is weather, and the chart is the forecast.

What I leave out

Classical Jyotish prescribes remedies for a troubled graha, a gemstone to wear, a mantra to recite, a day to fast. I do not prescribe any of them. I read a graha as a mirror and a piece of work, and the work is yours to do in your own way. If a Saturn period is heavy, the remedy I know is to do the Saturn work. Chop wood, carry water.

Which of the nine do you already suspect has the grip on you?

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.

Related pages
The Planets