Chara Karaka Table: Darakaraka, Amatyakaraka and the Other Jaimini Karakas

What the Chara Karakas Are (चर कारक)

A karaka is a significator, a graha that stands for some person or area of life. Most of jyotish uses fixed karakas, the same for every chart. The Jaimini sutras add a second set that changes from chart to chart, the chara or movable karakas, and Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra gives the same set. Which graha takes which role depends on nothing but how far each graha has travelled through the sign it occupies. The atmakaraka, the graha furthest through its sign, is the best known; this page covers the whole ranking, with the amatyakaraka and the darakaraka in particular.

The Karakas in Order

The third column translates the Sanskrit names and nothing more. Two schemes are in use. The seven-graha scheme ranks the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn and has no Pitrikaraka. The eight-graha scheme adds Rahu and inserts the Pitrikaraka fifth. Rahu moves backward through the zodiac, so its degree is counted from the end of its sign: a Rahu at 11°20′ is taken as 18°40′. The Parashari text gives both schemes and practice divides between them, so a chart program that reports a different darakaraka from another may simply be using the other scheme.

How to Find Your Darakaraka and Amatyakaraka

Write down each graha’s degree within its sign, ignoring the sign itself, and sort from highest to lowest. The first is the atmakaraka, the second the amatyakaraka, and the last the darakaraka. Minutes count, and if two grahas share the same degree the seconds decide; the Jaimini literature also has rules for a true tie, which this page does not go into.

A worked example, with degrees chosen for the arithmetic and not taken from anyone’s chart: Sun 14°12′, Moon 27°05′, Mars 3°40′, Mercury 21°18′, Jupiter 9°55′, Venus 18°02′, Saturn 25°31′. Sorted, the seven run the Moon (27°05′), Saturn (25°31′), Mercury (21°18′), Venus (18°02′), the Sun (14°12′), Jupiter (9°55′) and Mars (3°40′). So the Moon is the atmakaraka, Saturn the amatyakaraka and Mars the darakaraka. Add a Rahu at 11°20′, counted as 18°40′, and in the eight-graha scheme it slots in fourth, as the Matrikaraka. Venus moves down to Pitrikaraka, and the bottom of the list does not change: Mars is still the darakaraka.

The sign the atmakaraka occupies in the navamsa is the karakamsa, a further Jaimini point; the navamsa guide explains that chart.

How Often Each Graha Held Each Karaka in 2027

To see how the roles move, the site’s ephemeris was sampled every three hours through 2027, 2920 instants in all, and the seven grahas ranked at each. Every cell below is the share of those instants in which that graha held that role. It is a measurement of the sky, not a count of anyone’s charts.

If every graha were equally likely to hold every role, each cell would be about 14.3%. The slow grahas push the table away from that. Saturn was the atmakaraka most often, in 20.6% of the instants, and also the darakaraka most often, in 23.1%: a slow graha sits near one end of its sign or the other for months at a time, and so spends long stretches at the top or the bottom of the ranking. Jupiter led the amatyakaraka column at 21.4%. The Moon crosses a sign in about two and a half days and was the atmakaraka least often, 10.5%, and the darakaraka least often too, 10.9%.

Month by Month: The Most Frequent Atmakaraka and Darakaraka

Saturn was the most frequent darakaraka in June, July, August, September and October, the months after it entered Aries and began again from the start of a sign. In October Saturn led both columns at once, because Saturn moved back into the last degrees of Pisces partway through the month. These are shares of a month, not a forecast for anyone born in it: the role at any one birth is decided by that minute’s degrees.

Why the Birth Time Matters

Because the Moon gains about thirteen degrees a day, the ranking can change within hours. On 103 of the 365 days of 2027, the darakaraka at midnight was a different graha from the darakaraka at noon. A darakaraka calculator is only as good as the birth time given to it, and a time rounded to the nearest hour can change the answer.

What This Page Does Not Do

It does not describe a spouse from the darakaraka, a career from the amatyakaraka, or a child, parent or sibling from any karaka. Jaimini practice reads a karaka through its sign, its navamsa, the grahas with it and the arudhas, and none of that comes from a ranking, and a description of another person drawn from your chart is not something this site offers. The upapada lagna and arudha lagna pages cover the other Jaimini points that are pure arithmetic. In Hindi: चर कारक तालिका: आत्मकारक, अमात्यकारक और दाराकारक.