Kendra-Trikona Raja Yoga and the Yogakaraka, by Lagna

Angles, Trines and the Raja Yoga (केंद्र त्रिकोण राजयोग)

Parashara’s Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra builds its central raja yoga on two groups of houses. The kendras, or angles, are the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th; the trikonas, or trines, are the 1st, 5th and 9th, and the site’s house table labels the 9th the strongest of the auspicious houses. A lord of a kendra and a lord of a trikona that are related give the kendra-trikona raja yoga. The relationships the Parashari tradition names are three: the two lords in one sign (conjunction), each aspecting the other (mutual aspect), or each in the other’s sign (exchange). Some authors accept looser links as well, such as one lord aspecting the other without return, and they disagree on how much weight those carry.

One graha can also hold both kinds of house by itself. The tradition calls such a graha the yogakaraka of the lagna: its own two lordships already complete the combination. The combination of the 9th and 10th lords has its own name, Dharma-Karmadhipati, and is listed among the dhan yogas; the 10th house side is discussed in 10th house astrology.

How This Page Counts the 1st House

The house table classes the 1st as a kendra and a trikona both, so the lagna lord appears in both lists below. Two rules keep that from inflating the counts. A pair needs two different houses and two different grahas, so the lagna lord is never paired with itself. And the yogakaraka test sets the 1st aside, as the site’s lordship pages do: a graha qualifies only when it rules a kendra other than the 1st and a trikona other than the 1st. Without that rule every lagna lord whose second house was an angle or a trine would pass on the strength of the lagna alone.

The Lords for Each Lagna

The lord columns follow the house order given in their headings. The last column counts the different pairs of grahas that can form the yoga, one from each list, once the rules above are applied. It is a count of possibilities fixed by the lagna, not of anything present in a particular chart.

Six Lagnas Have a Yogakaraka, Six Do Not

The computation gives exactly six yogakarakas, one each for six lagnas: Saturn for Taurus (the 9th and 10th), Mars for Cancer (the 5th and 10th), Mars for Leo (the 4th and 9th), Saturn for Libra (the 4th and 5th), Venus for Capricorn (the 5th and 10th) and Venus for Aquarius (the 4th and 9th). Aries, Gemini, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Pisces have none. The same six come out of the site’s gemstone pages, which apply the same test to the stones, and the yogakaraka rows are discussed from the planet’s side on Shasha yoga for Saturn, Ruchaka yoga for Mars and Malavya yoga for Venus.

Only those three grahas can be a yogakaraka, and the reason is spacing. Leaving out the 1st, a kendra and a trikona form six possible pairs of houses. A graha that rules two signs holds two houses a fixed distance apart, and that distance has to match one of the pairs. Saturn’s two signs are adjacent, which fits the 4th with the 5th and the 9th with the 10th. The spacings of Venus and of Mars both fit the 4th with the 9th and the 5th with the 10th. The two signs of Jupiter, and the two of Mercury, sit four apart, which matches no pair, so neither is ever a yogakaraka; their angles come in pairs instead, the subject of kendradhipati dosha. The Sun and the Moon rule one sign each and cannot hold two houses. The same arithmetic means the 7th is never one of a yogakaraka’s houses.

Taurus is the one lagna where the 9th and the 10th have a single lord, Saturn, so its yogakaraka is also the Dharma-Karmadhipati pair in one graha. The Taurus gemstone page notes the same 9th-and-10th lordship.

Why the Pair Counts Differ

The pair count runs from 5 to 11 and falls into three groups. Aries and Scorpio have eleven: no yogakaraka, and a lagna lord whose second house is neither an angle nor a trine, so every pairing of different houses is a pairing of different grahas. The six yogakaraka lagnas (Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Capricorn and Aquarius) have nine, because the yogakaraka cannot pair with itself and appears on both sides of the list. The dual lagnas (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces) have five. Two grahas hold all four of their angles between them, so several house pairs collapse into the same few pairs of grahas.

A pair only becomes a yoga when the two lords are related in the birth chart. Conjunction and exchange are read straight off the signs. For mutual aspect, the planet table has the Sun, the Moon, Mercury and Venus aspecting the 7th house only, while Mars aspects the 4th, 7th and 8th houses, Jupiter aspects the 5th, 7th and 9th houses and Saturn aspects the 3rd, 7th and 10th houses. Exchanges are tabulated separately on Parivartan yoga.

Using the Table as a Calculator

There is no single verdict to compute, because the yoga depends on where the lords sit, and readings of it then weigh dignity, the houses occupied and the dasha. What can be checked is mechanical. Get the lagna from the ascendant calculator and the planets’ signs from the free kundli tool. Then look along your row for a kendra lord and a trikona lord in one sign, in each other’s signs, or in mutual aspect. This page names no outcome for any of them and gives no age at which one is supposed to show. The lords of the 6th, 8th and 12th are counted the same way on the Vipreet Raja yoga page, and the other named combinations are on the kundli yoga list. In Hindi: केंद्र त्रिकोण राजयोग और हर लग्न का योगकारक ग्रह.