Nabhasa Akriti Yogas: 20 Shape Yogas and How Often They Form

Shapes Drawn by the Grahas (आकृति योग)

Of the thirty-two Nabhasa yogas in Varahamihira’s Brihat Jataka, twenty are Akriti yogas, yogas of shape. Each names the outline the seven grahas make on the chart when they are all confined to a particular set of houses: a staff, a boat, an umbrella, a lotus. The count yogas (Kedar, Shool and the rest) are on the Nabhasa sankhya page; this page takes the shapes.

The grahas counted are the same seven, the Sun to Saturn with the Moon among them, and Rahu and Ketu are left out. Unlike the count yogas, every shape is drawn in houses, so it needs the lagna and with it a birth time. Houses here are whole signs from the lagna, and “all in” means that no one of the seven sits outside the named houses.

The Twenty Rules

Vajra and Yava are the only two of the twenty that care which grahas are benefic and which malefic. The other eighteen look only at where the seven are. The meanings the texts go on to give each shape are not reproduced here; the literal senses are what the Sanskrit words mean.

Twenty Names, Six Tests on the Sky

The house rules look like twenty separate conditions, but each one turns into a question about the signs the grahas occupy, with the lagna deciding only which name applies. The kendras of any lagna are the four signs of its own kind, all movable, all fixed or all dual, so “all in kendras” can only happen when all seven grahas share one kind of sign. The trines of a lagna share its element. Its odd houses are the signs of its own parity. And seven consecutive houses are seven consecutive signs wherever the lagna is. Grouped this way:

The shares are fractions of clock time in each calendar year, measured at every sign change of the seven grahas in the site’s ingress table. They say when the sky made a yoga possible for some lagna, not how many people were born with it. When a test holds, the lagna still has to fall in the right place for a given name.

Seven Yogas That Never Formed in 2026-28

Gada, Shakata and Vihaga need all seven grahas in just two signs, and the sankhya count shows that the seven never fit into fewer than three signs anywhere in 2026, 2027 or 2028. Shringataka and Hala need all seven in one element, three signs of fire or of water, for instance, and that does not happen either. Vajra and Yava are sub-cases of the kendra pattern below, and in the only two windows where that pattern appeared, its benefic and malefic grahas were mixed together in a single sign, so neither could form. That is seven of the twenty with no birth at all in these three years. A chart from 2026-28 said to show one of them is worth checking against its own planetary positions.

Kamala and Vapi: Two Short Windows in January 2026

All seven grahas stood in dual signs twice, from 2 January 2026 to 4 January 2026 and from 8 January 2026 to 11 January 2026, each a little over two days. Sun, Mars, Mercury and Venus were together in Sagittarius, Jupiter in Gemini and Saturn in Pisces, while the Moon crossed Gemini and then Virgo. For a lagna in one of the dual signs, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces, those grahas filled kendras only, which is Kamala. For any other lagna they sat entirely in panapharas or entirely in apoklimas, which is Vapi. This is the same sky that gives the Ashraya yoga Nala on the sankhya page, read from the lagna instead of from the signs. Nothing like it recurs in 2027 or 2028.

Yupa, Ishu, Shakti, Danda: Eight Days Each in April and May 2026

The four-house shapes need the whole group inside four consecutive signs. That happened twice, from 15 April 2026 to 23 April 2026 and from 12 May 2026 to 20 May 2026, with every graha between Pisces and Gemini. A four-sign run gives one of these yogas only when it starts on a kendra of the lagna, so each window gave exactly four lagnas a yoga:

• Pisces lagna: Yupa
• Sagittarius lagna: Ishu
• Virgo lagna: Shakti
• Gemini lagna: Danda

Those four lagnas are the dual signs again, because the run started in Pisces, a dual sign, and only the lagnas of its own kind have it as a kendra. Every lagna, these four included, also had at least one of the seven-house shapes in those days, since a group inside four signs is also inside seven. The four-sign sky does not return in 2027 or 2028.

Chakra and Samudra: All Seven in Odd Signs

Chakra and Samudra are two readings of one sky: every graha in an odd sign, Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius or Aquarius, or every graha in an even one. From an odd-sign lagna those grahas fill the odd houses and the yoga is Chakra; from an even-sign lagna they fill the even houses and it is Samudra. In the 2026-28 ingress table it happens 6 times, always with odd signs and never for as long as three days:

Every stretch but one ends when the Moon steps into an even sign; the exception ends with Mercury. Searches for “chakra yoga” also turn up the Sudarshana Chakra method and the chakras of yoga practice; neither has anything to do with this yoga. Vajra has a second namesake too: the fifteenth of the twenty-seven nitya yogas of the panchang, whose dates are on the Vajra yoga panchang page, and Shakata shares its name with the Moon-Jupiter Shakata yoga.

The Seven-House Shapes Are Common

Nauka, Kuta, Chhatra and Chapa begin at the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses, and Ardhachandra at any of the other eight. Between them the five names cover every possible starting house. So whenever the seven grahas fit inside seven consecutive signs, every lagna has at least one of the five, and which one is decided by the lagna. That was the case for 45.3% of 2026, 44.4% of 2027 and 55.1% of 2028. For 2027, lagna by lagna:

A row can add up to more than 44.4% because, when the grahas fit inside fewer than seven signs, more than one seven-sign run holds them and a chart can carry two of the names at once. Ardhachandra is the most frequent of the five for every lagna, between 31.3% and 42.2% of 2027, simply because eight of the twelve starting houses belong to it. Nauka peaks at 20% for Aries lagna and does not occur at all for several others in that year, since the slow grahas sit where they sit and the lagna has to be at the front of the group.

Mala and Sarpa, the Dala Yogas

The two Dala yogas complete the family: Mala (also Srik, a garland) has benefics in three kendras, and Sarpa (also Bhujanga, a serpent) has malefics in three kendras. Like Vajra and Yava they depend on the benefic and malefic split, and the classical lists differ on when the Moon and Mercury count as benefic. Computing them would mean choosing one of those conventions, so this page leaves them uncounted rather than quietly picking one.

Checking Your Own Chart

Take the sign of each of the seven grahas, ignore Rahu, Ketu and any outer planet, and find the shortest run of consecutive signs that holds them all. If it is seven signs or fewer, count from your lagna to the first sign of the run: house 1 gives Nauka, 4 Kuta, 7 Chhatra, 10 Chapa, anything else Ardhachandra. If they also fit inside four consecutive signs that start on a kendra, add the matching Yupa-group name. Then check the rarer tests: all in one kind of sign, all in odd or all in even signs. Because the lagna moves through all twelve signs in a day, two people born a few hours apart on the same date usually carry different shape yogas, unlike the count yogas, which survive in a chart drawn without a birth time.

How the shape yogas compare with the better-known combinations, and how often each of those forms, is on the kundli yoga list. The five yogas of the Panch Mahapurush group are also kendra yogas, but they test one graha in its own or exalted sign, not where all seven are.