Navgrah Jaap Sankhya: Japa Counts for All Nine Grahas

Navgrah Jaap Sankhya (नवग्रह जाप संख्या)

Each planet page on this site gives one graha’s Graha Shanti japa count, and the puja and remedy pages repeat it where a graha is involved. There has been no single table of all nine. This page is that table, read from the same planet record those pages read, followed by the arithmetic people tend to need next: how many malas of 108 a count takes, what a tenth and a hundredth of it come to, and how a count divides into sittings.

It is a page of counting. It does not read anyone’s chart, it does not say which graha’s japa a reader should take up, and it says nothing about what completing a count does or when. Those questions belong to the tradition and to whoever is guiding the practice, not to a table.

The Nine Counts, With Weekday and Mantra

The weekday, mantra and deity in each row are the planet record’s own entries, printed as they stand. The count is the figure from that graha’s remedy line in the Graha Shanti lists the site follows; for the Sun the line names Graha Shanti outright, and for the other eight it gives “the classical japa count”.

The nine add up to 130,000. The highest is Saturn’s 23,000, which Saturn’s own remedy line calls the highest of the nine, and the lowest is the Sun’s 7,000. No two grahas share a count. Rahu’s day is Saturday and Ketu’s is Tuesday, so those two weekdays each carry two grahas, while Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday carry one each.

Which Mantra the Count Belongs To

The mantra column holds the short name-mantra: Om, the graha’s name in the dative, and Namah. For Rahu and Ketu the planet record’s form already carries a seed syllable, Om Raam Rahave Namah and Om Kem Ketave Namah. The site records a second, longer form for seven of the grahas. Its gemstone table, which lists the same seven counts as the planet record, gives a three-syllable beej mantra for each graha from the Sun to Saturn: for Budh, Om Braam Breem Braum Sah Budhaya Namah; for Chandra, Om Shraam Shreem Shraum Sah Chandraya Namah. That table has no Rahu or Ketu row, so this page supplies no longer node form of its own. Other pages on the site, among them the Navagraha mantra page, quote longer forms for all nine, and the romanisation of those varies from page to page.

So “navgrah beej mantra jaap sankhya” and “navgrah mantra jaap sankhya” get the same number here. The figure is attached to the graha, not to one wording; the site’s tables give a single count per graha and do not give a different one for the beej form.

• Sun: Om Hraam Hreem Hraum Sah Suryaya Namah (ॐ ह्रां ह्रीं ह्रौं सः सूर्याय नमः), count 7,000
• Moon: Om Shraam Shreem Shraum Sah Chandraya Namah (ॐ श्रां श्रीं श्रौं सः चंद्राय नमः), count 11,000
• Mars: Om Kraam Kreem Kraum Sah Bhaumaya Namah (ॐ क्रां क्रीं क्रौं सः भौमाय नमः), count 10,000
• Mercury: Om Braam Breem Braum Sah Budhaya Namah (ॐ ब्रां ब्रीं ब्रौं सः बुधाय नमः), count 9,000
• Jupiter: Om Graam Greem Graum Sah Gurave Namah (ॐ ग्रां ग्रीं ग्रौं सः गुरवे नमः), count 19,000
• Venus: Om Draam Dreem Draum Sah Shukraya Namah (ॐ द्रां द्रीं द्रौं सः शुक्राय नमः), count 16,000
• Saturn: Om Praam Preem Praum Sah Shanaishcharaya Namah (ॐ प्रां प्रीं प्रौं सः शनैश्चराय नमः), count 23,000

Malas of 108, Homa and Tarpana

None of the nine counts is a multiple of 108, so finishing on a whole mala always goes a little past the figure. The table rounds up to the next whole mala and shows what those malas actually come to. The last two columns follow the purascharana convention the site’s puja and remedy pages describe: the japa, then homa at a tenth of the count, then tarpana at a tenth of that. They are arithmetic on that convention, nothing more.

The overshoot ranges from 4 repetitions for Saturn, whose 213 malas give 23,004, to 92 for Venus. Two smaller points fall out of the totals. Every count is a whole number of hundreds, so the tarpana figure never needs rounding: the Sun’s is 70, Saturn’s 230. And the nine mala figures add to 1,207, not the 1,204 that 130,000 divided by 108 would suggest, because the table treats each graha’s japa as its own count on its own mantra and rounds each one up separately.

Spreading a Count Over Sittings

The remedy pages describe the Graha Shanti figure as a purascharana total completed over days or weeks rather than in one sitting, and a daily 108 as the maintenance practice rather than the remedy count. How a count is divided is the practitioner’s or the priest’s decision, so what follows is only the division.

Take Saturn’s 23,000, the largest. That is 213 malas. At 11 malas a sitting it takes 20 sittings, the first 19 of 11 malas each and a last one of 4, ending on 23,004 repetitions. A single mala a sitting would mean 213 sittings, which is the gap the remedy pages point to when they keep the maintenance 108 apart from the full count.

For “budh grah jap sankhya” the figure is 9,000, and its 84 malas happen to divide evenly: 12 sittings of 7 malas, or 7 of 12, with no short last sitting. For “chandra grah jap sankhya” it is 11,000, or 102 malas giving 11,016. The table below does the same division for all nine at a flat 10 malas a sitting, only because 10 is an easy number to check by hand.

The Counts Do Not Follow the Dasha Years

A natural guess is that a graha’s japa count scales with the length of its Vimshottari mahadasha. Put the two side by side and the guess does not hold. The years come from the same planet record; the free Dasha calculator uses that cycle.

The years total 120 and the counts 130,000, so the counts are not the years in thousands. Only Rahu’s pair lines up that way, 18 years against 18,000. The Sun, the Moon and Rahu hold the same place in both rankings, and Mars does too, though its seventh place by years is shared with Ketu; the other five differ. Venus has the longest dasha, 20 years, but sits fifth by count. Mercury runs 17 years, fourth longest, and has the eighth of nine counts, second from the bottom. Mars and Ketu both run 7 years, yet their counts are 10,000 and 17,000.

That is where the comparison stops. The lists the site follows give the counts as received figures, and this page does not offer a theory of how they were arrived at, nor read a larger count as a stronger or more difficult graha.

Where the Same Counts Appear on the Site

The puja pages print the count of the graha a puja is tied to; the Kaal Sarp Dosh puja page shows Rahu’s 18,000. The remedy pages print it for each graha a dosha involves, as on the Shani dosh remedies page with Saturn’s 23,000. Longer discussions of single grahas are on the pages for Shani remedies and Rahu remedies. All of them draw on the one planet record, which is why the numbers on this page cannot drift from theirs.

What This Page Does Not Do

It gives counts and the division of counts. It does not say that a japa, a homa or a tarpana changes anything in a life or a chart, it gives no period in which any of them is said to act, and it does not choose a graha for the reader. Malas and sittings here measure how far through a number someone is, and nothing else. In Hindi: नवग्रह जप संख्या: सभी नौ ग्रहों की जप संख्या.