Shadbala: The Six Strengths of a Graha, Worked in Virupas and Rupas

A shadbala table is a column of numbers, one row per graha, and it is easy to read the bottom line without knowing what went into it. This page goes the other way. It sets out the six parts, the unit they are counted in, and the arithmetic of the three parts that can be shown simply, worked through for a set of example positions. It also prints the minimum totals usually quoted for each graha, and says plainly which parts it leaves uncomputed.

Shadbala Meaning in Astrology (षड्बल)

Shad is six and bala is strength. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra measures the strength of each of the seven grahas from the Sun to Saturn under six heads and adds them into one figure. Rahu and Ketu are outside the scheme: the classical reckoning has no shadbala for the nodes, and the site’s planet table already gives them no directional strength, in its own words “the nodes have no directional strength”.

The Unit: Sixty Virupas Make One Rupa

Each component is counted in virupas, also called shashtiamsas, sixtieths. Sixty virupas make one rupa, and totals are usually quoted in rupas. Many of the individual measures, including the three worked below, run from 0 to 60 virupas, from nothing to one rupa, so a total of several rupas is built up from many such parts.

The Six Components of Shadbala

• Sthana bala, positional strength. Strength from where the graha stands in the zodiac. In the Parashari reckoning it is itself built from parts: uchcha bala (closeness to deep exaltation), saptavargaja bala (dignity across seven divisional charts), ojayugma bala (odd and even signs and navamshas), kendradi bala (angle, succedent or cadent house) and drekkana bala.
• Dig bala, directional strength. Strength from closeness to one angle of the chart, a different angle for different grahas. The houses are covered on the digbala page; the virupa arithmetic is below.
• Kala bala, temporal strength. Strength from the time of birth: whether it falls by day or by night, the lunar fortnight, the part of the day, the lords of the year, month, weekday and hora, the graha’s declination (ayana bala), and the outcome of any planetary war.
• Cheshta bala, motional strength. Strength from the graha’s motion. The planet table calls it “chesta bala, the strength of motion”, in connection with retrograde motion. The Sun and the Moon never turn retrograde, and the texts treat those two differently.
• Naisargika bala, natural strength. A fixed figure for each graha, the same in every chart.
• Drik bala, aspectual strength. Strength from the aspects a graha receives, with benefic aspects counted for it and malefic ones against. The aspects themselves are on the graha drishti page.

Kala, cheshta and drik bala, and four of the five parts of sthana bala, need inputs this page does not set out: the time of birth, each graha’s speed, aspect strengths, divisional charts and house placements. This page names them and does not compute them.

Naisargika Bala: The One Fixed Component

Natural strength ranks the seven grahas in a fixed order and gives each a share of 60 virupas. In the Parashari scheme the order is Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn. Number them 7 down to 1 and the figure is 60 × that number ÷ 7, so each step down the list is 8.57 virupas.

The seven figures add to 240 virupas, exactly 4 rupas. Because the column never changes, it is the one part of a shadbala table that can be checked by eye: if a calculator prints any other naisargika figure, it is using a different scheme.

Uchcha Bala: Distance from Deep Exaltation

Uchcha bala is the first part of sthana bala and the easiest to compute. It is 60 virupas when the graha stands on its degree of deepest exaltation and 0 at the point exactly opposite, with a straight line between. The rule given in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra is to take the arc between the graha and that opposite point, counting the short way round so that it is never more than 180°, and divide it by 3. Every 30° of arc is therefore worth 10 virupas.

The deep-exaltation degrees below are the ones on the site’s planet table. This page does not print the opposite point as a degree of its own; the two right-hand columns show the arithmetic without it.

Placing every graha in the middle of its exaltation sign shows that the sign alone does not fix the figure. Mercury’s deepest point is itself the 15th degree of Virgo, so it scores the full 60 there, while Mars, whose deepest point is late in Capricorn, scores 55.67. The two right-hand columns add to 60 in every row, because the two positions are 180° apart. For the signs themselves, see the exalted planets page.

Dig Bala in Virupas

Dig bala follows the same straight-line shape, with a different reference point. It is 60 virupas at the graha’s digbala point and 0 at the point opposite. The planet table gives the house: the 10th for the Sun and Mars, the 4th for the Moon and Venus, the 1st for Mercury and Jupiter, and the 7th for Saturn. So the zero point is the 4th for the Sun and Mars, the 10th for the Moon and Venus, the 7th for Mercury and Jupiter, and the 1st for Saturn.

The method works in degrees, so it needs the longitude of that angle, not just the house. Whole-sign houses do not supply one; the points come from house cusps, and different house systems put the cusps in different places.

A Worked Example: Three of the Six Components

The positions below are example longitudes chosen to show the arithmetic; they are not anyone’s chart. The example lagna is 10°00′ Cancer. To keep the sums visible, the four angles are set 90° apart: the 4th at 10°00′ Libra, the 7th at 10°00′ Capricorn and the 10th at 10°00′ Aries. In a real chart the 10th cusp is generally not 90° from the lagna, and a calculator uses the actual cusps.

Take Saturn. Its digbala point is the 7th, here 10°00′ Capricorn, and the example Saturn at 10°00′ Sagittarius is 30° short of it: (180 − 30) ÷ 3 = 50.00 virupas. It stands 50° from its deepest exaltation degree by the short route, so it is 130° from the opposite point, and 130 ÷ 3 = 43.33 virupas of uchcha bala. The example Jupiter sits on its own deepest exaltation degree and 5° from the lagna, which gives it the largest three-part figure in the table, 152.62; the example Sun, near its zero point on both measures, has the smallest, 66.67, almost all of it naisargika bala.

The last column is not a shadbala total and cannot be compared with the minimums below. Three components are missing, and so are four of the five parts of sthana bala. Not one of the seven three-part figures reaches even the lowest minimum, 300 virupas, which is a measure of how much of the total lies in the parts left out.

Required Shadbala, as Commonly Quoted from BPHS

The figures usually quoted from Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra set a minimum total for each graha, in rupas. Those who use shadbala treat a total at or above the figure as sufficient strength under the scheme.

Mercury has the highest figure, 7 rupas, and Mars and Saturn the lowest, 5 each. Because the minimums differ, the same total can sit on either side of the line: a total of 6 rupas falls short of Mercury’s figure and clears Saturn’s. Each total is read against its own graha’s minimum, not against the other grahas’ totals.

Kundli Me Shadbal Kaise Dekhe: Reading a Shadbala Chart

Where a calculator prints a shadbala table, check four things in order. First, the naisargika column should match the fixed figures above exactly. Second, see whether totals are in rupas or virupas: a figure such as 420 is virupas, 7 is rupas. Third, read each total beside that graha’s own required figure, not beside the other grahas’ totals. Fourth, if Rahu or Ketu has a row, the program has gone beyond the classical seven, and it is worth finding out what it computed for them. Totals from two programs can differ, since the time-based components rest on the birth time and the dig bala points rest on the house system.

The site’s free kundli does not compute shadbala: it gives the Moon sign, nakshatra, Sun sign, lagna, the running dasha, and the sign and house of Mars. For other ways the tradition grades a graha, see the baladi and jagradadi avasthas.

What This Page Does Not Do

It computes no one’s shadbala, and its example is arithmetic, not a chart. It does not say what a graha above or below its minimum brings to a life, or when, and it reads nothing about health, work or relationships from any of these numbers. Kala, cheshta and drik bala and the other four parts of sthana bala are named here and not computed. In Hindi: षड्बल क्या होता है: ग्रह के छह बल, विरूप और रूप में.