Upagrahas: Dhuma, Vyatipata, Indrachapa and Yamakantaka

Points, Not Planets (उपग्रह)

An upagraha, a “sub-graha”, is a sensitive point that some kundli software prints beside the nine grahas. None of them is a body in the sky. They come in two families. Five are pure arithmetic on the Sun’s longitude, and Parashara’s Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra gives the chain that produces them. The other five are taken from the clock: the day is cut into eight parts, each part has a ruling graha, and the ascendant at that graha’s part gives the point. Gulika, the best known of the second family, and its twin Mandi have their own Gulika and Mandi page.

The Five From the Sun

Each step uses the one before it, starting from the Sun’s sidereal longitude:

The text closes the chain with a check: one sign added to Upaketu gives back the Sun. That is the quickest way to catch an arithmetic slip, and it also says what Upaketu is, the Sun’s own degree one sign behind it. Dhuma and Vyatipata are mirror images across the start of Aries, and so are Parivesha and Indrachapa, while Vyatipata and Parivesha are always exactly opposite. Parashara counts all five as malefic points; what the texts say each one does in a house is not repeated here.

Where Each One Sits, by the Sun’s Position

Because every step adds or subtracts a fixed amount, only the Sun’s sign and whether it is before or after 16°40′ of that sign decide where all five fall. Upaketu changes sign at the same moment the Sun does, at each sankranti; the other four all change sign together when the Sun crosses 16°40′, roughly sixteen to eighteen days into each solar month. Dhuma is always in the 5th sign from the Sun before that point and the 6th after it; Indrachapa is the 11th from the Sun before it and the 12th after it. Vyatipata and Parivesha are reflections, so they run backwards through the zodiac as the Sun moves forward.

The Sun’s sign tells you only the month; the half needs the Sun’s degree, which any kundli printout gives. Since the Sun moves about a degree a day, everyone born on the same date shares these five signs, except on the days the Sun crosses 0° or 16°40′ of a sign. The dates the Sun changes sign are on the Sun transit 2027 page.

A Worked Example

At sunrise in New Delhi on 1 December 2026, the site’s Sun routine puts the sidereal Sun at 14°37′ Scorpio. Running the chain:

• Dhuma: 14°37′ Scorpio plus 4 signs 13°20′ is 27°57′ Pisces.
• Vyatipata: 12 signs minus Dhuma is 2°03′ Aries.
• Parivesha: Vyatipata plus 6 signs is 2°03′ Libra.
• Indrachapa: 12 signs minus Parivesha is 27°57′ Virgo.
• Upaketu: Indrachapa plus 16°40′ is 14°37′ Libra, and one sign more returns 14°37′ Scorpio, the Sun.

Dhuma falls near the end of Pisces, so its mirror, Vyatipata, falls just inside Aries: the same distance on the other side of the start of the zodiac. Parivesha is then exactly opposite Vyatipata, and Indrachapa mirrors Parivesha.

Yamakantaka and the Time-Based Five

The second family uses the same eight-part division as Gulika. From sunrise to sunset the day is cut into eight equal parts, the first ruled by the lord of the weekday and the rest following in weekday order, the eighth left without a lord; the night is cut the same way, starting from the lord of the fifth weekday counted from the day’s own. Modern software such as Jagannatha Hora names a point for each of five of the rulers: Kaala for the Sun’s part, Mrityu for Mars’s, Ardhaprahara for Mercury’s, Yamakantaka (also written Yamaghantaka) for Jupiter’s and Gulika for Saturn’s. Which part each one is, by weekday:

Jupiter’s part of the day is also the panchang’s Yamaghanta window. The site’s daily panchang for New Delhi agrees with this table on all 730 days of 2026 and 2027, which is a useful check that the two names point at the same stretch of daylight. The panchang uses the window to avoid starting things; the chart uses the ascendant inside it as a point. Which moment of the part gives the point, its start, its middle or its end, is the same unsettled question it is for Gulika and Mandi, and different software answers it differently, so two printouts for one birth can put Yamakantaka in different signs. To find Yamakantaka for your own birth, take the weekday, read the part number from the table, and check which convention your software uses before comparing it with anything else.

Not the Same as the Panchang’s Vyatipata

The upagraha Vyatipata shares its name with the seventeenth of the twenty-seven nitya yogas of the panchang, which comes from the Sun and Moon together and has its dates on the Vyatipata yoga page. The two are unrelated calculations, and searches for one regularly turn up the other. Upaketu is likewise not Ketu: it is a fixed offset from the Sun, while Ketu is the Moon’s south node. The abbreviations a printout uses for the nine grahas themselves are on the kundli symbols page.