Yoga

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What the tradition reads

In Vedic astrology a yoga is a named combination of planets, formed by conjunction, mutual aspect or a shared relationship to a particular house, that the tradition holds carries its own fixed meaning distinct from what any of the planets involved would show on its own. Some yogas are read as strongly fortunate, the raja yogas that combine the lords of the angular and trinal houses, or the five Pancha Mahapurusha yogas, in which one of five planets stands both in a kendra and in its own or its exaltation sign; others, such as the kemadruma yoga, formed when the Moon stands with no planet in the houses on either side of it, are read as difficult unless cancelled by a separate, specifically named condition elsewhere in the chart. The tradition treats a chart's yogas, taken together, as a layer of judgement distinct from and additional to the ordinary reading of signs, houses and dashas, and considers the presence or absence of the classical yogas central to what separates Vedic astrology's method of prediction from the Western tradition's.

The story

Yoga is built on the Sanskrit verbal root yuj, to join, to yoke or to unite, the same root that gives the word its far better known sense of the physical and spiritual discipline, and the astrological use keeps that core sense of joining intact, naming any meaningful union of planets, houses or aspects a yoga regardless of whether the union in question is fortunate or difficult. The classical texts group these named combinations into several standing categories still taught today, the raja yogas for an auspicious rise in status, the dhana yogas of wealth, the daridra yogas of poverty, the sanyasa yogas of renunciation and the nabhasa yogas built from a planet's overall pattern across the chart, each drawing on the same basic doctrine, that a fixed combination of planets, signs or houses carries a meaning of its own. The astrological tradition originally worked out its yogas using only the seven classical planets, the Sun, Moon and five visible planets, and only later extended the same logic to include the lunar nodes and the modern outer planets as those bodies were incorporated into Vedic practice.

Written from

Corpus key glossary:yoga.