Chandra Mangala yoga
a chart where the Moon and Mars stand in conjunction, or in mutual aspect, in the same house
What the tradition reads
Chandra Mangala yoga forms when the Moon, Chandra, and Mars, Mangala, stand in conjunction in the same house of the birth chart, and some traditions also count the yoga as formed by a mutual aspect between the two, most commonly Mars aspecting the Moon or the Moon aspecting Mars from the seventh house, though a direct conjunction is read as the stronger of the two forms. The combination is read as joining the Moon's own intuitive grasp of what the public wants with Mars's aggressive, entrepreneurial drive, producing a person whose emotions drive their actions directly rather than at a remove, and the yoga is tied specifically to property, business ownership and self-made wealth built through personal effort rather than to riches simply inherited. Its emotional character is read as running in two directions at once: on its better expression, a courage rooted in genuine feeling and a capacity for decisive action, and on its harder expression, explosive anger, impulsive decisions and emotional reactions capable of damaging the native's own relationships. The tradition is explicit that the yoga only indicates a potential for wealth rather than guaranteeing it, its actual expression depending heavily on the sign and house the conjunction falls in, whether the Moon is waxing or waning, the nature of the ascendant, and the timing of the native's own planetary periods.
The story
Chandra, the Moon, is traditionally married to the twenty seven daughters of the sage Daksha, who personify the lunar mansions, yet he showed open favouritism toward one wife, Rohini, and neglected the rest. When the slighted wives complained, Daksha warned Chandra repeatedly and, when the favouritism continued, cursed him to waste away with consumption, an affliction that touched not only Chandra but the plants and other living things bound to his light. The Devas pleaded on Chandra's behalf, and Daksha softened the curse rather than lifting it, allowing Chandra to be free of the disease for half of every month by bathing in the Sarasvati Tirtha, a cycle the tradition offers as its own account of the Moon's waxing and waning. Mangala, Mars, has two separate births depending on the tradition. In the Vaishnava account he is born when Vishnu, in his Varaha form, rescues the earth goddess Bhumi from the demon Hiranyaksha and, realising she is an aspect of his own consort Lakshmi, unites with her, their union producing Mangala, whose name means the auspicious one. In the Shaiva account, three drops of Shiva's own sweat fall to earth while he sits in meditation on Mount Kailash and take shape as a red, four armed infant, whom Shiva hands to Bhumi to raise as her own.
Written from
Corpus key yoga:Chandra-Mangala.