Gaja Kesari yoga

a chart where Jupiter stands in a kendra counted from the Moon

What the tradition reads

Gaja Kesari yoga, under its common modern name, forms when Jupiter stands in a kendra, one of the four angular houses, the first, fourth, seventh or tenth, counted from the Moon. Mantreswara's Phaladeepika treats the same configuration under the plainer name Kesari yoga, stating in chapter six that the Moon in a kendra position to Jupiter brings on Kesari yoga, and gives its effects in the following verse: the person so born will destroy, like a lion, all his enemies, will speak loftily and nobly in an assembly, will be passionate and emotional in temperament, will be long lived, highly renowned and exceedingly intelligent, and will conquer everything by his own valour. Jataka Parijata, a fifteenth century Sanskrit compilation attributed to Vaidyanatha Dikshita, is credited in later handbooks with the fuller elephant and lion reading and name, though no accessible copy of its own verse could be confirmed here, so what is given above rests on Phaladeepika's own wording. Because the combination depends only on Jupiter's position relative to the Moon rather than on sign, dignity or house from the Ascendant, it is counted among the more frequently formed of the named yogas.

The story

The pairing of elephant and lion, gaja and kesari, is an old figure in Indian art and kingship both, the two set opposite each other on temple friezes and palace gates as the largest of the land beasts and the fiercest, together standing for a strength that is overwhelming and dignified rather than merely violent, the image behind the yoga's common modern name even though Phaladeepika's own verse calls the configuration simply Kesari, without naming the elephant. Jupiter, Brihaspati, is read throughout the classical tradition as the guru of the gods, the counsellor whose word is deferred to; the Moon is the mind and the ruler of the emotions, and the point Jupiter's angular position is measured against here. A yoga formed by Jupiter standing at an angle from the Moon reads, in Phaladeepika's own words, as valour, renown and loud, confident speech in company, not a private or hidden gift but one exercised where it can be seen. Jataka Parijata, the later Sanskrit compilation attributed to Vaidyanatha Dikshita, is, according to Wikipedia's account of it, ranked alongside Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Brihat Jataka and Phaladeepika itself, and is one of only a few classical texts that give timing on the nativity; it is widely credited in later handbooks with popularising the fuller elephant and lion name this entry uses.

Written from

Corpus key yoga:Gaja-Kesari.