Argala Raj Yoga: unobstructed Argala to the 1st, 5th and 9th, and the simplified count behind it

Argala Raj Yoga is the one yoga in this app built on Argala - BPHS's idea that grahas in certain houses "intervene" in another house, and that grahas in a matching house can obstruct the intervention. It is not a Nabhasa shape and not a lordship yoga: it looks at how many planets stand where, measured from three particular houses. And unlike most of the yogas on this site it is common, firing in about two of every five sample charts. That is a direct result of how the engine simplifies a complex chapter, and this page sets out the simplifications one by one. For the general question of what a yoga amounts to, see what a yoga in your chart means.

The rule: how Argala Raj Yoga forms

BPHS Ch. 31 Sl. 18: "Should there be (unobstructed) Argala for Lagn, Putr and Dharm Bhava, the native will doubtlessly become a king and fortunate." Lagn, Putr and Dharm are the 1st, 5th and 9th houses. Sl. 2-9 defines Argala: grahas in the 2nd, 4th and 11th from a house cause it, grahas in the 12th, 10th and 3rd obstruct it, and the 5th is a further Argala place, countered by the 9th. The engine turns that into this test:

1. 1.Count only the seven classical grahas, the Sun through Saturn, by whole-sign house.
2. 2.For a house B, check four pairs, each counted from B: the 2nd against the 12th, the 4th against the 10th, the 11th against the 3rd, and the 5th against the 9th.
3. 3.A pair gives B unobstructed Argala if its Argala house holds more grahas than its obstructing house. One graha against none is enough; two against two is not.
4. 4.B has Argala if at least one of the four pairs gives it.
5. 5.Argala Raj Yoga forms if the 1st, 5th and 9th houses all have Argala.

The obstruction is counted from the original house, not from the Argala house - which is also the reading the BPHS translator's note defends. The same test, run for all twelve houses, drives the Argala calculator, so a chart's Argala Raj result can be checked house by house there.

Every simplification, stated

The engine comment calls this "a deliberately simplified core version" of one flagship combination, and lists what it leaves out. Read against the full chapter, the differences are:

• Count, not strength. BPHS Sl. 2-9 says the Argala prevails if the causing graha is stronger "or" if the Argalas outnumber the obstructors. The engine applies only the count; the strength test would need a Shadbala comparison for every pair. A single strong obstructor that BPHS would let win is beaten here by two weak grahas.
• No nodes. BPHS says Rahu and Ketu, having retrograde motion, have their Argalas and obstructions counted "in a reverse manner" without spelling out how. Rather than guess, the engine leaves both out, as it does for the Nabhasa and lunar yogas.
• No quarter-of-sign rule. BPHS Sl. 10 lets an obstructor cancel an Argala only when the two stand in matching quarters of their signs (first with fourth, second with third). The engine ignores degrees.
• Any one pair suffices. The engine treats the four pairs as four independent Argalas and needs just one unobstructed. BPHS does not say how to combine them.
• No Vipreet Argala. BPHS Sl. 2-9 says three or more malefics in the 3rd give a special, "very favourable" Argala. The engine neither tests this nor lets it change the count.
• No grading. BPHS says Argala from one graha gives limited results, from two medium, from more than two excellent. The engine reports yes or no.
• Houses only, and no aspect test. BPHS counts Argala "from a Rasi, or a Grah", and Sl. 11-17 speaks of an Argala-causing graha "giving a Drishti" to the house. The engine counts from houses and ignores aspects.

What the classical texts say

BPHS is the only text in this library that states the yoga. Sl. 18 promises kingship and fortune. Sl. 11-17 gives the separate effects for each house that receives unobstructed Argala: for the Lagna fame, for the 5th sons, grandsons and intelligence, for the 9th fortunes. The engine's per-house sentences keep these - fame and personal standing; fulfilment through children, creativity and intelligence; growth in fortune and dharma - and its sentence for the yoga reads: "Classically one of the strongest combinations for fortune and standing named in this source - read as durable, well-supported success across self, creativity and dharma alike." That superlative is the app's gloss on Sl. 18's "doubtlessly", and it sits awkwardly beside the rule's actual frequency, discussed below.

Argala appears elsewhere in BPHS too. Ch. 39 Sl. 26-27, among the Raj Yogas, gives a royal combination based on the Arudha Pad when "there is no Argala by a malefic" - a different rule the engine does not implement. Ch. 50 Sl. 53-55 links Argala to the dashas of signs. And Ch. 31 itself says the effects of Argala come "in the Dasha periods of the Rasi, or Grah concerned"; the engine gives the yoga no planets, so the signed-in Kundali attaches no Mahadasha window to it.

Saravali, Advanced Predictive Astrology and the Bhrigu Sutras do not use the word Argala. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's yoga chapter (pp. 145-154, read from the page images) has no Argala section; the nearest idea there is Kartari Yoga (p. 153), planets on either side of the lagna - the 2nd and 12th, which in Argala terms are the first Argala house and its obstructor. The glossary entries on Argala and virodha argala cover the general concept and the obstruction.

How rare it is - and why it is not

Argala Raj Yoga fired in 1,211 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, or 40.4 percent. The sample is the engine-facts walk: New Delhi, from 1 January 1985, in steps of 9 days, 2 hours and 37 minutes. Each of the three houses on its own had Argala in most charts - the 1st in 2,340, the 5th in 2,320, the 9th in 2,334 - and the yoga needs all three at once.

The reason is the "any one pair" rule meeting a crowded sky. Seven grahas in twelve houses leave many houses empty, and a pair passes whenever its Argala house is occupied and its obstructing house is empty. With four chances per house, most houses pass. Counted over all twelve houses, the typical sample chart had Argala in nine or ten of them:

So in this app Argala Raj Yoga marks a chart in which three particular houses share a property most houses have, not a rare configuration. A stricter reading - the strength test, the quarter rule, grading by number - would make it rarer, by how much the engine cannot say, because it does not compute those versions.

A built-in limit: the 5th-9th pair

The three houses are a trikona, each the 5th and 9th from the others, and that makes one pair behave oddly. For the 1st, the 5th-against-9th pair compares the 5th house with the 9th. For the 5th it compares the 9th with the 1st; for the 9th, the 1st with the 5th. All three cannot pass, since that would need the 5th to hold more grahas than the 9th, the 9th more than the 1st, and the 1st more than the 5th. In the sample it never happened. One of the three houses must always get its Argala from another pair.

Worked example: a 1985 New Delhi chart

The first moment in the walk with Argala Raj Yoga is 19 January 1985 at 11:14 IST, New Delhi; re-enter it in the birth chart calculator to follow along. The ascendant is Pisces at 23.04 degrees.

1. 1.1st house. 2nd (0) against 12th (2): no. 4th (0) against 10th (2): no. 11th (2) against 3rd (0): yes. 5th (0) against 9th (1): no. One pair passes, so the 1st has Argala - from the Sun and Jupiter in the 11th.
2. 2.5th house (Cancer). Counted from it: 2nd = 6th house (0) against 12th = 4th house (0): no. 4th = 8th (0) against 10th = 2nd (0): no. 11th = 3rd (0) against 3rd = 7th (0): no. 5th = 9th (1) against 9th = 1st (0): yes. The 5th has Argala, from Saturn alone.
3. 3.9th house (Scorpio). 2nd = 10th (2) against 12th = 8th (0): yes. 4th = 12th (2) against 10th = 6th (0): yes. 11th = 7th (0) against 3rd = 11th (2): no. 5th = 1st (0) against 9th = 5th (0): no. Two pairs pass.
4. 4.All three houses have Argala, and the engine reports Argala Raj Yoga with the meaning: "Your Ascendant, 5th house (Putra) and 9th house (Dharma) each carry unobstructed Argala - supportive planetary backing that isn't cancelled out."

Two details show the simplifications at work. Saturn in the 9th plays both roles: it obstructs the Lagna's 5th-house Argala, and it is the only thing giving the 5th its Argala. And the Lagna's Argala rests on Jupiter, debilitated and combust, with the Sun - a pair that wins on count alone; BPHS's strength test might weigh them differently, and the engine does not run it. Had the nodes been counted, Rahu in the 3rd would make the Lagna's pass two against one, and Ketu in the 9th would make the 5th's two against none, so the answer would stand - but that assumes ordinary counting, not the "reverse manner" BPHS prescribes for them.

Across all twelve houses the chart has Argala in ten - every house but the 3rd and 4th. The full detector also returns Durudhura, Ubhayachari, Kedara, Amala, Sarala, Kendra-Kona Raj and Parivartana yogas. Kendra-Kona Raj was Argala Raj's most frequent companion in the sample, in 965 of its 1,211 charts; the two are separate rules, one about house lords and one about occupancy.

One Nabhasa shape guarantees the yoga outright. In Yupa Yoga all seven grahas fill the 1st to 4th houses, every one occupied. Then the 1st passes on its 2nd against its 12th (occupied against empty), the 5th on its 11th against its 3rd (the 3rd and 7th houses), and the 9th on its 5th against its 9th (the 1st and 5th houses). Every Yupa chart therefore forms Argala Raj Yoga under the engine's count, as all five Yupa charts in the sample did.

What a yoga does not tell you

BPHS says unobstructed Argala to these three houses makes one a king. This app reports that as the text's claim and does not forecast status for anyone - least of all for a property that, on its simplified test, two in five charts share. A chart without it is not missing support; it means at least one of the three houses failed all four count comparisons. For lordship-based royal yogas, see Raja Yoga of the 5th and 9th lords and Dharma-Karmadhipati Yoga.

To see whether your chart forms Argala Raj Yoga, run the yoga calculator; to see which pair supplies each house's Argala, use the Argala calculator.

Questions about Argala Raj Yoga

What is the rule for Argala Raj Yoga?

The 1st, 5th and 9th houses must each have unobstructed Argala (BPHS Ch. 31 Sl. 18). In this app a house has it when, for at least one of its four pairs - 2nd/12th, 4th/10th, 11th/3rd, 5th/9th, counted from that house - the Argala house holds more of the seven grahas than the obstructing house.

Why is Argala Raj Yoga so common in this app?

Because a house needs only one of four pairs to pass, and a pair passes whenever its Argala house has a graha and its obstructing house has none. It fired in 1,211 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, about 40 percent.

Does planetary strength matter?

BPHS Ch. 31 allows a stronger graha to prevail as an alternative to counting. The engine uses the count only, and ignores the quarter-of-sign rule in Sl. 10 and Vipreet Argala.

Are Rahu and Ketu counted?

No. BPHS says they are counted "in a reverse manner" but does not specify how, so the engine leaves them out rather than guess.

Is this the same as Kartari Yoga?

No, though they are related. Kartari (Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara p. 153) is about planets on both sides of the lagna. Argala compares the 2nd with the 12th, among other pairs, and asks which side outnumbers the other.

Does Argala Raj Yoga mean I will gain high status?

No. BPHS reads it as kingship and fortune; this app reports that as the text's reading. A yoga is a rule about positions, not a prediction.