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In short
A karaka is a significator: a graha that stands for a person, a matter or a house. BPHS uses the word in four ways: fixed significations of each graha, the Jaimini Char Karakas ranked by degree, the karakas of the houses, and Yoga Karakas. This app computes the Char Karakas and the Yoga Karakas, and uses fixed significations in its life-area scores.
What the term means
Karaka means "significator", the graha that signifies something. The word on its own is ambiguous, because the texts use it for four different kinds of role. Some are fixed for every chart, some are worked out from the chart's degrees, and one depends on the rising sign. When a page on this site says "Venus is the karaka of partnership" and another says "your Atmakaraka is the Moon", they are using two different senses of the same word.
Where the term comes from
- Constant karakas. BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 18-21 give fixed significations, the stronger of the Sun and Venus for the father, of the Moon and Mars for the mother, and so on.
- Char (inconstant) karakas. Ch. 32 Sl. 3-17 rank the grahas by the degrees each has travelled in its sign: the highest is the Atmakaraka, the next the Amatyakaraka, and so on down the list.
- House karakas. Ch. 32 Sl. 31-34 assign a graha to each house; see Bhava karaka.
- Yoga karakas. Ch. 34 names, for each rising sign, the graha that rules both an angle and a trine; see Yogakaraka.
How this app uses it
- The Char Karakas are computed from the seven visible grahas only, in the seven-karaka scheme. BPHS notes that some include Rahu, which would add an eighth role; the engine does not. The Atmakaraka's Navamsa sign gives the Karakamsa.
- Yoga Karakas are looked up from the BPHS Ch. 34 list for your rising sign and shown in the Kundali.
- Fixed significations appear as plain phrases. The life-area scores add a significator graha beside each area's houses: Saturn as "karaka of sustained work and consequence" for career, Jupiter as "karaka of increase" for wealth, Venus as "karaka of relating" for relationships, the Sun as "karaka of vitality" for health. The planet-by-planet interpretation names each graha's karaka the same way.
Pages that use this term
- Ishta Devata and the Karakamsa - the Atmakaraka and its Navamsa.
- The 7th house (Yuvati Bhava) - Venus as the house's fixed karaka.
- The Sun in Vedic astrology - one graha's significations.
- Char Karakas calculator - ranks your seven grahas.
- Karakamsa calculator - the Atmakaraka's Navamsa sign.
Related terms
- Chara karaka - the degree-ranked karakas.
- Karakamsa - built from the Atmakaraka.
- Bhava karaka - the house significators.
- Yogakaraka - the lordship role.
Char Karakas
Seven grahas ranked by the degrees each has travelled in its sign - Atma Karaka first.
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