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In short
A papa graha is a natural malefic: in this app the Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. The label describes a graha's nature, not what it will do in a given chart. This app uses it to score aspects and to test yogas, and it reads malefics in the growth houses as productive.
What the term means
Papa graha is the classical name for a natural malefic: a graha whose own nature is classed as hard, whatever houses it rules. The term is a classification, not a forecast. The same planet can rule good houses, be strong by dignity, and be a chart's Yogakaraka. Its counterpart is the shubha graha.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11 lists the malefics as the Sun, Saturn, Mars, the decreasing Moon, Rahu and Ketu, with Mercury joining them when it joins a malefic. Ch. 34 Sl. 8-10 grades the Sun, Saturn and Mars. The same chapter qualifies the label by lordship: Sl. 2-7 say malefics owning Kendras "will not remain inauspicious", and the rising-sign lists that follow name natural malefics, Saturn for Taurus rising among them, as Yoga Karakas.
How this app uses it
- The engine's list is fixed: the Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. A waning Moon and an afflicted Mercury are not moved onto it.
- Aspect strength in the app's Shad Bala is 0 when only malefics aspect a planet, 1.5 when benefics and malefics both do. In a 1985-06-05, 02:29 IST New Delhi chart the Moon, aspected by Mars and Saturn, gets 0; Saturn, aspected by Venus and Rahu, gets 1.5.
- Yoga tests use the list both ways: Sarpa Yoga needs malefics alone in three Kendras, and several benefic yogas, Adhi among them, need the benefics free of malefic aspect.
- The behavioural layer reads natural malefics in the Upachaya houses (3rd, 6th, 10th, 11th) as doing "their most productive work" there, and scores Saturn's discipline that way.
A nature, not a verdict
Every chart has all five of these grahas somewhere. The app reads each one by its own dignity, house, aspects and periods; the malefic label is one input among those, never a reading on its own.
Pages that use this term
- Saturn in Vedic astrology - a natural malefic, read in full.
- Mars in Vedic astrology - the malefic BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 8-10 places last, strongest in malefic disposition.
- Taurus (Vrishabha) rashi - where Saturn, a malefic, is the Yogakaraka.
- Sarpa Yoga - malefics alone in the angles.
- Shad Bala calculator - shows which malefics aspect each planet.
Related terms
- Shubha graha (benefic) - the other list.
- Upachaya - the houses malefics are read as building from.
- Chhaya graha - Rahu and Ketu, the shadow planets on the list.
- Drishti - the aspects the malefic test scores.
Shad Bala calculator
Six components, one simplified score out of 20 for each of the seven grahas.
What it needs
Date, time and place
That is more than this article asks for - it only ever takes a date, and sometimes a time, and never a name or a birth place. So this one runs on its own page, which asks for exactly what it needs and stores none of it.
Run it on its own page