Gola Yoga: all seven grahas in one sign, and why the engine has never met one

Gola Yoga is the simplest rule in the whole family of Nabhasa yogas: all seven classical grahas in a single sign. Gola means a ball or sphere, and the picture is of a sky gathered into one point. It is also, as far as this app's engine can tell, the hardest to find. The engine ran 20,000 birth moments from 1985 onward through its detector and never met one. This page sets out the rule as the texts give it, shows what the code does with it, and uses the engine's closest near misses to show why it is so rare. For what any yoga can and cannot tell you, start with what a yoga in your chart means.

The rule: how Gola Yoga forms

Gola is the first rung of the seven Sankhya ("counting") yogas, which BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 defines by one number: how many signs the grahas occupy between them. The engine applies it in three steps.

1. 1.Take the seven classical grahas - Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Rahu and Ketu are left out, as they are for every Nabhasa yoga in the engine.
2. 2.Read the sidereal sign of each.
3. 3.Count the distinct signs. If the count is one - every graha in the same sign - the engine reports Gola Yoga, with the sentence "Your 7 classical grahas (Sun through Saturn) occupy exactly 1 distinct sign".

The ascendant plays no part. Neither does the house the sign falls in, the grahas' dignity or their degrees. A Gola chart would be Gola whether the shared sign were the 1st house or the 12th, which is one reason the engine lists no planet against the yoga: it belongs to the whole chart, not to any graha.

Two readings are fixed by the wording. First, the Sankhya rule counts Rasis (signs), where the shape yogas just before it in BPHS count Bhavas (houses). In this app the two come to the same thing, because it uses whole-sign houses: one sign is one house. Second, closeness is irrelevant. Seven grahas spread from the first degree of a sign to the last are Gola; seven grahas packed within a few degrees but straddling a sign boundary are not. The rule is a count of signs, not a measure of how tightly the planets are bunched.

Gola never comes alone: the Asraya yoga that always forms with it

Every sign has a modality - movable, fixed or dual - and BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 7 makes a yoga of each: all the grahas in movable signs is Rajju, all in fixed signs is Musala, all in dual signs is Nala. A chart with all seven in one sign has all seven in one modality, so a Gola chart is always a Rajju, Musala or Nala chart as well. The code confirms it: the engine's Asraya test fires whenever the seven grahas share a modality, and a single sign is the extreme case of that.

Nothing else in the family can join them. The shape (Akriti) yogas need at least two occupied houses, the Dala yogas need three kendras occupied, and Vajra and Yava need two houses filled. So a Gola chart carries exactly two Nabhasa yogas: Gola and one Asraya.

That has an odd consequence once the two texts' precedence rules are put side by side. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 says no Sankhya yoga is "operable, if another Nabhash Yog is derivable" - and for Gola another always is, so on a strict BPHS reading Gola could never operate. Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 7 says the reverse for the Asraya yogas: if another Nabhasa yoga is present, the Asraya's effects do not come to pass and "the other (Nabhasa) Yoga prevails" - which here would be Gola. Read literally, each text hands the chart to the yoga the other text sets aside. The engine applies neither rule and reports both yogas, which leaves the choice visible instead of settling it with a rule no text states.

What the classical texts say about Gola Yoga

• BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 3-6 names the seven Sankhya yogas from Vallaki down to Gola; Sl. 16-17 gives the rule, "If all Grahas are in one Rasi, Gola Yog is formed".
• BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 49 reads the yoga harshly: the person will be strong but devoid of wealth, learning and intelligence, dirty, sorrowful and miserable.
• Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 19 gives the same rule, and Sl. 46 a parallel reading - indigent, indolent, devoid of learning and honour, dirty and always grieved.
• Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 8-10 also gives one reading for any Sankhya yoga: happy only with others' wealth, living through others' help, never quite at peace.
• BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50 says Nabhasa results are felt through all the dasha periods.

The two readings disagree on one word that matters. BPHS opens with "strong"; Saravali has "indolent" in the same place. Otherwise they run in parallel. Advanced Predictive Astrology and the Bhrigu Sutras, the other yoga sources in this library, do not mention Gola Yoga.

How rare it is: zero in 3,000, zero in 20,000

In the engine's standard sample of 3,000 birth moments from New Delhi, 1985-2060, Gola Yoga fired 0 times. The engine-facts search then walks on for 20,000 moments - one every 9 days 2 hours 37 minutes, which carries it from 1 January 1985 to October 2483 - and did not find one there either. Counting signs across the whole walk shows where the moments went instead:

One honest limit: the walk is a sample, not a continuous search. It looks at one moment every nine days, and the Moon passes through a sign in a couple of days, so a brief Gola window could fall between two samples. What the walk does show is that the arrangement is far rarer than its nearest neighbour, which itself turned up only 49 times in nearly five centuries.

The astronomy explains why. Mercury never strays far from the Sun and Venus not much further, so those three often share a sign. The Moon joins the Sun only around the new moon (amavasya). The hard part is the three outer grahas. Jupiter and Saturn, the two slowest, share a sign only in the years around their conjunctions, which are decades apart; Mars must be in that sign at the same time; and the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Moon must all arrive there too, inside the few days the Moon allows.

Worked example: what a Gola chart needs, shown by the nearest misses

There is no real Gola chart to show, so this section works the other way: it takes the engine's near misses - moments in the walk where six of the seven grahas shared a sign - and names the one that stayed outside. Thirteen of the 49 two-sign moments were of this kind. A selection:

Read as a hypothetical, each row is a recipe for Gola with one ingredient missing. Take the 11 February 2021 arrangement: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn were all in Capricorn, and Mars was in Aries. The engine reported that moment as Yuga Yoga (two signs) together with Rajju Yoga, since Capricorn and Aries are both movable. Had Mars been in Capricorn as well - which the sky did not arrange - the count would have dropped to one. The chart would then have shown Gola Yoga, and still Rajju Yoga, because Capricorn is movable: exactly the pairing described above.

The odd-one-out column is the astronomy in miniature. The slow outer grahas - Saturn, Mars and Jupiter - were the ones most often missing, nine times out of thirteen. The Moon, which moves fastest, was missing twice; the Sun, Mercury and Venus, which travel together, almost never. The tally is small, so it is an illustration rather than a statistic.

Gola among the Sankhya yogas

Gola is one end of a ladder of seven. Two signs make Yuga, three Sula, four Kedara, five Pasa, six Damini and seven Veena. Every chart has exactly one of them. Most fall in the middle of the ladder; Gola marks the end that the sample never reaches.

What Gola Yoga does not tell you

Even if a chart did have Gola Yoga, the yoga would state a single fact - that the seven grahas share a sign - and nothing about the house that sign occupies, the grahas' strength, or the periods of life. The engine gives yogas like this no Mahadasha window, because no one graha owns them, which fits BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50's statement that Nabhasa results run through all periods. The classical verdict is the texts' claim, reported and reframed here, not a forecast.

To see which Sankhya yoga your own chart has - almost certainly not this one - run the yoga calculator, or open the full birth chart to count the signs yourself.

Questions about Gola Yoga

What is Gola Yoga?

It is the Nabhasa Sankhya yoga for a chart in which the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all occupy one sign. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 and Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 19 both state the rule.

Has the engine ever found a Gola chart?

No. It fired in 0 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 and in none of the 20,000 moments of the engine's walk, which runs to 2483. The walk samples one moment every nine days, so it cannot rule out a short window between samples.

Why does Gola Yoga always come with Rajju, Musala or Nala Yoga?

Because those three Asraya yogas only ask that all seven grahas share a modality. One sign has one modality, so a Gola chart always forms the matching Asraya yoga as well.

Would Gola Yoga even count under the BPHS precedence rule?

Read strictly, no: BPHS says a Sankhya yoga does not operate when another Nabhasa yoga is present, and with Gola one always is. Saravali says the opposite about Asraya yogas. This app records both statements and reports every yoga that forms.

If all my planets are bunched within a few degrees, do I have Gola Yoga?

Only if those degrees fall inside one sign. The rule counts signs, not distance, so a tight cluster that crosses a sign boundary is Yuga Yoga (two signs), while seven grahas spread across the whole width of one sign would still be Gola.

Do Rahu and Ketu have to be in the same sign too?

No. They are not counted in any Nabhasa yoga, and since they are always opposite each other they could never share a sign anyway.

What do the texts say Gola Yoga gives?

BPHS and Saravali both give a bleak reading, differing on whether the person is strong or indolent. This app paraphrases it as a placement that calls for extra effort to build stability, learning and steady footing, and treats it as a named rule about positions, not a verdict.