Hala Yoga: the seven grahas in a triangle that avoids the ascendant, the BPHS rule and a 2032 chart

Hala is the plough - the BPHS translation glosses the word so in another chapter - and Hala Yoga is one of the twenty Akriti, or shape, yogas of the Nabhasa family. Its rule draws a triangle across the chart: all seven classical grahas in three houses four apart, with the ascendant left out. The same triangle drawn through the ascendant is a different yoga, Shringataka. This page states the rule as the engine codes it, reports what BPHS and Saravali read into it and how this app softens that reading, measures how rare it is, and walks through the one Hala chart in the engine's 3,000-moment sample. For what a yoga can and cannot tell you in general, see what a yoga in your chart means.

The rule: how Hala Yoga forms

BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 9-11 names three sets of houses for Hala: Dhan, Ari and Karm (the 2nd, 6th and 10th); Sahaj, Yuvati and Labh (the 3rd, 7th and 11th); and Bandhu, Randhr and Vyaya (the 4th, 8th and 12th). Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 15 compresses this into "mutual Trines, avoiding the Ascendant", which yields the same three sets. The engine codes it as four checks.

1. 1.Seven grahas count: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Rahu and Ketu do not.
2. 2.Houses are whole signs counted from the Lagna.
3. 3.All seven grahas stand inside one of the three sets: 2-6-10, 3-7-11 or 4-8-12.
4. 4.Every house of that set holds at least one graha. Two corners filled and one empty is not Hala.

No test of dignity, combustion, retrogression or lordship is made. The "every house occupied" condition is the engine's reading of "all Grahas in" a set of houses, the reading it applies to all twenty shapes. Its comment explains the choice: if a named house could be empty, one crowded house would satisfy several shapes at once.

Three triangles, one yoga

The twelve houses divide into four triangles of houses four apart. One contains the ascendant - that is Shringataka. The other three are all Hala. Neither text gives the three triangles different readings; one sloka of effects covers them all. The engine does the same: it reports Hala Yoga and names which three houses the grahas fill, but attaches one sentence to every version. Each triangle contains one kendra - the 10th, the 7th or the 4th - and two other houses, so a Hala chart always has exactly one occupied angle.

What the classical texts say: BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 27 and Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 34

Both books credit the shape yogas to the same tradition - Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 2-6 names Savitracharya for the twenty Akriti yogas - and both read Hala harshly. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 27 describes a native who eats a great deal, is very poor and miserable, agitated, left by friends and relatives, and in service to others. Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 34 gives almost the same list and adds two details that fit the plough of the name: an agricultural profession, and an emotional disposition.

Those are the texts' claims, reported briefly. The engine reframes them: "Classically read as a hard-working life of service that classically needs extra effort to build security and keep close ties - worth supporting deliberately, not a fixed verdict." That sentence keeps the work and the service, turns poverty and abandonment into effort and care, and says outright that it is not a verdict.

Saravali also gives a single reading for every Akriti yoga (Ch. 21 Sl. 8-10): satisfaction with one's own fortune, income through a king, fame. That general reading and the specific Hala sloka point in opposite directions, and the book does not reconcile them. On timing the two texts agree that Nabhasa results are not tied to dashas: BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50 says they are felt through all dasha periods, Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 20-21 that they act at all times. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's yoga chapter (pp. 145-154, read from page images) has no Nabhasa section; the Bhrigu Sutras and Advanced Predictive Astrology do not state this yoga.

How rare it is

Hala fired in 1 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 - the 2032 chart below is the only one. The sample is the engine-facts walk: New Delhi, from 1 January 1985, in steps of 9 days, 2 hours and 37 minutes.

A triangle's houses are four signs apart, and Mercury and Venus never stray more than about one and two signs from the Sun. So the Sun, Mercury and Venus must share one corner, and the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn must between them cover the other two corners without a single one of them falling anywhere else. Hala has a small advantage over Shringataka: three triangles qualify instead of one, so the birth time has three chances to line the grahas up with a Hala set. That is consistent with the sample, where Hala appears once and Shringataka not at all - though one appearance is far too few to measure the difference.

Worked example: a 2032 New Delhi chart

The one Hala moment in the sample is 21 May 2032 at 09:40 IST, New Delhi. You can re-enter it in the birth chart calculator. The ascendant is Cancer at 4.36 degrees, so Cancer is the 1st house.

1. 1.Count from Cancer: Virgo is the 3rd sign, Capricorn the 7th and Taurus the 11th. Those are the three corners of the 3-7-11 triangle - Sahaj, Yuvati and Labh in BPHS's list, the 3rd, 7th and 11th houses.
2. 2.Every one of the seven grahas is in one of them: five in Taurus, the Moon in Virgo, Jupiter in Capricorn.
3. 3.Each corner is occupied, the 3rd and 7th by a single graha each. Remove the Moon or Jupiter and the shape fails.
4. 4.The Sun, Mercury and Venus share Taurus, as the astronomy requires. Rahu in the 4th and Ketu in the 10th lie outside the triangle and do not count.

The engine reports Hala Yoga with the meaning "All 7 classical grahas (Sun through Saturn) sit in houses 3, 7, 11 of your chart, and each of those houses holds at least one", followed by the reframed reading quoted above. Note what played no part: Jupiter is debilitated and retrograde, and three grahas are combust. The shape is about position alone.

What else this chart forms, and what it cannot

• Sula Yoga. Three occupied houses are three occupied signs, so every Hala chart is also a Sula Yoga chart. The engine returns both; BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 would set the Sula aside.
• No Asraya yoga. The three signs of a triangle are always one movable, one fixed and one dual - here Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo - so Rajju, Musala and Nala are impossible alongside Hala.
• Not Shringataka: the 1st house is empty. Not Maala or Sarpa: only one kendra, the 7th, is occupied, and those need three.
• Not Vajra or Yava: each half of those needs one group of planets across two opposite angles, and a triangle holds only one angle.

Besides Sula and Hala, the full detector returns only a Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga for this moment, a separate rule about house lords. The chart is otherwise quiet - a reminder that a rare shape is not a sign of a crowded result.

Nine days later: the engine's reading in action

The very next moment of the walk, 30 May 2032 at 12:17 IST, New Delhi, shows why the "every corner occupied" reading matters. The ascendant is Leo. The Sun, Mars, Mercury, Venus and Saturn are in Taurus, the 10th house; the Moon and Jupiter are in Capricorn, the 6th. All seven grahas are therefore confined to the 2-6-10 triangle - but the 2nd house, Virgo, is empty.

Under a looser "confined to" reading, that chart would be Hala. The engine does not report it: it returns Yuga Yoga for seven grahas in two signs and no Akriti yoga at all, since the 6th and 10th are not a named pair for any other shape. A reader who prefers the looser reading of BPHS would count this chart and the engine would not, and that is the whole of the difference between the two readings.

Near misses of the ordinary kind are commoner. Searching the 3,000 moments for six of the seven grahas inside one of the three Hala triangles found eighteen: five for 2-6-10, four for 3-7-11 and nine for 4-8-12. The stray graha was Mars in eight of them, Jupiter and Venus in four each and Saturn in two, and in ten of the eighteen a corner of the triangle was empty as well, so moving the stray planet would not have completed the shape unless it landed in that corner.

Hala beside its neighbouring shapes

The shape yogas fall into a few geometric kinds. Triangles: Shringataka and Hala. Pairs and sets of angles: Gada, Shakata, Vihaga and Kamala. Sets of houses three apart outside the angles: Vapi. Runs of four or seven neighbouring houses: Yupa and its three siblings, and the seven-house shapes. Within that scheme Hala's nearest relative is Shringataka, and the texts treat them very differently - Shringataka as combative but fortunate, Hala as poor and serving - though the only difference in the rule is whether the triangle touches the ascendant.

What a yoga does not tell you

Hala Yoga is a statement about geometry: the seven grahas sit on one triangle that misses the ascendant. The classical reading of that geometry is severe; this app reports a softened version and labels it as the texts' view. Neither is a forecast. The rule has no strength grade, and the texts give it no timing beyond "all times". In the signed-in Kundali, which attaches Mahadasha windows to yogas with named planets, a shape yoga is marked as a whole-chart pattern with no Mahadasha window of its own. Nothing on this page is a prescription: this app recommends no remedy for any yoga.

To check whether your own chart forms Hala, Shringataka or any other Nabhasa shape, run the yoga calculator; it names the houses each shape fills.

Questions about Hala Yoga

What is the exact rule for Hala Yoga?

All seven grahas from the Sun to Saturn stand in the 2nd, 6th and 10th houses, or the 3rd, 7th and 11th, or the 4th, 8th and 12th (whole signs from the ascendant), and every house of the chosen set holds at least one graha. Rahu and Ketu are not counted.

Why is the 1st-5th-9th triangle not Hala?

Because that triangle has its own name, Shringataka Yoga. Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 15 defines Hala as trines "avoiding the Ascendant"; BPHS lists the three other sets by name.

How common is Hala Yoga?

It fired in 1 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 in this engine: 21 May 2032 at 09:40 IST, New Delhi.

Do the three versions of Hala mean different things?

Not in the texts. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 27 and Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 34 give one reading for all three sets, and the engine attaches one sentence to all of them while naming which houses are filled.

The classical reading is harsh. What does the app make of it?

It reports it as the texts' claim and reframes it as a hard-working life of service that needs extra effort to build security and keep close ties - "not a fixed verdict", in the engine's own words.

Does Hala Yoga mean a career in farming?

Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 34 includes an agricultural profession in its list, which fits the plough of the name; BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 27 does not mention it. This app does not predict occupations from any yoga, and its own sentence for Hala speaks only of hard work and service.

Does a debilitated or combust planet stop Hala Yoga forming?

No. The rule is purely positional. In the worked example Jupiter is debilitated and three grahas are combust, and the yoga still forms.