Jupiter in Cancer: exalted, and what the texts read into it

Jupiter in Cancer is Jupiter in its sign of exaltation, the highest of the sign dignities in BPHS, and this engine labels it Exalted across the whole sign. That label is only the starting point. What the placement does in a chart is a separate question, answered by the house Cancer occupies from your Lagna, the houses Jupiter rules from there, and the planets that aspect it. This page sets out each of those, with the classical statement for this exact combination.

It covers the combination only. For Jupiter as a graha - its significations, strength and dashas - start with Jupiter in Vedic astrology. For the sign itself - its lord, its nakshatras and what a rising Cancer means - see Cancer, Karka Rashi. What follows is a map of rules and of what the texts say, not a forecast about anyone.

Jupiter in Cancer: dignity, and how this app decides it

BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 lists the exaltation signs of the seven grahas and their deepest degrees; for Jupiter (Guru) the sign is Cancer and the deepest point 5 degrees. The same sloka puts debilitation in the 7th sign from exaltation, at the same degree, which for Jupiter is Capricorn at 5 degrees. Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 35-36 gives the same signs and degrees. So Cancer is where Jupiter is exalted (uchcha), with the peak at 5 degrees.

How the engine decides

The function that labels every planet in your chart, dignityOf, runs its tests in a fixed order: exaltation first, then Moolatrikona, then debilitation, then own sign, and only then the relationship between the planet and the sign's lord. For Jupiter in Cancer the exaltation test decides it at every degree of the sign, so the label is Exalted from 0 to 30 and no other planet's position can change it.

The scoring is the engine's, not the text's. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60 grades the results - exaltation full, Moolatrikona three quarters, own sign half, a friend's sign a quarter, a neutral's an eighth, an enemy's sign or debilitation nil. The engine gives Exalted and Moolatrikona a sthana strength of 10, Own sign 7.5, Friendly sign 6.25, Neutral 5, and Enemy sign and Debilitated 0. The order is the same; the gaps between the steps are not. The general idea is under dignity. Neighbouring placements show the contrast: Jupiter in Gemini and Jupiter in Leo, and the debilitation case Jupiter in Capricorn.

The nakshatras Jupiter moves through in Cancer

Cancer holds pada 4 of Punarvasu, all four padas of Pushya and all four padas of Ashlesha. Each pada is 3 degrees 20 minutes, so the spans below follow from the pada count. The dignity label is the same in all of them; the nakshatra adds its own lord and pada to the reading, which the nakshatra pages take up: Punarvasu, Pushya and Ashlesha.

What the classical texts say about Jupiter in Cancer

Saravali Ch. 27 Sl. 7-8

Cancer is Jupiter's exaltation sign and Saravali's line is correspondingly rich: a scholar, handsome, highly learned, charitable and good-natured, very strong and famous, with abundant grain and riches, given to truth and penance, with long-lived sons, honoured by all, a king, with a distinguished profession and attached to his friends.

The lines on either side make the contrast clear. For Gemini (Sl. 5-6) the chapter gives scholarship, eloquence and poetry; for Leo (Sl. 9-10) it gives strength, courage and standing in assemblies. For Cancer the short form is learning, wealth, honour and long-lived children. See Jupiter in Gemini and Jupiter in Leo for those lines in full.

Saravali Ch. 27 Sl. 43-48: the aspect lines

Saravali then reads Jupiter in Cancer under the aspect of each other planet. These lines often change the verdict more than the sign line does, because they are where the chapter turns praise into censure or the reverse. In paraphrase:

• Aspected by the Sun: fame and precedence over others, with happiness, wealth and spouse lacking at first and acquired later.
• Aspected by the Moon: great wealth and splendour, kingship, conveyances, and an excellent spouse and sons.
• Aspected by Mars: an early marriage, gold and ornaments, learning and valour, and a wounded body.
• Aspected by Mercury: relatives and friends, wealth, a quarrelsome streak, freedom from sin, a minister's post and trustworthiness.
• Aspected by Venus: many spouses, extraordinary riches and ornaments, happiness and fortune.
• Aspected by Saturn: importance in the village, army or town, talkativeness, great affluence and pleasures in old age.

One translation slip is worth flagging: after the Sun line, the corpus translation of Sl. 43-48 repeats "Gemini/Virgo" in place of Cancer, though the heading and the first line are about Cancer. The lines are read here as the Cancer lines the heading announces. The pattern is the useful part: the same sign reads well or badly depending on what aspects it, so the sign line is only half of Saravali's verdict. Which of these lines applies to a given chart is a matter of counting houses, as the worked example below shows.

Saravali Ch. 45 on the dignity itself

Saravali Ch. 45, "Effects of Planetary Dignities", adds a short line for each class of dignity, independent of the sign. For Jupiter exalted (Sl. 1-4) it gives famous, wealthy, learned, honourable and skilful. These are the text's statements; this app reports them and does not turn them into predictions.

BPHS and Bhrigu Sutras

BPHS does not give a sign-by-sign line for Jupiter. What it says about this placement comes through rules. Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2: Jupiter in its own or exaltation sign, in a Kendra from the Lagna, gives Hamsa Yoga, one of the five Mahapurusha yogas (Panchamahapurusha). So Jupiter in Cancer forms it only for the Lagnas that put Cancer in the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house; the table further down lists them. For the other Lagnas the dignity is the same and the yoga is absent. The Jupiter section of the Bhrigu Sutras commentary agrees on the signs (own Sagittarius and Pisces, exaltation Cancer at 5 degrees, debilitation Capricorn at 5 degrees) and on the friends (Sun, Moon, Mars), enemies (Mercury, Venus) and neutral (Saturn). It differs on one number: it gives only the first 5 degrees of Sagittarius as Moolatrikona, where BPHS gives the first one third, 10 degrees. This engine follows BPHS. The Bhrigu Sutras proper is arranged by house rather than by sign, so it has no line for Jupiter in Cancer as such.

Where the texts agree, and where they part

• Agreed: Jupiter's exaltation is Cancer and its debilitation Capricorn, deepest at 5 degrees (BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50, Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 35-36, the Bhrigu Sutras commentary).
• Agreed: dignity is not the whole reading. Saravali weighs it by the aspecting planet (Ch. 27 Sl. 43-48); BPHS by rules such as the Kendra test for Hamsa Yoga.
• Silent: BPHS has no character line for Jupiter in Cancer as such. Of the texts used here, Saravali is the only one that writes one.
• Different numbers: the Moolatrikona span in Sagittarius is 10 degrees in BPHS and 5 degrees in the Bhrigu Sutras commentary. This engine uses BPHS.
• Different scales: BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60 puts Moolatrikona a step below exaltation; this engine gives both the same sthana strength.

What Jupiter rules from each Lagna, with Jupiter in Cancer

Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces. With whole-sign houses the table below is mechanical: the second column is where Cancer falls, the third and fourth are the houses Jupiter rules. The planned house pages, such as Jupiter in the 1st house and Jupiter in the 10th house, take each house further.

Two groups of rows are worth singling out. For Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces rising, Cancer is a trikona (the 1st, 5th or 9th). For Leo, Sagittarius and Aquarius rising, it is a dusthana (the 6th, 8th or 12th), and the engine's planet table names that house type alongside the dignity. Neither fact changes the dignity label; both change how the planet is read.

Worked example: 25 July 1990, 13:31 IST, New Delhi

An illustrative birth, not a real person, computed in this app's engine and found by a deterministic search. Libra rises at 19.99 degrees. Jupiter is at 1.06 degrees of Cancer, in Punarvasu pada 4, in the 10th house, not retrograde and combust. The engine labels it Exalted. Anyone can re-enter the date, time and place in the Birth Chart calculator and see the same chart.

Why Exalted. At 1.06 degrees Jupiter falls in the 0 to 30 degree band, and because the label comes from Jupiter's own dignity table, no other planet's position enters into it.

Lordship. For a Libra Lagna, Sagittarius is the 3rd house and Pisces the 6th, so Jupiter rules the 3rd and the 6th and sits in the 10th. The 10th is a Kendra, so by BPHS Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2 this chart has Hamsa Yoga.

Aspects. Saravali's aspect lines need a planet whose drishti reaches Cancer. Using the rule this engine applies - every graha aspects the 7th house from itself, Mars also the 4th and 8th, Jupiter the 5th and 9th, Saturn the 3rd and 10th - Mars in the 7th aspects the 10th. So this Saravali line applies alongside the sign line: for Mars, an early marriage, gold and ornaments, learning and valour, and a wounded body. Where lines pull in different directions, the text does not say which wins, and this page does not decide it.

Company. Sun (8.41 degrees) and Ketu (13.86 degrees) share Cancer with Jupiter. Saravali's Ch. 27 sign and aspect lines cover aspects, not planets in the same sign, so this page adds no reading of its own for the conjunction. Combustion. Jupiter is flagged combust: it is within 11 degrees of the Sun, the orb astrologyEngine.js uses for Jupiter. The engine's planet-strength reading sets the position component to zero for a combust planet, following its source's line that a planet in combustion has no strength; the sign label itself is unchanged. The term has its own entry: combustion.

The rest of the chart. Mars is in its own sign in Aries. That is a reminder that one placement describes one part of a chart, and the reading of Jupiter in Cancer is never the reading of the whole.

How often Jupiter is in Cancer

Across 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, Jupiter was in Cancer in 247 of them, 8.2 per cent. That is a property of the sky in the sample, not a count of people. The Bhrigu Sutras commentary notes that Jupiter takes a little less than twelve years to go once round the Sun, so it spends roughly a year in each sign. Over the 75 years of the sample that means several separate passes through the sign, which is why the share sits near one in twelve.

Checking Jupiter in Cancer in your own chart

1. 1.Cast your chart with the Birth Chart calculator. Confirm Jupiter is in Cancer and note the label the planet table gives it.
2. 2.Note the house Cancer occupies and the houses Sagittarius and Pisces occupy: those are where Jupiter sits and what it rules.
3. 3.The label will not move with other planets, so go straight to the aspects.
4. 4.If Cancer is your 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house, check the Yogas list for Hamsa Yoga.
5. 5.List the planets that aspect Cancer: anything in the 7th sign from it, Mars when the sign is 4th or 8th from Mars, Jupiter when it is 5th or 9th from Jupiter, Saturn when it is 3rd or 10th from Saturn. Only those bring a Saravali Ch. 27 Sl. 43-48 line into play.
6. 6.Look at strength with the Shad Bala calculator, the ninth-part chart with the Navamsa calculator, and timing with the Vimshottari Dasha calculator and the Jupiter Mahadasha page.

Is Jupiter exalted in Cancer?

Yes. Cancer is Jupiter's exaltation sign (BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50), deepest at 5 degrees, and this engine labels it Exalted at every degree of the sign.

Does the degree of Jupiter in Cancer matter?

Not for the label, which is the same at every degree of Cancer. The degree still sets the nakshatra and pada, and how close Jupiter is to the Sun for combustion.

Can another planet change the dignity of Jupiter in Cancer?

No. The label comes from Jupiter's own dignity table, so the engine never reaches the relationship test. Other planets change the reading through aspect, as in Saravali Ch. 27 Sl. 43-48, but not the label.

Does Jupiter in Cancer give Hamsa Yoga?

Only when Cancer is a Kendra from the Lagna, which happens for Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn Lagnas (BPHS Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2).

Which nakshatras can Jupiter occupy in Cancer?

Punarvasu (pada 4), Pushya (padas 1, 2, 3, 4) and Ashlesha (padas 1, 2, 3, 4), per this engine's nakshatra table.

How common is Jupiter in Cancer?

In this app's sample it was in Cancer in 247 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, 8.2 per cent. That describes the sky in the sample, not a share of people.