Kedara Yoga: seven grahas in four signs, the BPHS rule and the shapes that pre-empt it

Kedara means a field - a cultivated plot - and Kedara Yoga is the classical name for a chart in which the seven visible grahas occupy four signs. It is one of the Sankhya ("counting") yogas, the part of the Nabhasa family that looks only at how many signs are in use. Of the seven counts, four is the second most common, so Kedara is one of the yogas most readers will meet in their own chart. It is also the count that collides most often with the family's shape yogas, which makes it a good place to see BPHS's precedence rule at work. For what any yoga does and does not mean, see what a yoga in your chart means.

The rule: how Kedara Yoga forms

BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17: "if in 4, Kedara Yog occurs". Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 19: "in 4 Rasis - Kedara Yoga". The engine applies it as follows.

1. 1.Take the seven classical grahas, Sun to Saturn. Rahu and Ketu are excluded from every Nabhasa yoga.
2. 2.Read each one's sidereal sign.
3. 3.Count the distinct signs. Four means Kedara Yoga, reported as "Your 7 classical grahas (Sun through Saturn) occupy exactly 4 distinct signs".

The four signs can be any four, and the seven grahas can be shared out among them in any way - four, one, one and one, or two, two, two and one. The ascendant is not consulted. Because no particular graha forms the yoga, the engine attaches no planet to it.

Six shape yogas that are always Kedara too

BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 adds that no Sankhya yoga "will be operable, if another Nabhash Yog is derivable". The engine records that clause and does not apply it. For Kedara the clause has a lot of work to do, because six of the twenty shape (Akriti) yogas can only exist on a four-sign chart. The engine tests each shape by requiring every named house to be occupied and nothing outside them, and with whole-sign houses four houses are four signs:

• Kamala Yoga: all seven grahas in the four kendras (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th), each of them occupied (BPHS Sl. 12).
• Vapi Yoga: all seven in the four panapharas (2, 5, 8, 11) or the four apoklimas (3, 6, 9, 12) (Sl. 12).
• Yupa, Shara, Shakti and Danda: all seven in four continuous houses starting from the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th (Sl. 13).

So every one of those charts is a Kedara chart, and on a strict BPHS reading the shape should be read and the Kedara set aside. Kedara can also share a chart with an Asraya yoga (all four signs of one modality), with Maala or Sarpa, or with Vajra or Yava. In the sample, 40 of the 785 Kedara moments also carried another Nabhasa yoga: Shara 14 times, Danda 8, Yupa 5, Vajra 5, Shakti 3, Yava 3, and Nala, Vapi and Maala once each (one chart carried two). Forty is more than any other Sankhya count produced, which is what the six implied shapes would lead you to expect.

What the classical texts say about Kedara Yoga

On Kedara the two texts agree more closely than on any other Sankhya yoga.

• BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 46: one born in Kedara Yog will be useful to many, an agriculturist, truthful, happy, fickle-minded and wealthy.
• Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 49: useful to many, of agricultural profession, truthfully disposed, fickle-minded and wealthy.
• The rule itself is identical in both (BPHS Sl. 16-17, Saravali Sl. 19), and the name is spelled the same in every list. BPHS Sl. 3-6 lists the Sankhya yogas from seven signs down to one (Vallaki, Daam, Paash, Kedara, Sool, Yuga, Gola) and Sl. 16-17 from one up to seven; Kedara, the four-sign yoga, is fourth either way - the middle of the seven, as four is the middle count.
• Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 8-10 gives a reading for all Sankhya yogas together - a life lived through others' wealth and help, seldom at peace - which sits awkwardly beside the favourable Kedara verse and shows how loosely the group reading is meant.
• BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50: Nabhasa results are felt throughout all the dasha periods.

The only difference is that BPHS adds "happy". Both keep the same caveat, "fickle-minded", inside an otherwise favourable list, and both tie the yoga to farming - the field of its name. Advanced Predictive Astrology and the Bhrigu Sutras, the other yoga sources in this library, do not mention Kedara Yoga.

How common Kedara Yoga is

Kedara fired in 785 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 - 26.2 percent, roughly one chart in four. Only Pasa Yoga (five signs, 1,300) was more frequent; Damini (six signs) came close behind at 669. Over the engine's longer 20,000-moment walk to the year 2483, 5,130 moments had four signs, about the same share. These are chart moments sampled every nine days or so from New Delhi, not people.

The sample also shows how the seven usually divide among the four signs:

A three-two-one-one split - typically the Sun with one or both of its inner companions, a second pair elsewhere, and two grahas on their own - is the commonest shape of a Kedara chart. The Moon was alone in its sign in 338 of the 785.

Why four signs is such an ordinary count

The reason lies with the three grahas that travel together. Mercury never gets far from the Sun, and Venus not much further, so the Sun, Mercury and Venus between them usually use only one or two signs. In the 785 Kedara moments they shared one sign 181 times and used two signs 528 times; only 76 times were all three apart. That leaves the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn to supply the remaining signs, and four independent movers landing in exactly two or three more signs - some of them shared - is an everyday result. Getting all the way down to one or two signs needs the slow grahas to bunch as well, which is why the counts below four thin out so quickly, and getting up to seven needs the Sun's companions to spread to their limits, which is why Veena is scarce too.

Worked example: 1 January 1985, New Delhi

Kedara is common enough that the engine found it at the very first moment of its walk: 1 January 1985, 06:00 IST, New Delhi. Re-enter it in the birth chart calculator to follow along. The ascendant is Scorpio at 28.81 degrees, close to the end of the sign.

Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Aries: four signs, split two, two, two and one. The engine reports Kedara Yoga with the four-sign sentence. The occupied houses are the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th. Because the ascendant sits at 28.81 degrees, a birth a little later would rise in Sagittarius and renumber every house - but the count, and so the yoga, would not move.

Would BPHS let this Kedara stand? Check the six implied shapes. The houses 1, 2, 4 and 6 are not the four kendras (no Kamala), not all panapharas or all apoklimas (no Vapi), and not four continuous houses, since the 3rd is empty and the 6th is occupied (no Yupa, Shara, Shakti or Danda). The signs mix fixed, dual and movable, so there is no Asraya yoga. The 1st and 4th kendras each hold a benefic and a malefic together, so neither Maala nor Sarpa forms, and the benefics are not confined to two kendras, so neither Vajra nor Yava. The engine's list for the chart has no other Nabhasa yoga: this Kedara would stand even under the precedence clause.

The chart shows other patterns that have nothing to do with the count. Mars sits in Aquarius, Saturn's sign, while Saturn sits in Scorpio, Mars's sign - an exchange the engine reports as Parivartana Yoga. Mercury and Saturn in Scorpio, the 12th sign from the Sun's Sagittarius, give Vasi Yoga. Kedara sits alongside them as a separate, whole-chart fact.

Kedara between Sula and Pasa

On the Sankhya ladder Kedara has Sula (three signs) below it and Pasa (five) above, with Yuga, Gola and Veena at the rare ends. In the worked chart, the Moon is the only graha alone in its sign; were it in Scorpio, Sagittarius or Aquarius instead of Aries, the chart would be Sula. The Moon's speed is why two births a few days apart, with every slow planet unchanged, can have different Sankhya yogas.

What Kedara Yoga does not tell you

Kedara records how many signs the grahas use. It says nothing about the houses those signs are, the strength of any graha, or what a period of life will hold. This app gives it no Mahadasha window, since it belongs to no single graha - in step with BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50. The texts' favourable reading, including "wealthy" and "agriculturist", is their claim, reported here; it is not a forecast of anyone's work or income.

To see whether your chart is a Kedara chart, and whether any shape yoga sits beside it, run the yoga calculator.

Questions about Kedara Yoga

What is Kedara Yoga?

It is the Nabhasa Sankhya yoga for a chart whose seven classical grahas, Sun to Saturn, occupy exactly four signs. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 16-17 and Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 19 give the rule in the same words.

Is Kedara Yoga common?

Yes. It fired in 785 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 (26.2 percent). Only Pasa Yoga, with five signs, was more common in the sample.

What does Kedara Yoga mean in the classical texts?

BPHS Sl. 46 and Saravali Sl. 49 both read it favourably: useful to many, linked to agriculture, truthful, wealthy, with a fickle streak. This app paraphrases it as usefulness to others and a practical, reliable nature, if the fickle streak is kept in check.

Does Kedara Yoga mean a career in farming?

No. Both texts link the yoga to agriculture, which matches its name, "field". That is the texts' reading of a count of signs, written for their own time. This app does not predict occupations from it, and its own sentence speaks only of a practical, hands-on nature.

Why does my chart show Kedara Yoga and a shape yoga such as Shara or Yupa?

Because those shapes put all seven grahas in exactly four houses, which is always four signs. BPHS says the Sankhya yoga then gives way to the shape. This app records that rule and reports both, so you can apply it yourself.

If Rahu or Ketu sits in a fifth sign, is the chart still Kedara?

Yes. The nodes are not counted in any Nabhasa yoga. In the worked example Rahu is in Taurus, a sign none of the seven grahas uses, and the engine still reports four signs and Kedara Yoga.

Does the ascendant affect Kedara Yoga?

No. The yoga depends only on how many signs the seven grahas occupy. The ascendant decides which houses those are, which matters for the shape yogas but not for Kedara.

Does Kedara Yoga have a dasha period?

Not in this app. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 50 says Nabhasa results run through all periods, and the engine gives whole-chart patterns no Mahadasha window of their own.