Kemadruma: the "unsupported Moon", the rule this app runs, and what breaks it

Kemadruma has one of the bleakest readings in the classical books, which is a good reason to be exact about what it is. In this app it is a line in the yogas calculator that appears only when a specific set of positions holds. This page states that set, the positions that break it, how the books differ, and what the result does not mean. The general idea of a yoga, and how often other yogas occur, is in What a yoga in your chart means.

What Kemadruma is, and how this app computes it

Kemadruma belongs to a small family of yogas read from the Moon's neighbours. A planet in the 2nd sign from the Moon gives Sunapha, one in the 12th gives Anapha, and planets on both sides give Durudhura. Kemadruma is the case where the Moon has no such company, and nothing else to lean on either. The engine, in detectLunarYogas(), tests it in three steps, all counted in whole signs from the Moon:

1. 1.None of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn stands in the 2nd or 12th sign from the Moon. If any does, the engine reports Sunapha, Anapha or Durudhura instead, and Kemadruma is not considered.
2. 2.None of those five stands in a kendra from the Moon: the Moon's own sign, or the 4th, 7th or 10th from it.
3. 3.No graha at all - the Sun, Rahu and Ketu included - aspects the Moon's house, using the engine's drishti rules: every graha aspects the 7th from itself; Mars also the 4th and 8th; Jupiter the 5th and 9th; Saturn the 3rd and 10th.

Only when all three hold does the yogas calculator print "Kemadruma Yoga", with the meaning "No graha sits beside, in a kendra from, or aspects your Moon - a classically 'unsupported' Moon." and the reading "Traditionally read as a placement needing conscious support - building a strong personal network and steady routines matters more than usual, since this placement doesn't come with the automatic backing other Moon placements get." There is no severity grade and no partial form.

The five-planet set is deliberate. Saravali's own definition (Ch. 13 Sl. 1) excludes the Sun, and its per-planet readings name only Mars to Saturn, so the engine leaves out the Sun and the nodes for the flanking and angle tests. They return in the third step: an aspect from the Sun, Rahu or Ketu does count.

Every position that breaks it

Put the three steps together and the engine's Kemadruma is broken by any one of the following, counted from the Moon's sign:

Read the other way, a Kemadruma chart in this engine has every one of the five planets in the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th or 11th sign from the Moon, minus the exceptions in the table: Mars not in the 6th, Jupiter in neither the 5th nor the 9th, Saturn not in the 11th. The Sun must not be opposite the Moon, and the Moon must not share a sign with a node.

What the classical texts say

Saravali, Ch. 13

Saravali Ch. 13 Sl. 2 defines Kemadruma in a sentence that joins three conditions with "or": none of the three flanking yogas, or the Moon's angles empty of planets, or the Moon unaspected by all the planets. Its effects, in Sl. 7, are a list of hardships - want, grief, isolation - stated without qualification, and the engine's header comment records that this framing was deliberately not carried over. Sl. 8-9 then tells the reader to weigh these yogas by the state of the Moon, full or new, and by the strength of the planets causing them. The engine does neither: its line is the same for a full Moon and a thin crescent.

BPHS, Ch. 37 and Ch. 33

BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 11-13 gives a different test: excluding the Sun, no graha with the Moon, in the 2nd or 12th from it, or in a kendra from the Lagna. The angles are counted from the ascendant, not from the Moon, and the text says nothing about aspects. Its reading of the result is also bleak - reproach, want of learning, penury - and this page leaves it at that summary.

BPHS uses the name a second time, in a different system altogether. In Ch. 33 Sl. 94-99, on the Karakamsa, Kemadrum is formed when malefics occupy the Karakamsa, the Arudha Lagna and the 2nd and 8th from those places, and the text adds that it operates during a dasha when malefics hold the 2nd and 8th from the running sign. That Jaimini-style Kemadrum has nothing to do with the Moon's neighbours, and the engine does not compute it. If you meet the word in a Jaimini reading, it is this one.

A search of the other astrology texts in the library - Advanced Predictive Astrology, the Bhrigu Sutras and Daivajna Vallabha - finds no mention of Kemadruma.

How rare it is, by each reading

Because the three definitions differ, they flag very different numbers of charts. All four counts below come from the same 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 (cast at New Delhi), the sample the content programme uses for every frequency on this site.

Three things follow. The engine's reading is the rarest, at about 1 per cent of sampled moments. The literal "or" reading would flag 2,105 of 3,000, which is hard to square with a combination the text treats as exceptional; it is why most practice, and this engine, require the conditions together. And the BPHS reading is not a stricter or looser version of the engine's but a different test: of the 29 charts the engine flags, only 11 also satisfy BPHS, and BPHS flags 106 charts the engine does not.

The first row deserves a second look, because it is the one people usually mean when they say "nothing next to my Moon". In 1,330 of the 3,000 moments, both signs beside the Moon hold none of the five planets. The engine still treats 1,301 of those Moons as supported, because a planet stands in an angle from them or a graha aspects them. An empty-neighbour Moon is common; the engine's Kemadruma is the uncommon case where every other route of support is also closed.

When it happens: Kemadruma on the calendar

Since the engine's test depends only on signs, a second way to measure it is by date. Casting the chart at 12:00 IST in New Delhi on every day from 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2049 - 21,915 days - the engine finds Kemadruma on 272 of them, 1.24 per cent. Those days come in 134 separate runs: 18 single days, 94 runs of two days and 22 runs of three. No run is longer than three days, because the Moon leaves its sign in about two and a quarter days and takes the verdict with it.

The runs are not spread evenly. Whether any Moon sign can qualify depends on where the slow planets stand, so Kemadruma clusters in some years and vanishes in others. Twelve of the sixty calendar years have no Kemadruma noon at all, among them 2026 and 2027; the busiest year in the range is 2041, with 15 days, followed by 2030 and 2040 with 13 each. Over the whole span every one of the twelve Moon signs takes a turn, from 14 days each for Gemini and Leo to 34 for Aquarius. Kemadruma is, in other words, a short-lived arrangement of the sky that recurs irregularly, not a trait of any particular Moon sign.

This also explains why the same date can show different results to two people born a day apart. The moon phase calculator and the Moon sign calculator together show where the Moon was on any date; the yogas calculator does the rest.

Worked example: 23 June 1985, 07:43 IST, New Delhi

The content programme's deterministic search finds this chart as the first in its walk with an engine Kemadruma; anyone can enter the same date, time and place in the birth chart calculator. The ascendant is Cancer at 7.22 degrees.

Virgo and Cancer, the signs either side of this Leo Moon, are empty; Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius and Taurus, its kendras, hold none of the five; and no graha's aspect reaches Leo. The engine returns Kemadruma Yoga with the two sentences quoted above.

Now apply the BPHS test to the same chart. The kendras from the Cancer ascendant are Cancer, Libra, Capricorn and Aries, and three of them are occupied: Saturn in Libra, Jupiter in Capricorn and Venus in Aries. By BPHS Ch. 37 this chart does not have Kema Drum at all. One chart, two classical tests, two answers - which is the clearest way to see that "Kemadruma" is not one fixed thing.

Saravali's request to weigh the Moon's state can also be checked here. The Moon is 55.41 degrees ahead of the Sun, a waxing crescent. Saravali would read the yoga in that light; the engine does not look.

How long the verdict holds, and why the birth time barely matters

Because houses are whole signs, every step of the engine's test depends only on which sign each graha occupies. The ascendant decides house numbers but not the distances between grahas, so it cannot change the answer. Stepping the same place through 21-26 June 1985 in 10-minute intervals shows this: the engine reports Anapha while the Moon is in Cancer (Mars and Mercury are then in the 12th from it), switches to Kemadruma when the Moon enters Leo in the small hours of 23 June (by 01:50 IST), holds it until the Moon enters Virgo on the morning of 25 June (by 06:30 IST), and then reports Sunapha, because Saturn in Libra is the 2nd from a Virgo Moon. Through those two days the ascendant rose through every sign of the zodiac more than twice, and the verdict did not move.

In practice, then, Kemadruma in this engine is a property of the birth date and the Moon's sign, decided at the moments the Moon changes sign. The Moon sign calculator shows whether that happened on your birth date. The yogas calculator still asks for a birth time and place, because most of the other yogas it reports are counted from the ascendant and detectYogas() returns nothing without one.

Cancellations and exceptions

The engine applies no cancellation: once the three steps hold, the line is printed. The texts in the library give two passages that bear on cancellation, and both behave in an unexpected way under the engine's definition.

• Saravali Ch. 35 Sl. 47 says that a Full Moon receiving the aspect of all the planets escapes the adverse results of Kemadruma and similar yogas. Under the engine's definition this can never apply, because the engine's Kemadruma requires that no planet aspects the Moon at all. The exemption only has room to work under a looser reading.
• Saravali Ch. 39 Sl. 19, in a chapter on what obstructs Raja Yogas, says that when Kemadruma forms with the Moon unaspected, the Raja Yogas "lose their existence". Every engine Kemadruma has an unaspected Moon, so on this sloka every one would void the chart's Raja Yogas. The engine does not do that: the yogas calculator lists Kemadruma and any Raja Yoga it finds side by side, and leaves the weighing to the reader.
• BPHS states no cancellation for its Ch. 37 Kema Drum.

Popular writing often lists further "cancellations" of Kemadruma. None of them appears in the texts in this library, so this page does not list them and the engine does not apply them.

What Kemadruma does not tell you

The house view on doshas, set out for Mangal Dosha and Kaal Sarp Dosha, holds here: a named configuration is a statement about positions, not a verdict on a person.

• It does not describe your circumstances, relationships or finances. It says that five planets are in particular signs relative to your Moon.
• It is not graded. The engine has no "strong" or "weak" Kemadruma, and does not weigh the Moon's phase, dignity or strength.
• It is reading-dependent. The same chart can have it under one classical test and not under another, as the worked example shows.
• It is not about timing. The engine attaches no period of life to it.
• It does not need fixing. No remedy is offered, and none is needed to read a configuration.

Inside the app, the signed-in Life Blueprint files Kemadruma under Blind Spots rather than Strengths, using the engine's own wording; that is a routing choice, not an extra judgement. For the Moon's general role, see the Moon in Vedic astrology and the glossary entry on Chandra. The other chart-based dosha this engine computes from lordship is Kendradhipathya Dosha, and the transit-based ones begin with Sade Sati. The texts themselves are listed on the sources page.

Is Kemadruma a dosha or a yoga?

Both books call it a Yoga, and the engine returns it as "Kemadruma Yoga" from its yoga detector. It is grouped with the doshas on this site because its classical reading is a difficult one, not because the engine treats it as a dosha.

How common is Kemadruma?

In this engine, 29 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, about 1 per cent. The BPHS reading flags 117 of the same 3,000, and a literal reading of Saravali's "or" would flag 2,105.

My Moon has no planets on either side. Do I have Kemadruma?

Not necessarily. Empty neighbours are only the first of the engine's three steps; in the sample, 1,330 of 3,000 moments pass it, and only 29 pass all three. A planet in an angle from the Moon, or an aspect on the Moon from any graha, breaks it.

Does the Sun count?

For the flanking and angle tests, no: Saravali's definition excludes the Sun. For the aspect test, yes: the Sun in the 7th sign from the Moon aspects it, so a Moon in the sign opposite the Sun's is never Kemadruma in this engine.

Do Rahu and Ketu count?

Only through aspect. If either node shares the Moon's sign, the other is in the 7th and aspects the Moon, which breaks Kemadruma. A node elsewhere has no effect on the test.

Why does another site say I have Kemadruma when this one does not?

Most likely it uses a different test. BPHS counts the angles from the ascendant and ignores aspects; Saravali's wording can be read with "or". In the worked example the engine finds Kemadruma and the BPHS test does not; the opposite happens too.

Does Kemadruma come and go over a lifetime?

Not in this app. It is a feature of the birth chart, fixed at the moment of birth, and the engine attaches no age or period to it. The Kemadrum that BPHS Ch. 33 ties to running dasha periods is a different, Jaimini-style rule, and the engine does not compute it.

Can Kemadruma be cancelled?

The engine applies no cancellation. Saravali Ch. 35 Sl. 47 exempts a Full Moon aspected by all planets, but that cannot coexist with the engine's definition, which requires an unaspected Moon.

Does the app suggest remedies for Kemadruma?

No. This app prescribes no mantras, gemstones, pujas or donations for Kemadruma or any other result.