Koota Yoga: one graha in each house from the 4th to the 10th, with a 2019 chart

Koota Yoga is the second of the four seven-house shapes among the Nabhasa yogas. Its block starts at the 4th house, the bottom of the chart, and climbs through the setting sign to the 10th, the top. All seven grahas must be inside it and every one of its seven houses must be occupied, which means one graha per house. The page below gives that rule exactly as the engine applies it, the two classical readings (which agree), what this app says instead, the rarity figures, and the chart where the engine first met the shape. For the broader question of how much any yoga can tell you, see what a yoga in your chart means.

The rule: how Koota Yoga forms

BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 14 gives the four seven-house shapes together: the grahas in the seven bhavas from the Lagna make Nauka, from Bandhu (the 4th) Koota, from Yuvati (the 7th) Chatra, and from Karm (the 10th) Chapa, and "the Grahas should occupy seven continuous Bhavas". For Koota the engine checks:

1. 1.The seven grahas, Sun to Saturn. Rahu and Ketu do not count.
2. 2.Houses are whole signs from the ascendant.
3. 3.Every graha is in one of the houses from the 4th to the 10th - the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th or 10th.
4. 4.Each of those seven houses is occupied. Seven grahas in seven houses means one in each, and houses 11, 12, 1, 2 and 3 are empty of all seven.

There is no test of strength or condition. A graha that is debilitated, combust and retrograde all at once counts exactly like any other, as the worked example below shows.

Where the engine had to decide

• Fill. Sl. 14 itself asks for seven continuous bhavas to be occupied, so the strict reading is close to the text here. The engine uses the same strict reading for every Akriti shape so that no cluster forms two shapes at once.
• Seven grahas. Saravali Ch. 21 speaks of the seven planets; the shadow planets are excluded throughout the engine's Nabhasa code.
• All forming yogas are reported. A Koota chart always occupies seven different signs, which is Veena Yoga. BPHS Sl. 16-17 says such a Sankhya yoga is not operable alongside another Nabhasa yoga; the engine records the rule and reports both.

What the classical texts say about Koota

Here the two texts are unusually close. BPHS Sl. 37 reads the native as a liar who will head a jail, be poor, crafty and cruel, and live in hills and fortresses. Saravali Sl. 22 gives the same list in a slightly different order - liar, crafty, jailer, poor, wicked, cruel - and says he will "always live in hills and fortresses". Neither text qualifies the reading, and the corpus's other texts - Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, Advanced Predictive Astrology and the Bhrigu Sutras - do not mention the yoga at all.

The word koota has several senses in Sanskrit, among them a summit and a trick; the texts do not say which one the name intends, and this page does not choose.

This app does not present the classical list as a description of anyone. Its sentence for the yoga reads: "Classically read as a guarded, strategic nature drawn to remote places, where honesty and generosity classically need conscious effort." Each part maps back to the texts - the fortress and the jail become guardedness and strategy, the hills become remote places, the liar and the miser become a note about honesty and generosity - but the judgement is removed. It is an editorial choice, made the same way for every bleak Nabhasa reading in the engine.

Two general statements from the texts apply too. Saravali Sl. 8-10 gives any Akriti yoga a mild reading: contentment with one's own fortune, earnings through a king, some fame. And both texts put the Nabhasa results outside the dasha system: BPHS Sl. 50 says they are felt in every period, Saravali Sl. 20-21 that they act independently of the dashas.

How rare it is: the western half of the sky

Koota Yoga formed in 2 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, or 0.1 percent: on 12 March 2019 and 10 July 2058. Across the full walk of 20,000 moments (1985 to 2483) it formed 3 times, the third in 2119. That makes it the only one of the four angle-based seven-house shapes that the 1985-2060 sample met at all.

Seven grahas inside some block of seven consecutive houses is ordinary: on the engine's positions it happened in 1,340 of the 3,000 moments. Seven grahas filling every house of such a block is not - only 4 of the 3,000 did it, and two of those four were Koota. The obstacle is the Sun, Mercury and Venus. Mercury is never more than about one sign from the Sun and Venus never more than about two, so the three tend to share signs; one graha per house means they must sit in three different signs, with the other four grahas filling the rest of the run exactly.

The opposite problem to the four-house shapes

For a four-house shape such as Shara, the difficulty is crowding: the slow planets must be bunched into four signs. A seven-house shape has the opposite difficulty. The seven grahas must be spread out evenly, one per sign, across a run of seven, with no doubling and no gap - so the slow planets must be spaced, not bunched, and the fast ones must fall into exactly the signs that are left. In the 2019 chart, Jupiter (Scorpio) and Saturn (Sagittarius) occupy neighbouring signs at one end of the run, Venus, the Sun and Mercury take the next three, Mars the one after, and the Moon closes the block in Taurus. The Moon moves a sign in two or three days, so even when everything else is in place, the shape lasts only while the Moon is in the one sign that completes it and the right sign is rising.

The block also fixes the hour. Houses 4 to 10 run from the bottom of the chart, through the setting sign in the 7th, to the top - the western half of the sky. The Sun is always inside such a cluster, so it must be somewhere between the midheaven and the lowest point, which in whole-sign houses means roughly between noon and midnight. The three moments the walk found are at 17:27, 15:56 and 19:40 IST.

Worked example: 12 March 2019, late afternoon

The first moment in the engine's walk that forms Koota Yoga is 12 March 2019 at 17:27 IST, New Delhi. Enter it in the birth chart calculator to check every figure. The ascendant is Leo at 15.07 degrees, so Scorpio is the 4th house and Taurus the 10th.

1. 1.All seven inside houses 4 to 10: Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, the Sun, Mercury, Mars and the Moon, in that order. Holds.
2. 2.Every house occupied, one graha each. Holds.
3. 3.Houses 11, 12, 1, 2 and 3 hold none of the seven. Rahu is in the 11th and Ketu in the 5th, but neither counts.
4. 4.The inner trio is spread as the rule requires: Venus one sign behind the Sun, Mercury one sign ahead.

The engine reports: "All 7 classical grahas (Sun through Saturn) sit in houses 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of your chart, and each of those houses holds at least one - a Nabhasa "Akriti" (shape) Yoga." Its interpretation line is the reframed sentence quoted above. The Sun in the 7th, the setting sign, matches the hour - about half past five in the evening.

This chart is a good demonstration that the shape ignores condition. Mercury is debilitated in Pisces, combust and retrograde - three flags at once - and still fills the 8th house for the shape. At the other extreme the Moon is exalted in Taurus and Mars is in its own sign, Aries; they count no more than Mercury does. The engine's full report for this moment lists five yogas: Anapha, Ubhayachari, Veena, Koota and Gaj Kesari - the last because Jupiter in the 4th is in a kendra and receives the Moon's aspect from the 10th.

Koota beside its siblings

The other seven-house shapes are Nauka (1st to 7th), Chatra (7th to 1st) and Chapa (10th to 4th), with Ardha Chandra covering the eight blocks that start at a non-angular house. Only one of the five can form at a time. The four-house shape that also starts at the 4th is Shara; it cannot form together with Koota, because it leaves houses 8 to 10 empty. Koota contains three kendras, the 4th, 7th and 10th, one graha each. If all three were benefics the chart would also form Maala Yoga, and if all three were malefics, Sarpa; in the 2019 chart they are Jupiter, the Sun and the Moon, a mix, so neither forms.

What a yoga does not tell you

Koota Yoga tells you that at the moment of birth the seven grahas were strung one to a sign across the western half of the sky. The classical reading of that shape is a list of unflattering traits; this app keeps its themes and drops the verdict. A shape that turns up in two of 3,000 sampled moments cannot be checked against experience in any ordinary way, and neither the texts nor this app can say how it would show up in a life, or when. It is a named rule about positions.

To see whether your chart forms Koota or any of the other Nabhasa shapes, run the yoga calculator. It lists each graha's house, so you can check the one-per-house spread yourself.

Questions about Koota Yoga

What is the rule for Koota Yoga?

All seven grahas from the Sun to Saturn in the 4th to 10th houses, with each of those seven houses occupied - one graha in each. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 14.

Is Koota Yoga connected to the koota points in kundli matching?

No. The matching kootas are eight scoring categories for compatibility between two charts. Koota Yoga is a shape rule about one chart. They share a word, not a method.

How rare is Koota Yoga?

It formed in 2 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 (12 March 2019 and 10 July 2058), and 3 times in the engine's 20,000-moment walk to 2483.

Does a debilitated or combust planet stop Koota Yoga?

No. The rule looks only at which houses are occupied. In the 2019 example Mercury is debilitated, combust and retrograde, and the yoga still forms.

Does the classical reading of Koota Yoga apply to me?

BPHS Sl. 37 and Saravali Sl. 22 attach a harsh reading to the shape. This app reports it as a guarded, strategic nature where honesty and generosity need conscious effort, and treats it as a rule about positions, not a judgement on a person.

Can Koota Yoga and Shara Yoga form together, since both start at the 4th?

No. Shara needs all seven grahas inside houses 4 to 7, while Koota needs houses 8, 9 and 10 occupied as well. A chart can satisfy one block or the other, never both.

Why does my chart show Veena Yoga with Koota Yoga?

One graha per house across seven houses means seven different signs, which is Veena. BPHS Sl. 16-17 says Veena is not operable when another Nabhasa yoga forms; the engine reports both and leaves that rule to you.