Maala Yoga: benefics in three kendras and no malefic in any, BPHS against Saravali, and a 1985 chart

Maala means garland. Maala Yoga is one of the two Dala yogas in the classical list of Nabhasa yogas - the other is its mirror, Sarpa Yoga - and unlike the twenty shape yogas it cares which planets are where, not just how many houses they fill. It looks only at the four kendras, the angles of the chart, and asks whether they are held by benefics alone. This page states the rule exactly as the engine tests it, explains the disagreement between BPHS and Saravali over how many angles are needed, shows how often it fires, and works through the first chart in the engine's sample that has it. As always, a yoga is a named rule about positions; what a yoga in your chart means explains how much one can bear.

The rule: how Maala Yoga forms

BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 8 reads: "If 3 Kendras are occupied by benefics, Maal Yog is produced, while malefics so placed will cause Bhujang, or Sarpa Yog." The engine turns that into a short procedure:

1. 1.Take the seven grahas from the Sun to Saturn. Rahu and Ketu are not counted.
2. 2.Find every one of them that sits in a kendra - the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house, counted as whole signs from the ascendant.
3. 3.Every one of those kendra grahas must be a natural benefic: the Moon, Mercury, Jupiter or Venus. If the Sun, Mars or Saturn is in any kendra, the yoga fails.
4. 4.Those benefics must occupy at least three different kendras. Two benefics sharing one angle count as one kendra.

The fourth kendra may be empty. It may not hold a malefic. Benefics outside the kendras are irrelevant, and so is the condition of the kendra benefics - their dignity, combustion or retrogression. The engine reports the yoga with the list of kendra benefics as its planets.

Five readings the engine had to choose

• Three kendras, not four. BPHS says three; Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 18 says "All Angles occupied exclusively by benefics". The engine takes BPHS's three as the floor, so a chart with benefics in all four also qualifies.
• Exclusively. BPHS says only that three kendras are "occupied by benefics". The engine reads it with Saravali's word "exclusively": no malefic in any kendra, including the fourth. That makes Maala the exact mirror of Sarpa and guarantees the two can never form together.
• Which planets are benefics. BPHS Ch. 3 treats the Moon as benefic only when waxing and Mercury only when free of malefic company. Sl. 8 says just "benefics", and the engine uses its standing natural set - Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus - regardless of phase or company.
• Dignity ignored. A debilitated Jupiter in a kendra counts as a benefic for this rule, as the worked example shows.
• Rahu and Ketu excluded, as everywhere in the engine's Nabhasa code. A node in a kendra does not spoil the yoga.

The code comment adds a piece of history: an earlier version of the check let a single benefic in a single kendra form the yoga. The three-kendra floor was added to match the sloka, and it changes the yoga from an everyday one into a rare one.

What the classical texts say about Maala

Both texts treat Maala and Sarpa as a pair, the two Dala yogas, and Saravali Sl. 5-6 credits them to Parasara himself, while assigning the twenty shape yogas to Savitracharya and the three Asraya yogas to Manitha. BPHS Sl. 8 adds that the two "respectively, produce benefic and malefic results".

The results are close in the two texts. BPHS Sl. 21: the native will be ever happy, with conveyances, robes, food and pleasures, splendid, and with "many females". Saravali Sl. 41: always happy, with conveyances, robes, wealth and pleasures, splendid, and a plurality of wives. The only substantive difference is Saravali's "wealth" where BPHS has "food".

The app's sentence keeps the comfort and drops the household arithmetic: "Classically read as sustained comfort, material ease and a generally fortunate disposition."

Saravali also gives a general reading for the Dala pair as a class, Sl. 8-10, and it is notably mixed: the native will sometimes enjoy his own fortune and sometimes that of others, and be sometimes happy and sometimes sorrowful. That sits awkwardly beside the bright reading for Maala itself, and Saravali does not reconcile them. Both texts say the Nabhasa results are not tied to any dasha (BPHS Sl. 50, Saravali Sl. 20-21).

How rare it is, and what the three-versus-four choice does

Maala Yoga formed in 25 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, or 0.8 percent, and 143 times in the full 20,000-moment walk (1985 to 2483). It is the commoner of the two Dala yogas: Sarpa formed in 6 of the same 3,000. That gap has a simple cause. Maala can draw on four benefics among the seven grahas, Sarpa on only three malefics, so Sarpa needs every malefic in an angle while Maala can leave one benefic out.

Counting on the engine's positions shows where the threshold bites. Of the 3,000 moments, the kendra grahas were all benefics - with no malefic in any angle - in 704. In most of those the benefics held only one or two kendras, which is not enough:

So Saravali's reading would make the yoga all but disappear: one moment in 20,000 against 143. The reason is again the inner planets. Four benefics in four different angles means Mercury and Venus must be in angles three signs apart from each other, at the far edges of their ranges on opposite sides of the Sun - and the Sun, a malefic, must then avoid every angle while sitting between them.

Worked example: 25 November 1985, before dawn

The first moment in the engine's walk that forms Maala Yoga is 25 November 1985 at 04:12 IST, New Delhi. Re-enter it in the birth chart calculator to check the figures. The ascendant is Libra at 3.98 degrees, so the kendras are Libra (1st), Capricorn (4th), Aries (7th) and Cancer (10th).

1. 1.Kendra grahas: Venus in the 1st, Jupiter in the 4th, the Moon in the 7th. The 10th, Cancer, is empty.
2. 2.All three are benefics. The three malefics - the Sun and Saturn in the 2nd, Mars in the 12th - are all outside the kendras. Holds.
3. 3.Three different kendras are held. Holds.
4. 4.Mercury, the fourth benefic, is in the 2nd. That does not matter: benefics outside the angles are ignored.

The engine reports Maala Yoga with the planets Moon, Jupiter and Venus and the line: "Moon, Jupiter, Venus - all natural benefics - occupy your kendra houses (1st/4th/7th/10th), with no malefic among them." Its interpretation line is the comfort sentence quoted above.

This chart puts three of the engine's choices to work at once. Jupiter is debilitated in Capricorn, and the Moon is in an enemy sign; both still count as benefics, because the rule ignores dignity. The Moon is waxing - it has not yet reached the point opposite the Sun - so even the strict BPHS Ch. 3 test would accept it here. And Ketu sits in the 1st with Venus, Rahu in the 7th with the Moon. The engine does not count the nodes; a reading that treated them as malefics would put a malefic in two of the three occupied angles, and the yoga would fail.

The engine's full report lists eight yogas here, among them Maala, Malavya (Venus in its own sign in a kendra), Mudrika (Venus, Jupiter and the Moon in mutual kendras - the same three planets, read by a different rule), Pasa (five signs occupied), Vasi, the 5th and 9th lords' Raja Yoga, Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga and Parivartana.

Maala beside its neighbours

Sarpa is the mirror rule with malefics, and the two can never coincide. Kamala Yoga also concerns the kendras, but asks for all seven grahas to be in them; since Kamala puts the Sun, Mars and Saturn in kendras too, a Kamala chart can never be a Maala chart. Mudrika, as the example shows, often overlaps. Among the twenty shape yogas, only the four angular seven-house shapes - Nauka, Koota, Chatra and Chapa - put grahas in three kendras without forcing a malefic into one, so only they can share a chart with Maala at all, and then only when the three kendra grahas happen to be benefics. Every other shape either uses two kendras or fewer, or, like Kamala, puts all seven grahas, malefics included, into the angles.

What a yoga does not tell you

Maala Yoga records that the angles of the chart are held by benefics and free of malefics. The texts read comfort and splendour into that, while Saravali's general Dala reading is more mixed. The engine's version rests on several choices - three angles not four, the natural benefic list, nodes excluded - and a reader who chooses differently will see it in different charts. None of that makes it a promise about anyone's comfort. A yoga is a named rule about positions.

To see whether your own chart forms Maala, and which benefics hold your angles, run the yoga calculator.

Questions about Maala Yoga

What is the rule for Maala Yoga in this app?

Among the seven grahas, the ones in kendras (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) must all be benefics - the Moon, Mercury, Jupiter or Venus - and they must hold at least three different kendras. No malefic may be in any kendra. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 8.

Does Maala need all four kendras?

Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 18 says all angles; BPHS Sl. 8 says three. This app uses three. Under Saravali's rule the yoga would have appeared once in 20,000 sampled moments instead of 143 times.

Does a waning Moon count as a benefic for Maala?

In this app, yes: it uses the natural benefic list regardless of phase. BPHS Ch. 3 counts the Moon as benefic only when waxing, so a strict reader will see the yoga less often.

Do Rahu or Ketu in a kendra cancel Maala Yoga?

Not in this app, which counts only the seven grahas. In the worked example Ketu is in the 1st and Rahu in the 7th, and the yoga forms.

Does a debilitated or combust benefic still count?

Yes. The rule asks only which planets stand in the kendras. In the 1985 example Jupiter is debilitated in the 4th and still counts; Mercury there is combust and retrograde, but it sits in the 2nd, outside the angles, so it plays no part either way.

How common is Maala Yoga?

It formed in 25 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060, or 0.8 percent.

Is Maala Yoga the same as Subhamala Yoga?

No. Subhamala, in Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, is a different rule (all planets in the 5th, 6th and 7th houses). Maala is the Nabhasa Dala yoga of BPHS and Saravali.