Mars (Mangal) in Vedic astrology: what BPHS, Saravali and Bhrigu Sutras say, and how to read it in your chart

Mars is the graha the classical texts hand the sword to. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) calls it one's strength and makes it army chief of the planetary cabinet; the same text lists it among the natural malefics and, in a later chapter, ranks it the most malefic of the seven. Yet for a Cancer or Pisces Lagna that same Mars is a Yoga Karaka, and in the 10th house it has full directional strength. Most of what is worth knowing about Mars lies in how those statements fit together.

This page sets out what BPHS, Saravali and Bhrigu Sutras say about Mars (Mangal, Kuja), with chapter and sloka, where they disagree, and how this app's engine turns each rule into something you can see in your own chart. It is a map of rules, not a forecast about anyone. To find your own Mars - sign, degree, house - start with the Birth Chart calculator; for its strength, the Shad Bala calculator.

Mangal at a glance

The two texts agree on nearly every line; the main difference is build, where BPHS makes Mars thin and not very tall and Saravali short but strong. Saravali Ch. 7 adds blood, copper, the army and red cloth (Sloka 7-13). The modern introduction to Bhrigu Sutras adds Tuesday, the names Angaraka, Mangala and Kuja, the epithet Bhumi-putra (son of the Earth), and makes Mars the chief significator of brothers and landed property. It also lists body areas, the muscular system and head among them; such associations are what a text says, not medical advice, and the gemstones that passage names are not repeated here.

What Mars signifies, and why it is called a malefic

BPHS Ch. 70 Sloka 1-6 states what is judged from each graha: from Mars, co-borns, strength, qualities and land. Ch. 32 fills in the family roles: Mars indicates a sister, a brother-in-law and a younger brother, and the stronger of the Moon and Mars indicates the mother (Sloka 18-21); brothers are read from the 3rd house counted from Mars (Sloka 22-24); and Mars is karaka of two houses, the 3rd and the 6th (Sloka 31-34). Siblings, courage and effort on one side, enemies and contest on the other, all belong to Mars.

Ch. 14 uses the pairing directly: the 3rd house does well when its lord and Mars aspect or occupy it (Sloka 2). These fixed roles are separate from the Jaimini chara karakas, where a graha's role depends on its degree; the Char Karakas calculator ranks the seven grahas, so Mars can take any of the seven roles. The two houses are covered on the 3rd house, Sahaja Bhava and the 6th house, Ari Bhava.

As for its nature, BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 11 and Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 9 list Mars among the natural malefics, and BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 8-10 orders them - the weak Moon, the Sun, Saturn, Mars - with Mars at the top. Ch. 27 Sloka 30-31 deducts one Rupa of strength from any house Mars occupies, and this engine likewise keeps Mars on its malefic list. Yet the chapter that ranks Mars most malefic also undoes the label: malefics that own angles do not stay inauspicious, a trine lord gives auspicious results (Sloka 2-7), and a graha that owns both an angle and a trine is a Yoga Karaka (Sloka 13). Bhrigu Sutras announces the same theme in the contents of its Mars chapter: how so great a malefic becomes a Yoga Karaka. Natural nature is one reading; what Mars rules from your Lagna is another.

Dignity: Capricorn, Aries, Scorpio and Cancer

Exaltation, fall and own signs

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50 exalts Mars in Makara (Capricorn), deepest at 28 degrees, and places its fall in the seventh sign from there, Karka (Cancer), deepest at the same degree. Sloka 51-54 make the first 12 degrees of Mesha (Aries) its Moolatrikona and the rest of Aries its own sign; Ch. 4 names Mars the ruler of Vrishchika (Scorpio) too. Saravali Ch. 5 Sloka 21-24 and Bhrigu Sutras' introduction give the same 12 degrees and the same 28. On Mars's dignities the three texts and this engine agree. The signs have their own pages: Aries, Scorpio, Capricorn and Cancer.

Friends and enemies: a derivation you can check

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 55 derives natural friendship from the Moolatrikona sign: the lords of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 12th signs from it are friends, with the lord of the exaltation sign; the rest are enemies; a graha on both lists is neutral. From Aries the six signs are Taurus (Venus), Cancer (Moon), Leo (Sun), Scorpio (Mars itself), Sagittarius and Pisces (Jupiter), and the exaltation lord is Saturn. Left over are Gemini and Virgo (Mercury), Libra (Venus), Capricorn and Aquarius (Saturn). So the Sun, Moon and Jupiter are friends, Mercury is the one enemy, and Venus and Saturn, on both lists, are neutral - exactly what Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 28-29, Bhrigu Sutras and this engine's table say.

Sloka 56-58 add a temporary relationship read from the chart itself and combine the two into five grades. This engine's dignity function does that: the readings on your Kundali pass your chart, so the label can move a step from the table below depending on where Venus, Saturn, Mercury or the other sign lords sit. The table gives the natural relationship alone.

Sign by sign in this engine

How much each dignity is worth

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 59-60 scales the good a graha does: full in exaltation, three quarters in Moolatrikona, half in its own sign, a quarter in a friend's, an eighth in a neutral's, nil in debilitation or an enemy's sign. The app's position score uses a different ladder, taken from S. Kannan's Fundamentals of Hindu Astrology as the code records: the same order, gentler steps, and Moolatrikona equal to exaltation. Saravali Ch. 45 adds one-line readings: exalted, splendid and valorous though open to blame (Sloka 1-4); in its own sign, opulent, impetuous and firm (Sloka 8-11); debilitated, distressed in mind (Sloka 15-18).

Two finer measures exist. Saravali Ch. 36 Sloka 2-6 counts rays by distance from the point of fall: one school gives an exalted Mars 5 rays, the majority 7, and none at debilitation. This engine uses the 7-ray view. And the Vimshopaka Bala calculator scores its dignity across sixteen divisional charts, after BPHS Ch. 7 Sloka 9-12. In one of them, the Trimshamsa, BPHS Ch. 6 Sloka 27-28 gives Mars the first 5 degrees of every odd sign and the last 5 of every even one; see the Trimshamsa (D30) calculator.

Aspects: the 4th, the 7th and the 8th

BPHS Ch. 26 Sloka 2-5 grades every graha's glance: a quarter on the 3rd and 10th places from itself, half on the 5th and 9th, three quarters on the 4th and 8th, full on the 7th. Then the exception: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars have special full aspects, and Mars's are the 4th and 8th - the places where every other graha reaches three quarters. Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 32-33 says the same, and Sloka 11 of BPHS Ch. 26 gives a formula for the exact value of Mars's aspect from longitudes.

This engine works by whole signs and counts only full aspects: Mars aspects the 4th, 7th and 8th houses from its own. From the 1st that is houses 4, 7 and 8; from the 7th, houses 10, 1 and 2; from the 10th, houses 1, 4 and 5. Turned round, Mars is aspected by any graha in the 7th sign from it, by Jupiter from the 5th or 9th sign from Mars, and by Saturn from the 4th or 11th. The aspect table on your Kundali lists who aspects which house.

Saravali Ch. 25 Sloka 25-66 reads the aspect each graha casts on Mars, by sign group. Jupiter's is the steadiest: learned and affluent on a Mars in Aries or Scorpio, a leader in Mercury's signs, famous and wealthy even on a debilitated Mars in Cancer. Saturn's is not uniformly bad, as two malefics might suggest: on a Mars in Taurus or Libra it gives a happy, wealthy person with friends, while on a Mars in Leo or in Jupiter's signs it reads poorly.

When and where Mars is strong

The texts give Mars strength in particular places and times. Direction: strong in the South (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 35-38), which Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 35 states as directional strength in the 10th house; Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, pp. 24 and 31) repeats the rule for the Sun and Mars together. Time: strong at night (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 35-38; Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 36), fully so in the last third of the night (BPHS Ch. 27 Sloka 12), and, as a malefic, in the dark fortnight. Motion: retrograde motion earns the highest of the eight motional scores (BPHS Ch. 27 Sloka 21-23). Natural strength: second lowest of the seven, above only Saturn (BPHS Ch. 27 Sloka 14; Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 40).

On the half-year the sources split. BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 35-38 says malefics are strong in Dakshinayana; Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 37 lists Mars with Venus, the Sun and Jupiter as strong in Uttarayana, and BPHS's own Ayana Bala rule (Ch. 27 Sloka 15-17) also credits Mars for northern declination. This engine computes no Ayana strength for Mars, so it takes no side.

BPHS Ch. 27 Sloka 32-33 sets the bar: Mars needs 300 Virupas of Shad Bala to count as strong, the lowest requirement of the seven, shared with Saturn. This app does not compute Virupas. Its Shad Bala calculator uses a simplified 20-point scale: position 0-10 from the dignity table, aspect 0-3, natural strength (0.25 for Mars), motion (1 when Mars is retrograde or in Gemini or Virgo), direction 0-4 (4 in the 10th house, 0 in the 4th) and time (1 for a night birth, 0.5 otherwise). A total of 13 or more is labelled Strong, 7 or less Weak.

Two states change the picture. This engine flags Mars combust within 17 degrees of the Sun and then sets its position score to zero; Saravali Ch. 36 Sloka 7-9 says a combust planet other than Venus or Saturn loses all its rays. Run daily from 1950 to 2049 in this app's astronomy, Mars was combust on 15.7 per cent of days and retrograde on 9.5 per cent, in 47 spells of 60 to 81 days. Roughly one chart in six has a combust Mars and one in ten a retrograde one.

What Mars rules from your Lagna

Mars owns Aries and Scorpio, so for every rising sign it rules two houses, and BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 19-44 gives its functional role for each. Find your rising sign with the Lagna calculator.

Three notes. Maraka is BPHS's term for a graha that figures in its longevity calculation; this app computes no longevity, and the label predicts nothing on its own. Leo: by Sloka 13 a graha that owns an angle and a trine is a Yoga Karaka, and Mars owns the 4th and 9th for Leo, yet the Leo sloka says only auspicious. This engine follows that sloka literally; the commentator in Bhrigu Sutras treats Mars as the foremost Yoga Karaka for Cancer and Leo alike, and Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 48) names it for Leo too. And Sloka 15: an angle or trine lord that also owns an evil house does not cause a Raja Yoga by relationship alone - the caution behind Sagittarius and Capricorn.

Mars in the twelve signs: Saravali Ch. 25

Saravali gives Mars a chapter of its own. Its sign readings are blunt and written for another century - several promise crime, bereavement or vice - so the table keeps the lines about temperament, work and wealth and leaves the rest out.

Set beside the dignity table, the chapter does not always agree with it. Capricorn and Aries get Saravali's best readings and Cancer a troubled one, as the ladder predicts. But Gemini, an enemy's sign, gets one of the kindest, and Scorpio, Mars's own sign, comes with some of the chapter's harshest lines, omitted above. The sign chapter describes a temperament; the Ch. 45 lines quoted earlier are where Saravali scores strength.

Mars in the twelve houses

Bhrigu Sutras gives Mars 91 sutras across the twelve houses and, after each house, summarises Brihat Jatak, Phaldeepika, Saravali and Chamatkar Chintamani. The table sets its conditional reading beside Saravali Ch. 30's unconditional one. Both are curated: death, disease and sexual predictions are left out, as they are from this app's own readings.

The pattern is plain in both columns. Mars reads well in the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th - the upachaya houses, where, as the Bhrigu Sutras commentator notes, malefics give good results - and the 10th adds directional strength. Elsewhere Bhrigu Sutras makes the reading conditional: own sign, exaltation or benefic influence turns most houses round, and its notes fault the other four texts for describing only a malefic Mars. For the 9th the commentator lists the exceptions outright: Aries, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Cancer, Leo and Pisces Lagnas (Bhrigu Sutras p. 58), where Mars sits there as lord of the 1st, 5th or 9th.

The 3rd house shows a real disagreement. BPHS Ch. 14 Sloka 14 says Mars in the 3rd harms both elder and younger co-borns, and Saravali agrees that the brave native lacks brothers. Bhrigu Sutras' commentator names the principle - karako bhava nashaya, the significator harming its own house - and rejects it for a Mars in its own sign or exaltation.

This app's planet row for Mars follows Bhrigu Sutras' structure: the favourable sentence when Mars is exalted, Moolatrikona, in its own or a friendly sign and outside the 6th, 8th and 12th; otherwise the testing one. So a 6th-house Mars always gets the testing sentence, although the 6th is among Bhrigu Sutras' best houses for it, and the row ignores aspects, company and lordship. Each placement has its own page: Mars in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th house.

Ruchaka Yoga, Mangal Dosha and other combinations

Ruchaka: Mars strong in an angle

BPHS Ch. 75 Sloka 1-2: when Mars is in its own or exaltation sign and in an angle from the Lagna, Ruchaka Yoga forms, one of the five Panchamahapurusha Yogas. Saravali Ch. 37 Sloka 2 gives the same rule. Both go on to describe the native's build, the region he rules and the manner of his death; this app keeps only the temperament: "energetic and decisive, drawn to challenge, leads through courage and directness". In the engine the yoga needs Mars in Aries, Scorpio or Capricorn and in house 1, 4, 7 or 10. In 20,000 random births from 1950 to 2010, cast for New Delhi, 7.5 per cent had it. The Yogas calculator lists it when present; what a yoga in your chart means explains how to weigh a combination that common.

Mangal Dosha: the same houses, read the other way

BPHS Ch. 80, on women's charts, Sloka 47: Mars in the 12th, 4th, 7th or 8th from the Lagna, with no benefic aspecting or joining it, is a yoga the chapter reads as bereavement in marriage. Sloka 48-49 add that it applies to a man equally and lapses when both partners have it. This engine's check is broader in two ways: six houses (1, 2, 4, 7, 8 and 12) and no benefic exception. It grades the 7th and 8th Moderate, the rest Mild, and words the result as "friction in partnership timing, not a fixed outcome". About half of all charts qualify: 49.7 per cent of the same 20,000.

Put the two rules together and an awkward fact appears: three of Ruchaka's four angles - the 1st, 4th and 7th - are also Mangal Dosha houses, and 76.7 per cent of the Ruchaka charts in that sample carried the dosha too. The Mangal Dosha calculator shows the row and Mangal Dosha: what it is and is not covers the rule in full. The public Kundli Matching calculator scores the eight kootas from the two Moons and does not check Mars's house; the signed-in Compatibility feature compares both charts and treats a shared Mangal Dosha as cancelled.

Other combinations the texts name

• Mars and Saturn together in the 2nd: BPHS Ch. 42 Sloka 16-18 reads loss of wealth, reversed to great wealth if Mercury aspects them. The app shows it as "Dhan Bhava Caution (Mars-Saturn)", graded Mild, or as a reversal when Mercury aspects the 2nd.
• Mars beside the Moon: Saravali Ch. 13 reads Sunapha caused by Mars (in the 2nd sign from the Moon) as valorous, wealthy and harsh in speech (Sloka 10-11), and Anapha by Mars (in the 12th) as proud and quick to anger (Sloka 15-19). The engine counts Mars among the five grahas that can form either.
• Mars joined to another graha, in Saravali Ch. 15: with the Sun, valorous but dull-witted (Sloka 3); with the Moon, brave, an artisan in clay, leather and metal (Sloka 8); with Jupiter, intelligent and expert in speech (Sloka 14); with Saturn, a metallurgist fond of quarrels (Sloka 16).

Timing: the Mars Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 46 Sloka 12-15 gives Mars 7 of Vimshottari's 120 years, third in the order that begins from Krittika: Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu, Venus. Counted that way, Mars rules Mrigashira, Chitra and Dhanishta. A Moon in one of them at birth starts life in Mars's Mahadasha, with only the unelapsed part of the 7 years left. For everyone else, the lord of the Moon's birth nakshatra fixes roughly when the Mars period arrives.

The Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives your dates; what a Mahadasha is explains the balance at birth and Antardasha and Pratyantardasha the sub-periods. Inside Mars's 7 years the nine sub-periods run Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, each lasting 7 times its own years over 120: from about 4.2 months for the Sun to 14 for Venus, with Mars's own opening sub-period just under 5. The Mars Mahadasha has its own page.

What the texts expect of it

BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 27-32: when Mars is exalted, in Moolatrikona or its own sign, in an angle, the 11th or the 2nd with strength, and joined by a benefic, its Dasha brings position, wealth and land, recognition by government and good relations with co-borns; a strong Mars in an angle or the 3rd brings wealth won by courage - with, the text adds, some unfavourable effects possible at the end. Sloka 33: a debilitated or weak Mars, in an inauspicious house or under malefic influence, brings loss of wealth and distress. Saravali Ch. 41, on its own Moola Dasa scheme rather than Vimshottari, has a favourable Mars gaining through rulers, land, copper and gold (Sloka 33-34) and an adverse one at odds with friends, spouse and brothers (Sloka 35-36).

Ch. 54 reads each sub-period, and the pattern repeats nine times: a sub-lord in an angle or trine, exalted or in its own sign gives the good list; one in the 6th, 8th or 12th - from the Lagna or, for several grahas, counted from Mars - debilitated or with malefics gives the adverse one. For Mars's own sub-period Sloka 1-4 name gains through the ruler's favour, and a house and land when Mars is exalted or in its own sign or Navamsa. The chapter also attaches illness, maraka warnings and ritual remedies; this app carries none of them.

How this app reads it

The engine applies BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 5-6: a Dasha is favourable when its lord is in the Lagna, exalted, in its own or a friendly sign, and unfavourable in the 6th, 8th or 12th, in debilitation or an enemy's sign. For Mars that means Aries, Scorpio, Capricorn, Leo, Sagittarius or Pisces outside the three dusthanas, or a neutral-sign Mars in the Lagna. It also grades the period good, neutral or challenging, and names the two houses Mars rules from your Lagna with their themes, following Ch. 48. Its favourable line for Mars is "drive, decisive wins and gains through courage, property or competition"; the testing one, "conflict, impulsive setbacks and strain with siblings or partners".

Ch. 47 Sloka 3-4 times results inside the period by decanate: a Mars in the first ten degrees of its sign shows its effects early in the Dasha, the middle ten in the middle, the last ten late - reversed if Mars was retrograde at birth. The Timing feature page explains how running periods are shown, and the six other systems on the Alternate Dashas calculator give Mars anything from 9 to 20 years.

Transits: about 45 days a sign, except when it is not

Mars takes a little under two years to circle the zodiac. In this app's astronomy, daily from 1950 to 2049, its median stay in one sign was 45 days - the figure the engine prints beside a Mars transit. But about every 26 months Mars turns retrograde, and around those turns it can hold a sign far longer: the longest stays in the century were 236 days in Leo, in 1979-80 and 2011-12. Nor is it spread evenly. It spent 10.0 per cent of days in Virgo and 6.7 per cent in Capricorn, so an exalted Mars is rarer than a debilitated one (9.7 per cent in Cancer).

The current passage shows it. This engine puts Mars at 9.93 degrees of Cancer, its sign of fall, on 5 October 2026. It entered Cancer on 18 September and moves into Leo on 12 November. It turns retrograde in Leo around 10 January 2027, backs into Cancer on 10 March, turns direct around 1 April and re-enters Leo on 26 April: two visits to its debilitation sign within eight months. These dates come from the app's own astronomy, sampled hourly in Indian Standard Time; the Methodology page describes it.

For reading a transit, the Gochar calculator counts Mars's sign from your natal Moon, following the rule the engine takes from Kannan: a natural malefic is good in the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 11th from the Moon, testing in the 1st, 4th, 8th and 12th, and unremarked elsewhere; the 7th from the Moon is flagged as Mars's intensified position. BPHS adds a second test in Ch. 70 Sloka 24-27: when Mars transits a sign that holds more points in its own Ashtakavarga there are gains of land and happiness through brothers; a sign with none brings them distress.

On that Ashtakavarga the sources differ by two points. This engine's table, from Kannan, gives Mars 39 benefic points out of a possible 96. The BPHS translation in our corpus (Ch. 66 Sloka 23-27) lists the malefic places instead, 55 of them, which leaves 41: it counts the 2nd from Venus and the 5th from Saturn as benefic where the engine's table does not. The other 94 cells match. The Ashtakavarga calculator shows Mars's row for your chart.

One worked chart

An illustrative birth, not a real person: 17 April 1988, 12:45 IST, New Delhi (28.6139 N, 77.2090 E), computed in this app's engine. Cancer rises at 15.63 degrees and Mars is alone in the 7th at 13.29 degrees of Capricorn, neither retrograde nor combust. Several rules about Mars fire at once.

• Dignity: exalted. The planet row reads "Mars in your 7th house, exalted in Capricorn - classically favourable, tending toward a stable, committed partnership when Mars is strongly placed."
• Lordship: Mars rules the 5th and 10th for Cancer, and the Yoga Karaka fold lists it (BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 27-28).
• Yoga: exalted in an angle, so Ruchaka Yoga is present.
• Dosha: Mars in the 7th, so Mangal Dosha is present, graded Moderate. No benefic aspects or joins Mars, so BPHS Ch. 80's narrower condition is met too.
• Strength: 14.25 of 20, labelled Strong - position 10, aspect 1.5, natural 0.25, motion 0, direction 2, time 0.5 for a day birth. Rays: 6.43 of 7.
• Aspects: from the 7th Mars aspects the 10th, 1st and 2nd. The 10th is Aries, its own sign, holding the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Jupiter.

Timing ties it together. The Moon is in Bharani, a nakshatra of Venus, so the Mars Mahadasha arrives at 34: 29 August 2022 to 29 August 2029, graded good, with the lordship themes "progress in education and happiness through children" (5th) and "career recognition and advancement" (10th). Mars at 13.29 degrees is in the middle decanate, so by Ch. 47 Sloka 3-4 its results fall mid-period. Meanwhile transiting Mars in Cancer on 5 October 2026 is in the 4th from this chart's Aries Moon, which the Gochar reading marks testing. A favourable row, a present dosha, a yoga and a testing transit, all from one planet: each is a different rule, and none cancels another.

Checking Mars in your own chart

Everything house-based needs a birth time and a birthplace; without them there is no Lagna (see what a missing birth time costs). Mars's sign is sturdier: it changed sign on under 2 per cent of days in the 1950-2049 run, so the date alone almost always fixes it.

1. 1.Cast the chart with the Birth Chart calculator and note Mars's sign, degree and house, and its retrograde and combust flags.
2. 2.Find its dignity in the sign table above: Capricorn, Aries and Scorpio strong, Cancer weak, Gemini and Virgo the enemy signs.
3. 3.Find what it rules from your Lagna in the lordship table, and see whether the Yoga Karaka fold on your Kundali lists it.
4. 4.List the three houses it aspects: the 4th, 7th and 8th from its own.
5. 5.Read its line in the Shad Bala calculator: position, direction (best in the 10th) and the day or night credit.
6. 6.Open the Yogas and Mangal Dosha results, remembering that three of Ruchaka's four houses are also dosha houses.
7. 7.Look at timing last: the Mars periods in the Vimshottari Dasha calculator and its current transit in the Gochar calculator.

Common misreadings

• "Mars is a malefic, so a strong Mars is bad." Maleficence and strength are separate. BPHS Ch. 47 gives a strong Mars's Dasha position, land and victory; the malefic label changes how its aspect and its occupation of a house are read.
• "Mars in the 7th ruins marriage." BPHS Ch. 80 limits its rule to a Mars without benefic aspect or company and ends it when both partners have it; Bhrigu Sutras' commentator sees no ill effects from a Mars in its own or exaltation sign there; and the same placement can be Ruchaka Yoga.
• "Mangal Dosha is rare and serious." By this engine's six-house rule about half of all charts have it.
• "Mars is a Yoga Karaka for Cancer and Leo." BPHS names it for Cancer and, with Jupiter, for Pisces; for Leo it says auspicious, and later writers supply the label.
• "A Mars transit lasts 45 days." That is the median. Around a retrograde one sign can hold it for several months, up to nearly eight.

Related pages

The other grahas each have a page: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. Mars's house of directional strength is the 10th, and the house where the dosha question is asked is the 7th. On a Tuesday the first planetary hour after sunrise is Mars's (Saravali Ch. 7 Sloka 2-3); the Hora calculator lists the day's hours. In this app's numerology the number 9 belongs to Mars, and the Numerology Dasha calculator gives it 9 years of a 45-year cycle. Every book cited here is on the Sources page.

Is Mars a benefic or a malefic in Vedic astrology?

By nature a malefic: BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 11 lists it, and Ch. 34 Sloka 8-10 ranks it the most malefic of the seven. By lordship it varies with the Lagna: BPHS Ch. 34 calls it auspicious for Cancer, Leo, Sagittarius and Pisces, and a Yoga-giver for Cancer and Pisces.

Where is Mars exalted and where is it debilitated?

Exalted in Capricorn, deepest at 28 degrees, and debilitated in Cancer at the same degree (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50). The first 12 degrees of Aries are its Moolatrikona; the rest of Aries and all of Scorpio are its own signs.

Which houses does Mars aspect?

The 4th, 7th and 8th from the house it occupies. Every graha aspects the 7th; the 4th and 8th are Mars's special full aspects (BPHS Ch. 26 Sloka 2-5).

In which house is Mars strongest?

The 10th, where it has directional strength (Saravali Ch. 4 Sloka 35). As house readings go, Bhrigu Sutras and Saravali Ch. 30 are both favourable for the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th.

How long is the Mars Mahadasha, and when will I get it?

Seven years (BPHS Ch. 46 Sloka 15). When it comes depends on the nakshatra your Moon was in at birth: from birth itself for Mrigashira, Chitra or Dhanishta, to past 95 for a Rahu-ruled nakshatra. The Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives the dates.

Does Mars in the 7th house mean Mangal Dosha?

In this app, yes: the 7th is one of its six dosha houses and is graded Moderate. BPHS Ch. 80 Sloka 47-49 is narrower, exempting a Mars that a benefic aspects or joins and ending the rule when both partners have it. See Mars in the 7th house.

What is Ruchaka Yoga?

Mars in Aries, Scorpio or Capricorn and in the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house (BPHS Ch. 75 Sloka 1-2). In this engine about 7.5 per cent of charts have it, and three quarters of those also carry Mangal Dosha.

Is a retrograde Mars weak?

Not in the texts. BPHS Ch. 27 Sloka 21-23 gives retrograde motion the highest motional strength, and this app's Shad Bala credits it too. What retrogression changes is timing: BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 3-4 reverses the order in which a Dasha delivers its results.

Does the app suggest remedies for a weak Mars or Mangal Dosha?

No. Some source chapters, BPHS Ch. 54 among them, prescribe rituals; this app carries no remedies, gemstones or rituals for any placement.