Jaimini Raja Yogas

What are the Jaimini yogas?

The Jaimini system builds its yogas out of its own materials — the karakas (the significators ranked by degree), the arudha padas (the “shadow” images of the houses), and above all the Karakamsha, the Atmakaraka’s navamsha sign read as a second lagna. Where Parashari yogas mostly count houses from the ascendant, these count from the karakas and padas.

AstroShruti computes a catalogue of about twenty of these, each one sourced from both the Jaimini Sutras and BPHS — no rule ships on the authority of only one of them. This article describes the categories the catalogue actually covers, with a faithful sample of the named rules, and is honest about the well-known rule it leaves out.

Two conventions the engine fixes first

The sources leave a couple of things implicit; AstroShruti settles them the same way for every rule:

• “Nth from X” counts X itself as the 1st. So the 5th from the Karakamsha is the Karakamsha sign plus four.
• The Karakamsha is the Atmakaraka’s D9 sign, with the D1 placements read from it. This is one of two traditional conventions; a rival school reads D9 placements from that sign instead, and would get different yogas. That is a school difference, not an error.
• “Aspect” means rashi drishti everywhere — and “joined or aspecting” is treated as a single predicate, exactly as the sutras phrase it.

The categories AstroShruti computes

The catalogue sorts into these groups. Every named rule below is one the engine actually implements.

Raja — standing and position

Yogas of visible standing, authority and rising into positions of trust. A representative rule is the Shubha-Karaka Yoga: benefics occupying the 2nd, 4th and 5th from the Atmakaraka’s sign — the places of resource, comfort and counsel — read as rising into positions of trust and visible standing. Its martial counterpart, the Papa-Karaka Yoga, has malefics in the 3rd and 6th from the Atmakaraka: position earned through contest and command rather than inheritance. Two more read from the Arudha Lagna — the Arudha Lagna Uccha Yoga (a dignified benefic on the AL, unspoiled by an effective malefic argala) and the Arudha–Darapada Sambandha (the public-image pada and the partnership pada in mutual angles, trines, or the 3rd/11th).

Dhana — resources

Yogas of wealth and gains. The Labha-Pada Yoga reads the 11th from the Arudha Lagna — the house of gains from one’s public image — as occupied or aspected, with the channel of the resources (settled, contested or mixed) taken from the nature of the planets involved. The Shubhargala on the Pada looks for unobstructed benefic argala reaching both the Arudha Lagna and the 7th from it: resources that arrive and stay rather than arrive and drain.

Vidya — learning and vocation

The learning yogas share one shape — a named graha in the Karakamsha or the 5th from it — and each names a bent of mind:

Sanyasa — the inward strand

Yogas of renunciation and the contemplative life, mostly read from Ketu and the 12th from the Karakamsha. The Kaivalya Yoga is Ketu in the 12th from the Karakamsha with benefic support; the Tapasvi Yoga is Ketu on the Karakamsha under Saturn’s lone gaze (austerity and service); the Dikshita Yoga is Ketu on the Karakamsha with Venus’s support (formal initiation into a tradition). The Shubha Vyaya Yoga and Pravrajya Yoga round out the group.

Marriage — partnership

Read chiefly from the Upapada (UL), the pada of the 12th house, which the Jaimini system treats as the significator of marriage. The Upapada Shubha Sambandha (benefics holding or supporting the Upapada) points to a marriage that settles and supports; the Dwitiya-Upapada Shubha reads the 2nd from the Upapada — the house that sustains the marriage — as well supported. The Karakamsa Saptama Shubha places Moon and Jupiter in the 7th from the Karakamsha.

Arishta — the strained readings

The counter-cases to the marriage and resource yogas: the Upapada Papa Sambandha (the Upapada under strain without benefic support), the Dwitiya-Upapada Neecha (the sustaining house under pressure), and a Kemadruma from the Pada (difficult placements flanking the Arudha Lagna on both sides). These are phrased as tendencies and pressures, never as verdicts — and they are the rules where the harsh classical wording is most deliberately softened.

Other — character and temperament

Readings of principle, courage and the esoteric, counted from the Karakamsha: the Karakamsa Navama Shubha (the house of principle benefically held), the Karakamsa Tritiya Shaurya / Saumya pair (malefics or benefics in the house of effort, read as courage or as caution), the Mantrika Yoga (malefics in both trines from the Karakamsha — a pull toward mantra and ritual), and the Karakamsa Chaturtha Sukha (comfort-giving grahas in the house of home).

How a yoga is scored

Each yoga carries a strength — strong, moderate or weak — set from the placement’s own quality: whether the key graha is dignified or exalted, whether all three target houses are held rather than two, whether an effective benefic argala supports it, or whether a mixing of benefic and malefic influence dilutes it. A yoga may also carry a cancellation (a negating condition the same texts state alongside it) or a note (a genuine disagreement between the two source traditions). AstroShruti surfaces both rather than hiding the contested cases.

The honest note: the AK–AmK raja yoga is deliberately absent

This is the one that catches people out, so it is worth stating plainly.

The most-repeated “Jaimini raja yoga” online — the Atmakaraka conjunct or aspecting the Amatyakaraka — is not in the sutras at all, and AstroShruti does not implement it. The classical raja-yoga chapter pairs the Atmakaraka with the Putrakaraka, not the Amatyakaraka. Rather than ship a popular combination on authority the source texts do not give it, the catalogue leaves it out. If you are comparing AstroShruti against software or an article that lists the AK–AmK yoga, this is why you will not find it here — the omission is intentional and considered, not an oversight.

Honest notes

• Every rule is double-sourced. No yoga in the catalogue ships on the Jaimini Sutras alone or BPHS alone; a rule needs both traditions behind it to be included. That is why the catalogue is deliberately smaller than some published lists.
• Harsh predictions are softened by policy. Claims about death, health, or a third party’s body or character are not surfaced. “The wife will die” becomes “a partnership that asks for patience.” This is the same policy the Parashari arishta rules follow.
• Aspect is sign aspect. A graha-drishti reading of these same rules exists in the tradition and would change many Karakamsha results. AstroShruti uses rashi drishti throughout, consistent with the Jaimini school — a choice, not the only reading.
• Karaka scheme matters. The Atmakaraka — and therefore the Karakamsha and every rule counted from it — can differ between the 8-karaka and 7-karaka schemes whenever Rahu ranks first. The catalogue reads whichever Atmakaraka it is handed; the scheme is chosen upstream in Jaimini Karakas.