Tajika Bala — Panchavargeeya & Harsha

What is Tajika bala?

Bala means strength. In the annual Varsha Kundali, strength decides real outcomes — above all, which planet is elected Varshesh. But Tajika does not use the six-fold Shadbala of natal astrology. It has two strength schemes of its own:

1. Panchavargeeya Bala — five dignities, giving the headline Vishwa Bala.
2. Harsha Bala — a separate four-part “joys” score.

They measure different things, and only the first elects the year-lord. This page walks both, with the exact scores the engine uses.

Panchavargeeya Bala: the five dignities

Panchavargi means “of five categories.” A planet is scored on five kinds of dignity, worth 80 raw points together. That raw total is divided by four to give the Vishwa Bala out of 20.

Four of the five (Kshetra, Hadda, Drekkana, Navamsha) are dignity scores: how friendly the planet is to the lord of the sign, term, D3 sign or D9 sign it occupies. They all run the same ladder. The fifth, Uchcha, is measured geometrically instead.

The dignity ladder (and a real doctrinal fork)

For a dignity component, the score depends on the natural relationship between the planet and the ruling lord. AstroShruti’s default is the four-tier scale of the Hayanaratna — full for own, three-quarters for a friend, half for a neutral, a quarter for an enemy:

There is a second scale in wide circulation, and the difference is not a rounding matter. The three-tier Raman scale grades full / half / quarter and gives a neutral sign nothing at all — which scores a neutral sign below an enemy sign. AstroShruti defaults to the four-tier scale for two reasons: it rests on a verbatim primary-text quotation, and scoring a neutral below an enemy is not monotonic. The three-tier scale is nonetheless selectable per chart, because it is what PyJHora and VedAstro implement and the Raman lineage’s published numbers must stay reproducible. This one choice moves every Vishwa Bala and can flip the Varshesh election.

Uchcha bala: distance from debilitation

The exaltation strength is geometric, not a ladder. It is measured as the angular distance from the planet’s deep debilitation point (180° from its deep exaltation), folded to at most 180°, and divided by nine — the classical “each arc of nine degrees is one unit.” So a planet exactly at deep debilitation scores 0, and one exactly at deep exaltation scores the full 20. The deep exaltation points the engine uses:

Hadda: the Egyptian terms

The Hadda component scores the planet’s dignity in the term (a sub-division of a sign into five unequal spans, each ruled by a non-luminary planet) that its degree falls in. AstroShruti’s term table follows the Hayanaratna’s spans and is independently reproduced by PyJHora’s table. Two rows differ from the Western/Ptolemaic “Egyptian bounds” — Gemini’s 2nd and 3rd terms (Venus then Jupiter) and Sagittarius’ 4th and 5th (Mars then Saturn). Both transpositions are attested by the 17th-century Sanskrit text and by an independently written implementation, so AstroShruti follows the Tajika recension deliberately. The Sun and Moon never rule a term.

Vishwa Bala grades

Once the raw 80 is reduced to the Vishwa Bala out of 20, the engine bands it:

Harsha Bala: the four joys

Harsha means joy. This is a completely separate score — four conditions worth five points each, out of 20 — measuring whether a planet “rejoices” in its placement in the annual chart. A planet earns five points for each condition it meets:

1. Sthana — it sits in its own house of joy, counted from the varsha lagna. The houses of joy are: Sun 9th, Moon 3rd, Mars 6th, Mercury 1st, Jupiter 11th, Venus 5th, Saturn 12th.
2. Uchcha-svakshetri — it is in its own sign or its exaltation sign.
3. Stri-purusha — a gendered planet sits in a house of matching gender. Masculine planets: Sun, Mars, Jupiter, in the masculine houses 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12. Feminine planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus and Saturn, in the feminine houses 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9.
4. Dina-ratri — a feminine planet in a night year, or a masculine planet in a day year (where “night” means Varsha Pravesh fell between sunset and sunrise).

The Harsha total is banded too: 0 is Nirbala (no joy), 5 Alpabali (slight), 10 Madhyabali (moderate), 15 Poornabali (full), and all four joys (20) is the rare “Complete.”

Note the deliberate gender assignment: Saturn counts as feminine in this scheme, which differs from ordinary Vedic usage. The Hayanaratna’s own older reading put Saturn with the male planets; AstroShruti follows the modern Tajika practice, and says so rather than burying the choice.

How the balas feed the Varshesh — an honest note

It is tempting to assume “strength” means both balas together. In the engine it does not. Only the Panchavargeeya Vishwa Bala is passed to the Varshesh election: among the office bearers that aspect the varsha lagna, the highest Vishwa Bala wins. Harsha Bala is computed and reported but is not used to elect the year-lord. It is a separate reading of a planet’s condition — useful for judging how a given planet will behave, not for deciding who rules the year. Being clear about that keeps the two from being conflated.

Contrast with the natal Bala

The natal Bala page describes Shadbala, the six-fold strength of Parashari astrology (positional, temporal, directional, motional, natural and aspectual strength). Tajika bala is a different animal entirely: five dignities plus a geometric exaltation term for Panchavargeeya, and a four-joy tally for Harsha. They share the underlying friendship logic — the same natural-relation table from the Maitri Chakra grades the dignity tiers — but they are computed for different charts and answer different questions. Do not compare a Shadbala rupa total against a Tajika Vishwa Bala; they are on unrelated scales.