Varshesh (Lord of the Year)

What is the Varshesh?

The Varshesh is the ruling planet of a Tajika annual chart — the single graha that most colours the year the Varsha Kundali governs. It is not simply “the strongest planet,” nor is it the lord of the annual ascendant. It is elected from a fixed pool of five office bearers by a rule that puts one requirement above strength entirely.

The five office bearers (Panchadhikari)

Five planets stand for election, each by virtue of an office it holds in the annual chart. AstroShruti lists them in the classical order of precedence, which also breaks ties later:

Two of these depend on sect — whether Varsha Pravesh fell between sunrise and sunset (day) or not (night). The engine computes that day/night flag once, at the Varsha Pravesh instant, and shares it across the whole Tajika layer.

The Dina-ratri-pati is the office most often misread. It is not the lord of the weekday. By day it is the lord of the sign the Sun sits in; by night it is the lord of the sign the Moon sits in — the luminary of the sect.

The Trirashi-pati uses a triplicity (three-sign group) lord table that also flips by day and night. AstroShruti uses the Tejahsimha recension, the Indian Tajika mainstream:

An older Perso-Arabic table (the Tajikamuktavali) is strictly elemental and adds a third “constant” ruler; it disagrees on eight of these twenty-four cells and is not used here. That is a deliberate recension choice, not a lookup error.

One planet, one candidacy

A single planet can hold several of these offices at once — the Muntha lord might also be the natal-lagna lord, for instance. When that happens the planet stands for election once, named by the highest-precedence office it holds. It does not get counted twice or gain any advantage from holding two seats.

The election rule

Here is the part that distinguishes Tajika from a plain “strongest planet” scheme. There is a hard precondition:

The winning planet must cast a Tajika aspect on the varsha lagna. Strength alone never suffices.

A Tajika aspect is mutual and sign-distance based (a trine, sextile, square, opposition, or conjunction by whole-sign count), and it only counts if the planet’s degrees also fall within its own deeptamsha orb of the ascendant degree. The lagna, being a point rather than a body, contributes no orb of its own — the whole tolerance comes from the planet.

The election then runs:

1. Take the candidates that aspect the varsha lagna.
2. Among those, elect the one with the highest Panchavargeeya Vishwa Bala.
3. If two qualified candidates have equal strength, the one holding the higher-precedence office (earlier in the list above) wins.
4. If no candidate aspects the lagna, the Muntha’s lord takes the office by default — irrespective of strength.

A worked walk-through of the rule

Suppose the five offices resolve to five planets, and by the aspect test only three of them actually aspect the varsha lagna — say the Munthesha, the Trirashi-pati and the Janma-lagnesha. The Varsha-lagnesha and Dina-ratri-pati, though eligible offices, fail the aspect precondition and are set aside no matter how strong they are. Of the three that remain, whichever carries the highest Vishwa Bala is the Varshesh. Had none of the five aspected the lagna, the Munthapati would take the year by default. This is exactly the sequence the engine reports, together with the reason string naming the winning office, its aspect, and its Vishwa value and grade.

The deliberate divergence from PyJHora

AstroShruti will, in some charts, elect a different Varshesh than PyJHora or VedAstro do — and this is on purpose, not a bug.

The election is decided by Vishwa Bala, and that strength is computed on a dignity ladder that has two legitimate forms in the tradition. AstroShruti defaults to the four-tier Hayanaratna scale (full / three-quarters / half / quarter), which rests on a verbatim primary-text quote; PyJHora and VedAstro use the three-tier Raman scale, in which a neutral sign scores nothing. Because that choice moves every Vishwa Bala, it can push one candidate above another and flip which planet is elected. The full argument lives in the Tajika bala page.

AstroShruti’s Tajika layer has been externally validated against JPL Horizons, AstroSage, and B. V. Raman’s own published annual chart used as a golden test case. Where the engine diverges from PyJHora on the Varshesh (and on the related Hadda and Mudda calculations), it does so as a checked methodological decision. The three-tier Raman ladder remains selectable per chart precisely so that lineage’s published numbers stay reproducible.

Where the Varshesh is used

• Its identity and strength feed the annual Tajika yogas, which are read against the year-lord and the varsha-lagna lord.
• Its office and strength are drawn from the same Panchavargeeya and Harsha bala table that scores every planet in the annual chart.
• The Varshesh is read on top of the Varsha Kundali itself and its Muntha, not in isolation.