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Sixth, eighth and twelfth houses are considered to be inimical because of the traits they represent in a horoscope. Sixth house represents enemies, obstacles, debt, and diseases. Eights house is representative of death and destruction. Twelfth house represents loss, unnecessary expenditure etc.

Owners of such houses are inclined to do evil as much as natural malefics. Any association or yoga with natural and temporal benefics in a chart is not considered to be good. Planets occupying such houses are rendered weak and give bad results in relation to their own houses. When the lords of such houses are rendered powerless through their position within one of these houses itself – along with other debilitating combinations – it is said to constitute opposite of a raja yoga – vipareeta raja yoga and we have Vipareeta raja yoga as “a raja yoga with disclaimers”.

The effects on an individual are the very good – windfall, success in a venture, etc. Success does not come with the grace and fame usually associated with hard work and raja yoga. It comes at cost of others and not by one’s own efforts, i.e., when others lose, the individual gains. It becomes important to have such a yoga in a horoscope wherever competition is involved and people like businessmen, politicians would gain tremendously due to this yoga. 

By itself, vipareeta raj yoga gives sudden results and cannot sustain riches for an individual for a long time. Other factors that strengthen the horoscope are necessary to build upon this success. In military parlance, this yoga gives a capability of surgical air strike deep within enemy territory. But if the enemy is still able to retaliate, one’s own defenses should be strong. Vipareeta raja yoga is like the first stage of a missile. It gives the propulsion for first stage, but if the second stage and the guidance system is imperfect, the missile is most likely to miss its intended target.

The following are important conditions for constitution of a vipareeta raj yoga:

1. Lord of one of these houses should be situated within 6th, 8th and 12th house only.
2. They should not associated with lords of 1st, 5th, 10th and 9th house.
3. No association with any natural benefic planet should exist.
4. The lords of these houses should not be located in their own houses.

Specific yogas are:

1. If 6th house is affected by malefic planets and/or if the lord of 6th house is situated in 8th/12th, it is called “Harsha yoga”.
2. If this is the yoga for 8th lord, it constitutes “Sarala yoga”.
3. For 12th house, the corresponding yoga is “Vimala yoga”.

Though the the names of these yogas sound very pleasant, it is seldom the case. Few caveats that ensure that above four points and three yogas are not taken literally:

1. Twelfth house is a little less important here. In case of dual ownership of signs, it is opined that the planet owning twelfth house behaves more like the lord of the other house it is owner of. Therefore, in case of Aries lagna, Vipareeta raj yoga cannot be formed by association with Jupiter, which is a natural benefic and becomes even more beneficial by ownership of 9th house.
2. The location is not 6th/8th/12th from lagna only. Based on principles explained in Uttara Kalamrita, JN Bhasin specifically takes an example of a Cancer lagna horoscope where Mercury is a lord of 12th and 3rd house and its position in 5th house along with aspects from natural malefics causes vipareeta raja yoga. It is interesting to note that 5th house is considered an auspicious house in general. The explanation provided is that Mercury is situated in 3rd from 3rd house and 6th from 12th house, thereby harming the prospects of these houses.
3. Natural benefics should not be involved. They tend to be ineffective in giving results of this yoga. Think about it this way – if you want to hit your enemy hard, then you want the baddest guys working for you. Goodness should not be involved.

This yoga does nothing but extend the logic of a negative of negative being positive. Therefore, an astrologer should consider a vipareeta raja yoga when lords of 6th/8th/12th are powerless not just by virtue of occupancy of such houses, but also by other means viz. debilitation in rashi and navamsha, occupation of enemy rashi, hemming/aspects from natural malefic planets etc.

An astrologer should be very careful while considering vipareeta raja yoga because of parivartana yoga. An parivartana yoga between 6th and 12th lords will end up planets fortifying their own house through full drishti. In case of 8th and 12th, they are 5th/9th to each other and such a location is considered to be advantageous to the planet. That is precisely the reason why Harsha Yoga, Sarala Yoga and Vimala Yoga defined earlier in this article do not fructify and function as expected.

Table: Likely combinations of Vipareeta Raja Yoga for various Lagnas

These are general comments about a lagna. Of course, one has to look at the exact location of each of the planets before arriving to any conclusion.

Timing of events should be seen from Vimshottari dasha periods of the planets involved.

There was a comment made seemingly by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan here…

Great to see you discuss such things and help people. 2 neelams on the same finger but two different rings. Watch my finger more closely next time.

What are the odds that this is the real thing?

One of the readers of the website, Santosh Kulkarni, pointed me to this wonderful information on books on Vedic Astrology. One of his relatives, Shri Virupaksha Rao Kulkarni, who is a practicing astrologer, found out about Chowkambha Publications in Varanasi. Almost all of the classical texts on astrology are published by them. Some of these books are available in e-book format on http://www.vedamu.org/Vedas/Jyotisa/Vedanga.asp.

While I do not have contact information of the above publisher, Santosh shared the details of the distributors in Bangalore:

Vandana Book House
Phone: +91-80-2592-8136 and +91-80-2677-0826
No. 24/1, 4th Main, 9th Cross, N R Colony
Near Tyagaraja Co-op Bank
Bangalore - 560019

Good text books on astrology are hard to find and it is usually a struggle to get hold of them. I would like to thank both these gentlemen for their effort.

High school mathematics introduces the concept of continuous and differentiable functions as the first steps of calculus.

For a continuous function, if someone were to compute the value of a function at a point and at another point just besides it, then there would not be a lot of change in the value. In the language of mathematics, consider a function f(x), then f(x+d)-f(x) –> 0 as d –> 0. In common speech, a continuous function is one that does not change values abruptly. Differentiation (or derivative) as a mathematical concept is the rate at which a function changes value at a given point. In the language of mathematics, it is the slope of the tangent at a given point. A differentiable function is one for which a tangent exists at a point. In common speech, a derivative is the direction the function takes at a given point. Differentiability of a function determines if the function changes direction abruptly at a given point.

Life is a smooth function of time – continuous and differentiable. Taking time as the input, it does not change values abruptly, nor does it change directions abruptly. A function like life means that there are very few kinks.

Astrology that is based on movements of planets also follows this pattern. The planets move around the Sun and although we distinguish between houses and/or signs at 30 degree interval, the boundaries are blurred. Effect of one rashi can start before other ends. At rashi/bhava sandhi, a planet’s power to affect the house is almost nil, which means that it does not really matter at when it crosses from one rashi to another. It will do good or evil only when is has “fully” entered the house.

Eclipses are celestial events that affect this natural flow of life. Their occurrence helps the direction change by a small amount, but they do not at all deserve the vile reputation they continue to have. For that matter, a conjunction of Rahu/Ketu with Sun and Moon, even independently, can have a similar effect. Moon is said to be mortified of Rahu and a conjunction is said to cloud the mind and good judgment. This need not happen only during eclipses.

Astrologically, eclipses do make a difference, but people tend to make an unnecessarily big deal out of it. An astrologer cannot claim that someone became bankrupt due to an eclipse. The actual process would have started long back and a conjunction of Rahu/Ketu with Sun/Moon would be just the last straw to break the camel’s back. Still, it takes all the blame. The same event not have an equally devastating effect on a person with a strong ascendant.

From time to time, the kind of treatment Solar and Lunar eclipses gets from media and common folks is at best laughable. On the day of eclipse, almost all TV channels organize a debate between the astrologers and so called rationalists. Anchors, in a desperate effort to appear intelligent, always side with the rationalists. Sabse tez channels talk about vague combinations - “This happened 1000 years back”. They seriously need to rethink these headlines that attach unnecessary significance to such combinations. Does anyone even know if there was an event worth remembering or mentioning a 1000 years back? People use this opportunity to blame eclipses to blame everything from food poisoning to irritation in eyes, when in reality a person would have ventured outside and made the mistake of looking at the eclipse directly, against all advice.

I cannot explain natural calamities and misfortunes due to accidents where someone else’s mistake cuts short the life of many people at the same time. There is some research done in this area within astrology. However, my limited knowledge does not give me enough tools to understand and critique the theories put forward. Still, for astrology for “normal” people like me, we can live with the theory of continuity and differentiability.