The Sky's Patterns, the Nabhasa Yogas

Chapter 12 · Part of our series on the Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira

Most of what we have read so far looks at the planets one at a time: each planet in its sign, its house, its navamsha. This chapter steps back and looks at the whole sky at once. It asks a different question: what shape do all the planets make together?

The combinations it describes are called nābhasa yogas, from nabhas, "the sky". They are the patterns the planets draw across the heavens. Sometimes the planets are scattered all around the chart. Sometimes they are bunched into a few signs. Sometimes they fill only the angles, or form a line, a bow, or a boat. Each pattern gives the life its own overall character.

Only the seven planets are counted: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

A puzzle to begin

Varahamihira opens the chapter with a little puzzle in numbers (12.1):

नवदिग्वसवस्त्रिकाग्निवेदैर्गुणिता द्वित्रिचतुर्विकल्पजाः स्युः । यवनैस्त्रिगुणा हि षट्शती सा कथिता विस्तरतोऽत्र तत्समाः स्युः ॥

navadigvasavas trikāgnivedair guṇitā dvitricaturvikalpajāḥ syuḥ | yavanais triguṇā hi ṣaṭśatī sā kathitā vistarato 'tra tatsamāḥ syuḥ ||

Nine, ten and eight, multiplied by three, three and four, give the yogas of two, three and four groups. The Yavanas described them at length as three times six hundred; here they are given in equal measure.

The numbers are again in code: nava (9), diś (10, the ten directions) and vasu (8, the eight Vasus), multiplied by trika (3), agni (3, the three sacred fires) and veda (4). Solved, the puzzle says:

• The first two groups together: 9 × 3 = 27 yogas.
• The first three groups: 10 × 3 = 30, so the third group has 3.
• All four groups: 8 × 4 = 32, so the fourth group has 2.

The commentators divide the first 27 into 20 and 7. So there are 32 nabhasa yogas in four families. The Greek teachers had listed 1,800 such patterns. Varahamihira gives 32, which he says cover the same ground.

The four families

The yogas of support

The first family looks at the kind of sign the planets stand in (12.2). We met the three kinds in the first article: movable, fixed and dual.

The yogas of half

The second family looks at the angles (12.2). When the gentle planets fill the angles, the yoga is Srak, the garland, and the person enjoys life's pleasures. When the harsh planets fill them, it is Sarpa, the serpent, and the person meets much suffering.

Varahamihira notes that some teachers did not count these two families separately, because their effects overlap with other yogas (12.3). He lists them anyway, so that it is known they are nabhasa yogas, with the lasting effect that this brings.

The yogas of shape

The largest family describes twenty shapes that the planets can make across the houses (12.4 to 12.9):

The names are a delight. The planets in the four angles make a lotus. The planets filling seven houses make a boat, an umbrella or a bow, depending on where the line begins. Six planets in every other house make a wheel. The sky is read as a picture.

The yogas of number

The last family simply counts how many signs the planets occupy (12.10). These yogas apply only when none of the shape yogas above is present.

The pattern is clear. The more widely the planets are spread across the zodiac, the richer and more varied the life. When they are crowded into very few signs, the life narrows.

Varahamihira's objection

In the middle of the chapter, after describing the Vajra and Yava yogas, Varahamihira stops to raise a problem (12.6):

पूर्वशास्त्रानुसारेण मया वज्रादयः कृताः । चतुर्थे भवने सूर्याज्ज्ञसितौ भवतः कथम् ॥

pūrvaśāstrānusāreṇa mayā vajrādayaḥ kṛtāḥ | caturthe bhavane sūryāj jñasitau bhavataḥ katham ||

I have given the Vajra and the others following the earlier texts. But how can Mercury and Venus stand in the fourth sign from the Sun?

The problem is astronomical. Mercury and Venus orbit closer to the Sun than the Earth does, so from the Earth they never appear far from it. Mercury always stays within about 28 degrees of the Sun, and Venus within about 47. They can never be in the fourth sign from it, some 90 degrees away. Yet the Vajra yoga needs the gentle planets, including Mercury and Venus, in the 1st and 7th houses while the Sun, a harsh planet, is in the 4th or 10th. That can never happen.

Varahamihira records the yoga faithfully, because the old authorities taught it, and then points out openly that the sky does not allow it. It is a rare and striking moment: an author checking his own inherited tradition against astronomy, and saying so plainly.

How these yogas combine and how long they last

Two final rules govern the whole chapter. First, the yogas of support give no results of their own when mixed with other yogas; they then take on the result of the yoga they are mixed with (12.12).

Second, and more important, the chapter ends by saying how long these yogas act (12.19):

इति निगदिता योगाः सार्धं फलैरिह नाभसा नियतफलदाश्चिन्त्या ह्येते समस्तदशास्वपि ॥

iti nigaditā yogāḥ sārdhaṃ phalair iha nābhasā niyataphaladāś cintyā hy ete samastadaśāsv api ||

Thus the nabhasa yogas have been set out with their results. They are to be understood as giving their fixed results in every period of life. (second half of the verse)

Most results in jyotish arrive in a particular chapter of life, the period of the planet that brings them. The nabhasa yogas are different. Because they describe the shape of the whole sky, they colour the whole life, from beginning to end, through every period.

Reading this chapter

The nabhasa yogas teach a valuable way of seeing a chart: as a whole, before its parts. Before looking at any single planet, an astrologer can ask what shape the sky makes. Are the planets spread wide or crowded close? Do they cluster in the angles or fall away from them? Do they form a lotus, a bow, a wheel? That overall shape sets the tone of the life, and every detail is read within it.

Verses are from Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka, chapter 12. English renderings are our own, made from the Sanskrit and checked against the public-domain translation by N. Chidambaram Aiyar (1885; second edition 1905) and against the word-by-word analysis in Michael D. Neely's edition.