Jyotish — the science of light · door 3 of 11
The nine grahas
The seizers — seven lights and two shadows
Match the sky
0 of 6 matchedTap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
Three questions to seal this door
1. Rahu and Ketu are —
2. Which graha rules both Mesha and Vrishchika?
3. How many grahas does Jyotisha count?
The rishi's scroll — read more, if you wish
Graha means one who seizes — a force that takes hold of the mind and of events. Jyotisha counts nine: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, and two shadow-points, Rahu and Ketu.
Rahu and Ketu are not bodies at all. They are the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's — which is exactly why eclipses happen there. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not part of classical Jyotisha.
Every graha is a karaka — a signifier — and the same graha is the lord of a dasha, a period of your life. The table below is the alphabet the rest of this course is written in.
| Name | Signifies | Rules | Dasha years |
|---|---|---|---|
| सू Surya | the soul, the father, authority and one's own light | Simha | 6 |
| चं Chandra | the mind, the mother, feeling and nourishment | Karka | 10 |
| मं Mangal | courage, energy, the brother, the will to act | Mesha, Vrishchika | 7 |
| बु Budha | intellect, speech, learning, exchange | Mithuna, Kanya | 17 |
| गु Guru | wisdom, the teacher, dharma, expansion and grace | Dhanu, Meena | 16 |
| शु Shukra | love, beauty, the wife, enjoyment rightly held | Vrishabha, Tula | 20 |
| श Shani | discipline, endurance, time itself, and service | Makara, Kumbha | 19 |
| रा Rahu | hunger, ambition, the unfamiliar | — | 18 |
| के Ketu | release, detachment, what is already finished | — | 7 |
The tables on this page are drawn from the same data VEDAUM reads charts with. The teaching text awaits a jyotishi's review, like every teaching page here.