Jyotish — the science of light · door 10 of 11
Vakri — when a graha walks backward
Retrograde grahas, in the chart and in the sky
Match the sky
0 of 6 matchedTap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
Three questions to seal this door
1. Which two never turn retrograde?
2. A graha 'goes retrograde' because —
3. Rahu and Ketu move —
The rishi's scroll — read more, if you wish
Seen from the Earth, a planet sometimes appears to stop and walk backward through the rashis for weeks. It never truly reverses — the Earth's own motion overtakes it, as a faster train makes a slower one seem to slide back. Jyotisha calls this vakri, the crooked walk. The Sun and the Moon are never vakri. Rahu and Ketu always are.
Budha turns vakri about three times a year for some three weeks; Shukra about every eighteen months for six weeks; Mangal about every two years for over two months; Guru and Shani every year, for four months or more. Classical texts give a vakri graha more strength, not less (cheshta bala) — its themes turn inward, revisited, intensified.
In a birth chart, a vakri graha does its work in its own way: a vakri Budha often thinks twice and deeply; a vakri Shani builds a discipline nobody gave you. In transit, a retrograde is a season for the re- words — review, revise, return, repair — in that graha's field: words and contracts for Budha, relationships and money for Shukra, effort for Mangal, belief for Guru, duty for Shani. Not a time to fear. A time to go back and do it truly.
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.