Maha Bhagya Yoga

Definition

Maha Bhagya Yoga ("great fortune") is a planetary combination that forms differently depending on a person's sex and the time of birth. For a man born by day, it forms when the Sun, Moon and Lagna (the rising sign, or ascendant) all fall in odd-numbered signs. For a woman born by night, it forms when those same three all fall in even signs. The yoga takes its name from the great good fortune it is said to bring.

In Tradition

deFouw & Svoboda, Raman and the Phaladeepika all describe the same forming rule, one that turns on sex and on a day or night birth: for a man born by day, the Sun, Moon and Lagna (rising sign) must each sit in an odd sign; for a woman born by night, all three must sit in even signs. Both the classical and the modern sources treat this odd-or-even placement as what defines the great-fortune combination.

In Practice

A jyotishi (astrologer) checks whether the Sun, Moon and Lagna sit in odd or even signs, then weighs the person's sex and whether the birth was by day or night, since one and the same chart counts as the yoga for only one sex. deFouw & Svoboda add that, for a man, the lords of all three (Sun, Moon and Lagna) should also occupy odd rashis (signs), and they read a strong Maha Bhagya Yoga as marking a lord of the earth, that is, a political leader. Raman instead judges the result by the two lights, the Sun and Moon: he holds that it grants longevity and fame, and the power to cause immense pain or pleasure depending on whether those two are afflicted. A clean yoga is held to yield spotless character; an afflicted one can play out on a lower, destructive plane, as he reads in Hitler's chart.

Historical Origin

The yoga is attested in the classical literature by Mantreswara's Phaladeepika (Ch.6, Sl.14-15), quoted here in V. Subrahmanya Sastri's translation, which sets out the odd-sign rule for a man and the even-sign rule for a woman. It passes into modern Jyotish through B.V. Raman's Notable Horoscopes and deFouw & Svoboda's Light on Life, both of which illustrate it with example charts.

Further Reading

• Mantreswara, Phaladeepika
• Raman, Notable Horoscopes
• deFouw & Svoboda, Light on Life