Sakata Yoga

Definition

Sakata Yoga is a difficult lunar combination built on how the Moon and Jupiter sit relative to each other. Rath, Raman and Charak say it forms when Jupiter falls in the 6th, 8th or 12th house from the Moon, with Raman taking the 6th as the core case. Phaladeepika and deFouw & Svoboda frame it the other way: the Moon in the 6th, 8th or 12th (a dussthana, an unfortunate house) from Jupiter. Phaladeepika adds that it is cancelled when the Moon sits in a Kendra (angle) from the Lagna (ascendant).

In Tradition

These classical and modern Jyotish sources agree that Sakata Yoga is read as fortune that swings and reverses. Rath ties it to obstacles, turmoil and disease; Raman to fluctuating fortunes; deFouw and Svoboda to great reversals of fortune; and Phaladeepika to someone who repeatedly loses and regains what they have. They share this reversal-of-fortune principle, even as they differ on whether you count Jupiter from the Moon or the Moon from Jupiter.

In Practice

To find Sakata Yoga, a jyotishi counts the house relationship between the Moon and Jupiter. The sources count it in opposite directions: Jupiter in the 6th, 8th or 12th from the Moon (Rath, Raman, Charak), or the Moon in the 6th, 8th or 12th from Jupiter (Phaladeepika, deFouw & Svoboda). Phaladeepika notes a cancellation: if the Moon is in a Kendra (angle) from the Lagna, there is no Sakata. It is read for reversals of fortune; Phaladeepika describes the person as ordinary and insignificant, enduring inevitable mental grief and great unhappiness. Rath shows its timing in a disease case where Jupiter is 8th from the Moon in the Rasi and 12th in the Navamsa, the start of Jupiter's dasa (planetary period) making a knee problem chronic. deFouw and Svoboda use it to explain a man born into wealth who spent adult life in poverty. Charak cautions that this lunar Sakata must not be confused with the Sakata of the Nabhasa yogas.

Historical Origin

The classical attestation is Mantreswara's Phaladeepika (Ch.6, Sl.14 and 17, in Sastri's translation), which gives the Moon-from-Jupiter form along with the Kendra cancellation. Modern Jyotish authors carry it forward: Rath in Crux of Vedic Astrology, B.V. Raman in the technical-terms index of Notable Horoscopes, deFouw and Svoboda in Light on Life, and K.S. Charak in Yogas in Astrology, who lists it among the lunar yogas.

Further Reading

• Rath, Crux of Vedic Astrology
• deFouw & Svoboda, Light on Life
• Raman, Notable Horoscopes
• Mantreswara, Phaladeepika
• Charak, Yogas in Astrology