Vyatipata, the Yoga of Calamity

Vyatipata is the seventeenth nityayoga, and its name denotes a great calamity or a grievous falling-together. It is one of the most strongly inauspicious yogas, and in some reckonings the days it governs are set aside for expiation and charity rather than ordinary activity. The panchanga counts it among the configurations most to be avoided for auspicious undertakings. Reckoned like the others from the summed longitude of Sun and Moon divided into twenty-seven parts, it takes its place through the lunar month. These are the conventions of the calendar tradition, which fixes the malefic character of Vyatipata; an astrologer selecting a muhurta avoids it. The astronomical basis is only the combined motion of the two lights, which produces the arithmetic the tradition reads.

Vyatipata is one of only two yogas, with Vaidhriti, the twenty-seventh, that classical sources single out for a specific ritual response rather than simply advising avoidance: some Dharmashastra and later panchanga literature prescribe that a person who happens to die during Vyatipata, or whose birth falls under it in a strongly afflicted configuration, undergo a particular expiatory rite, shanti karma, to counteract the inauspicious timing, a practice distinct from and more elaborate than the ordinary advice simply to avoid beginning new undertakings that applies to the other seven inauspicious yogas. Vyatipata and Vaidhriti between them are generally regarded as the two most severely inauspicious of the full set of twenty-seven.