Origin 500 to 800 CE
Kemadruma yoga is an inauspicious lunar combination formed when no planets (other than the Sun, and excluding the nodes Rahu and Ketu) occupy the 2nd or 12th houses from Chandra (the Moon), and often when no planets sit with or aspect the Moon, leaving it isolated and unsupported. It is associated with hardship, poverty, loneliness, instability, and struggle, as though the mind lacks the support of its neighbors. Classical texts, however, list many cancellations (Kemadruma bhanga): the yoga is nullified if a planet occupies a kendra from the Moon or the Lagna, if the Moon is aspected by or conjunct a benefic, or if the Moon is otherwise strong, so it should never be judged in isolation.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period500 to 800 CE 1Tradition: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Origin PeriodThis planetary yoga belongs to the classical catalogue the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra sets out; Pingree's survey of jyotihsastra literature situates the text within the sixth to eighth century CE stratum of classical Sanskrit horoscopy. 1Tradition: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Structure
Formation ConditionNo planets in the 2nd or 12th from the Moon, and the Moon unsupported 1 Attributions
EffectsHardship, poverty, loneliness and instability unless cancelled 1 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard analytic category in the study of religion 1 Learn More
Kemadruma Yoga
Kemadruma Yoga is an inauspicious combination and the negative counterpart of the sunapha, anapha and durudhara group: it is formed when there is no planet in either the twelfth or the second place from the Moon, the Sun and the shadow planets being excluded from the count. The Moon in Jyotisha signifies the mind and the immediate support of the life, and a Moon with no planets flanking it is read as unsupported, so the combination is given for isolation, instability of mind and material difficulty.
The classical texts also give a substantial list of cancellations: a planet in an angle from the Ascendant or from the Moon, the Moon itself in an angle from the Ascendant, a strong aspect to the Moon, and other conditions are each held to annul the yoga. Those cancellations are as much a part of the doctrine as the yoga itself and are routinely omitted in popular presentations.
The Combination Defined by an Absence
Kemadruma is unusual in being defined by what is not there. The Moon is unattended: no planet other than the Sun in the sign before it, none in the sign after, and in the stricter versions none with it. Where Sunapha, Anapha and Durudhara describe the Moon accompanied on one side, the other, or both, Kemadruma is the fourth case, the Moon alone.
That completeness is a clue to how these four were constructed. They are not four separate observations. They are an exhaustive partition of one variable, and every chart necessarily falls into exactly one of them. A scheme that carves the space up that way is a classification rather than a discovery, and its members inherit their meanings from the scheme's own logic: three kinds of support and one of isolation.
The tradition takes Kemadruma seriously and reads it as difficulty, isolation and want. It also supplies an unusually long list of cancellations, bhanga: a planet in an angle from the ascendant, a strong aspect to the Moon, the Moon in an angle, a well placed dispositor. The list is long enough that careful practitioners note the combination is far more often cancelled than allowed to stand.
The atlas records both the reading and the cancellations. Nothing here is a prediction and nothing here concerns any individual.
Connections
Classification
Defined by the absence of planets in the 2nd and 12th houses from Moon.
Corresponds To
Source Brihat Parashara Hora ShastraSage Parashara (attributed)
Originates in Language
The term is Sanskrit, and the technical vocabulary of the Panchanga and of jyotisha more widely is Sanskrit throughout, whatever the vernacular in which a given almanac is printed. The name is a Sanskrit term. Regional almanacs render it in the local script and pronunciation, so a reader will meet the same term in several transliterations without any difference of reference.
Source Brihat Parashara Hora ShastraSage Parashara (attributed)
Sources
1. Jyotihsastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature
David Pingree, Otto Harrassowitz, 1981On the named planetary yogas of the classical jataka literatureView the Source Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra
Sage Parashara (attributed), Ranjan Publications, 1984On the planetary yogas: raja yogas formed from kendra and trikona lords, and the lunar yogas
Benefics owning angles will not give benefic effects while malefics owning angles will not remain inauspicious. The lord of a trine will give auspicious results. The lord of the ascendant is specially auspicious as the ascendant is an angle as well as trine.
- Corresponds To: Chandra
View the Source Brihat Jataka
Varahamihira, Government Branch Press, MysoreOn the yogas of the Moon and the combinations held to produce wealth and rankView the Source Saravali
KalyanavarmaOn the named yogas and the results attributed to them
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.