Pushkala

The lagna lord and the Moon-sign lord are together in a kendra, or in each other's signs, and a strong planet aspects the lagna (Phaladeepika 6.19).

Take two rulers. The first is the lord of your ascendant sign — the self as it acts. The second is the lord of the sign your Moon occupies — the mind as it feels. The rule asks them to meet: either side by side in one of the angles, or in an exchange, each sitting in the other's sign.

The third condition is an aspect on the lagna itself. In the whole-sign Parashari scheme every planet looks at the 7th from itself; Mars adds the 4th and 8th, Saturn the 3rd and 10th, Jupiter the 5th and 9th. An aspect can therefore reach the ascendant from several houses, not only from the 7th, and it must come from a planet with real dignity.

There is a special case worth knowing. When the Moon sits in the ascendant sign, the two lords are the same planet, so the meeting is automatic and the yoga turns on the aspect to the lagna. That is simpler, not stronger: one planet is doing two jobs, and its own placement has to carry both.

Two lords describe two kinds of self. The lagna lord is the self that acts. The Moon-sign lord is the self that feels. Most charts have some distance between them: a person who is competent at work and restless at home, or calm inside and clumsy in public. Pushkala asks the two to occupy the same house. When they do, the outer life and the inner life stop competing for the same hours, and effort stops leaking.

The aspect is the second half. An aspect is attention: a planet looking at the ascendant is a witness at the door. When the witness is strong, the person is seen accurately and received well, and the self has some protection from being misread. Pushkala's abundance is therefore not mainly financial. It is the abundance of a life where name, work and feeling are one thing, so that reputation, skill and relationship reinforce each other instead of pulling apart.

• A life that feels of one piece, with less energy spent on pretending.
• Presence: people meet the person, not a role.
• Work that suits the temperament, which makes long effort cheaper to sustain.
• Loyalty from others, because the person is recognisably the same in every room.
• Abundance that compounds, as reputation, skill and relationships feed one another.

• Both lords in a kendra, ideally in dignity.
• An exchange of signs between the two lords, which is rarer than a shared angle.
• An aspect on the lagna from a strong Jupiter, Venus or Mercury.
• A waxing Moon, so the mind's ruler has light behind it.

Pushkala is a standing condition rather than a single event, so its window is the periods of the three planets involved: the two lords and the aspecting planet. When those run in sequence as mahadasha and antardasha, the theme of coherence is easiest to see — work, feeling and public role line up. Transits of the aspecting planet across the lagna are worth watching too.

• Pushkala is not only about money. The name means abundant, but the abundance it describes is of fit, and a wealthy life can still be an incoherent one.
• The aspect must fall on the lagna. Two well-placed lords with nothing watching the ascendant are a good arrangement, not this yoga.
• A shared angle is not the only route. An exchange of signs between the two lords is a legitimate and often more vivid form of the same meeting.

1. 1.Phaladeepika, Ch. 6, verse 19 (Pushkala Yoga)
2. 2.Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Ch. 34 (Raja Yoga and functional nature)
3. 3.Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Ch. 36 (the house-based yoga method)

The formation and strength of this yoga are calculated by the RajYog engine. The interpretation is an original paraphrase of the classical rule; it is not a personal prediction. Read the methodology.