Panch Mahapurusha Yoga Calculator

Check all five Panch Mahapurusha yogas in your Vedic birth chart - Ruchaka, Bhadra, Hamsa, Malavya, and Sasa - each formed when its planet (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, or Saturn) is in its own or exaltation sign in a kendra from the Lagna. You get a per-yoga readout with an honest why-not for the absent ones, combustion-weakening flags, a birth-time-confidence check, and a computed per-yoga base rate. Uses sidereal Lahiri ayanamsa, the same engine and detector as our Raj Yoga calculator.

100% private - the calculation runs entirely in your browser. No birth data sent anywhere.

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Supports 1900 onwards for better calculation reliability.

The five Mahapurusha yogas are read from a kendra from your Lagna (ascendant), which changes about every 2 hours - so an accurate birth time is required. The tool tells you how close you are to a Lagna boundary.

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Quick facts

Core conditionMars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, or Saturn in its own or exaltation sign, in a kendra (1, 4, 7, 10) from the Lagna
The fiveRuchaka (Mars), Bhadra (Mercury), Hamsa (Jupiter), Malavya (Venus), Sasa (Saturn); Sun and Moon excluded by definition
InputDate, time, and place of birth (time required - the kendra is counted from the Lagna)
VerdictPer-yoga: formed, formed-but-weakened (combust), or not formed with the failing leg named
Base rateAbout 34% of sampled instants carry at least one of the five; per-yoga table below - common, not rare
Honesty featuresFormation vs strength framing, per-yoga why-not, near-boundary provisional flag, Lagna birth-time-confidence check
EngineMIT-licensed Meeus / VSOP87 (astronomia); Lahiri ayanamsa; same detector as the Raj Yoga calculator
RemediesNone - this is a classification tool, not advisory
Privacy / cost100% client-side; no data leaves the browser; free

What are the Panch Mahapurusha yogas?

Panch Mahapurusha means “five great persons”: classical Vedic astrology names one signature combination for each planet other than the Sun and Moon. The formation rule is the same for all five - the planet must occupy its own sign or its exaltation sign, and that placement must fall in a kendra (quadrant house 1, 4, 7, or 10) from the Lagna. Classical sources (Saravali Ch. 37; Phaladeepika Ch. 6) associate each yoga with a distinct flavour of eminence - courage for Ruchaka, intellect for Bhadra, wisdom for Hamsa, refinement for Malavya, and authority for Sasa.

YogaPlanetOwn signsExaltation sign
RuchakaMarsAries, ScorpioCapricorn
BhadraMercuryGemini, VirgoVirgo
HamsaJupiterSagittarius, PiscesCancer
MalavyaVenusTaurus, LibraPisces
SasaSaturnCapricorn, AquariusLibra

It is worth stating plainly what these yogas are not: they are not rare (about 34% of sampled birth instants carry at least one), and a formed yoga is not a guarantee of any outcome. This tool treats them as documented combinations to classify honestly, not headlines to sell.

How we check them (and why birth time is required)

The tool computes your sidereal chart (Lahiri ayanamsa, whole-sign houses) and runs the same detector our Raj Yoga calculator uses - one engine, one rule set, no second convention. For each of the five planets it checks the two legs of the definition: own-or-exalted dignity, and kendra placement from the Lagna. For an absent yoga it names the failing leg, so “not formed” is explained, not asserted.

Because the kendra is counted from the Lagna, the result depends on the ascendant, which changes about every two hours - so an accurate birth time is required. The tool also measures how many clock minutes separate your birth time from the nearest Lagna-sign boundary; inside a 5-minute caution window it recomputes the five yogas under the adjacent Lagna and shows exactly which would appear or vanish. Classical texts allow reckoning from the Moon as well; this tool implements the standard from-Lagna convention and documents the from-Moon variant as deferred.

Formation vs strength of results

The own-or-exalted kendra placement is what forms a Mahapurusha yoga. What can undermine it is a separate question, and this tool keeps the two apart:

  • Combustion (the forming planet within its classical orb of the Sun, per the Siddhanta Shiromani orbs carried in BPHS Ch. 28): reported as formed but weakened - the one weakening this version models, following the same family-aware convention as our Raj Yoga calculator.
  • Retrogression: flagged as a note only, because sources genuinely disagree on its effect.
  • Debilitation: cannot co-occur - a planet’s debilitation sign is never its own or exaltation sign, so a debilitated planet simply does not form the yoga in the first place.

The tool never says “cancelled”. And when a forming planet sits within 0.3 deg of a sign edge - close enough that the ephemeris could put it in the adjacent sign - the reading is marked provisional rather than stated flatly.

How common is each yoga? (per-yoga base rates)

Most calculators stop at “you have Hamsa yoga!”. We computed how often each of the five actually forms: a sweep over 40,000 sampled India-latitude birth instants (1900 to 2099), uniform over clock time with a city-latitude grid, using the production detector end to end.

YogaPlanetFormed in sampled instantsCombust-weakened share of formed
RuchakaMars7.5%15.6%
BhadraMercury5.5%40.7%
HamsaJupiter8.2%7.3%
MalavyaVenus8.6%14.3%
SasaSaturn8.7%8.4%

About 34% of sampled instants carry at least one of the five, and 4.4% carry two or more (the rows overlap, so they do not sum to the any-yoga figure). In this sweep the least common is Bhadra at about 5.5% and the most common is Sasa at about 8.7% - the main driver is simple counting: Mercury’s exaltation sign (Virgo) is also one of its own signs, so Bhadra has two qualifying signs where the other four yogas have three, with planetary dwell times and the Lagna’s unequal rising times nudging the figures from there. These are shares of sampled instants, not of people: real birth dates and times are not uniformly distributed. The takeaway stands - presence is ordinary, so the interesting questions are which yoga, its strength, and your birth-time confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Panch Mahapurusha Yoga?

The Panch Mahapurusha (five great-person) yogas are five classical Vedic combinations, one for each non-luminary planet: Ruchaka (Mars), Bhadra (Mercury), Hamsa (Jupiter), Malavya (Venus), and Sasa (Saturn). A yoga forms when its planet occupies its own sign or its exaltation sign AND sits in a kendra - the 1st, 4th, 7th, or 10th house - from the Lagna (ascendant). The Sun and Moon are excluded by definition. Classical sources (Saravali Ch. 37; Phaladeepika Ch. 6) associate each with a distinct kind of eminence, and this tool checks all five from your birth details.

What are the five Mahapurusha yogas and their planets?

Ruchaka forms from Mars (own signs Aries and Scorpio; exalted in Capricorn), Bhadra from Mercury (Gemini and Virgo; exalted in Virgo), Hamsa from Jupiter (Sagittarius and Pisces; exalted in Cancer), Malavya from Venus (Taurus and Libra; exalted in Pisces), and Sasa from Saturn (Capricorn and Aquarius; exalted in Libra). In each case the planet must also be in a kendra (1st, 4th, 7th, or 10th) from the Lagna for the yoga to form.

Does everyone have a Panch Mahapurusha Yoga?

Not everyone, but it is common - about 34% of 40,000 sampled India-latitude birth instants carry at least one of the five in our sweep, and 4.4% carry two or more. That is roughly one in three, which is exactly what flattery calculators hide when they present a Mahapurusha yoga as a rare blessing. The honest questions are which yoga, how strong the planet is, and how confident you are in the birth time.

Which Mahapurusha yoga is the rarest?

In our sweep over 40,000 sampled birth instants, the least common of the five is Bhadra (Mercury) at about 5.5% of instants, and the most common is Sasa (Saturn) at about 8.7%. The main driver is simple counting: Mercury's exaltation sign (Virgo) is also one of its own signs, so Bhadra has only two qualifying signs while the other four yogas have three; where the planet actually spends time and the Lagna's unequal rising times then nudge the figures further. These are shares of sampled instants - a model estimate, not a measured share of people.

Is a Mahapurusha yoga cancelled if the planet is combust or retrograde?

This tool never uses the word cancelled. The own-or-exalted placement in a kendra is what forms the yoga; combustion (the planet too close to the Sun) is the one weakening this version models - the same family-aware convention as our Raj Yoga calculator - so a combust forming planet is reported as formed-but-weakened. Retrogression is flagged as a note, because sources genuinely disagree on whether it strengthens or weakens a yoga. Debilitation cannot co-occur with a Mahapurusha yoga at all, since the debilitation sign is never the planet's own or exaltation sign.

Is Panch Mahapurusha Yoga counted from the Lagna or from the Moon?

Classical texts allow reckoning the kendra from the Lagna or from the Moon; the standard primary framing - and what this tool implements - is from the Lagna. That is also why an accurate birth time is required: the Lagna changes about every two hours, and all four kendra houses move with it. The tool measures how many minutes of birth-time error would change your Lagna sign and, when you are inside the 5-minute caution window, shows exactly which of the five yogas would appear or vanish under the adjacent Lagna. The from-Moon variant is documented as deferred, not silently mixed in.

The five Mahapurusha yogas are one family among several raj-class combinations - the Raj Yoga Calculator detects Kendra-Trikona, Yogakaraka, Neecha Bhanga, and Vipreet alongside this family, with the same base-rate honesty. The Gaja Kesari Yoga Calculator reads the best-known Moon-Jupiter combination with the same formation-vs-strength framing. And for your full Vedic birth chart - all nine grahas, D1 and D9, Vimshottari Dasha - see the Free Kundli Generator.

Sources

  • Saravali (Kalyana Varma), Ch. 37 (Pancha Mahapurusha Yogas) - the five definitions and name-planet mappings. Overview of the corpus at jyotisa.wordpress.com; referenced as attributed sense pending a print critical edition.
  • Phaladeepika (Mantreswara), Ch. 6, Sloka 1 (definition - own or exaltation sign in a kendra) and Slokas 2-4 (effects), text and translation at wisdomlib.org.
  • Secondary tabulation of the five yogas: blog.cosmicinsights.net, used as a cross-check, not a primary authority.
  • Combustion (asta) orbs from Siddhanta Shiromani, carried in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Ch. 28; own-sign and exaltation tables per BPHS - the same shared reference tables our Raj Yoga tool uses (see its research notes for the full citation ledger).
  • Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd ed., 1998, and the VSOP87 planetary theory (Bretagnon and Francou, 1987), via the MIT-licensed astronomia library, with N.C. Lahiri’s ayanamsa; accurate to about 0.3 deg vs Swiss Ephemeris for dates from 1900 onwards.
  • Our committed per-yoga base-rate sweep (scripts/panch-mahapurusha-base-rate.ts and its committed output) over 40,000 sampled instants, cross-checked against the Raj Yoga sweep artifact (identical sampling sequence).
Cultural / informational purposes only
Panch Mahapurusha Yoga results on this page are for cultural and informational purposes only. They classify documented Vedic-astrology combinations in a sidereal reference frame and are not predictions of eminence, success, or any life event, nor a substitute for advice from a qualified astrologer. The rules differ across classical sources; this tool implements one documented convention (from-Lagna kendra, whole-sign houses, combustion as the weakening condition) and defers the from-Moon variant. The page prescribes no remedies. Last updated: July 2026.