What Ṣaḍbala is actually for
Ṣaḍbala does not tell you whether a graha will help you. It tells you which graha wins when two of them are trying to do the same thing.
The classic case is a yoga carried by more than one planet. Suppose a rāja yoga is formed between your 9th lord and your 10th lord. Both are involved; both promise the result. Which one actually brings it, and in whose daśā does it land? That is the question Ṣaḍbala was built to settle. The stronger planet steps forward and does the work; the weaker one stands back.
It follows that a planet with low Ṣaḍbala is not a bad planet — it simply cannot push. And a planet with very high Ṣaḍbala is not a good planet — it can push extremely hard, and if what it is pushing is harmful, high strength makes the harm worse, not better. A powerful malefic ruling a difficult house is a stronger problem, not a lesser one.
For "is this planet well disposed toward me", the measure you want is Vimśopaka Bala. For "will the rest of the chart cooperate", it is Aṣṭakavarga. Ṣaḍbala answers force, and only force.
The six strengths
Each is computed separately in virūpas, then summed into the Ṣaḍbala Piṇḍa.
| Bala | What it measures | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Sthāna bala | Positional strength — dignity by sign, by division, by odd/even placement, by house class and by decanate. The largest contributor by far. | Up to ~360 virūpas |
| Dig bala | Directional strength — whether the graha stands in the quarter of the chart that suits its nature. | 0 – 60 |
| Kāla bala | Temporal strength — day or night birth, lunar phase, the divisions of the day, and the rulers of the year, month, day and hour. | Large, several components |
| Cheṣṭā bala | Motional strength — how the planet is moving: direct, slow, stationary or retrograde. Retrogression scores high here. | 0 – 60 |
| Naisargika bala | Natural strength — a fixed value per graha, identical in every chart ever cast. | Fixed |
| Dṛk bala | Aspectual strength — the net effect of benefic and malefic aspects falling on the graha. This one can be negative. | Positive or negative |
The minimum strength each graha must reach
This is the table that makes a Ṣaḍbala total readable. A planet at or above its own threshold is strong; below it, the planet is short of what it needs regardless of how the raw number compares with its neighbours.
| Graha | Required Ṣaḍbala | In virūpas |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | 7.0 rūpas | 420 |
| Jupiter | 6.5 rūpas | 390 |
| Sun | 6.5 rūpas | 390 |
| Moon | 6.0 rūpas | 360 |
| Venus | 5.5 rūpas | 330 |
| Mars | 5.0 rūpas | 300 |
| Saturn | 5.0 rūpas | 300 |
Exceeding the requirement makes a graha very strong. One caution the text attaches specifically: Saturn at extreme strength gives long life — and along with it, misery. Strength is not kindness.
The per-component minima — the part almost nobody publishes
Even when the total falls short, a graha can still be considerably favourable if its individual strengths clear their own thresholds. The seven grahas fall into three groups for this purpose. Figures are in virūpas.
| Component | Jupiter · Mercury · Sun | Moon · Venus | Mars · Saturn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sthāna bala | 165 | 133 | 96 |
| Dig bala | 35 | 50 | 30 |
| Kāla bala | 50 | 30 | 40 |
| Cheṣṭā bala | 112 | 100 | 67 |
| Ayana bala | 30 | 40 | 20 |
Ayana bala is listed separately here, as the text does; in normal practice it is folded into Kāla bala, and this calculator follows that practice in the totals.
Dig bala — where each graha is at home
Directional strength is full on the cusp of the planet's own quarter and falls to zero on the opposite cusp, dropping smoothly in between. It is the bala to weigh most heavily when the question is about direction in life.
| Graha | Full strength in | Zero strength in | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jupiter, Mercury | 1st house (Lagna) | 7th | Wisdom and intelligence belong to the rising point — the self, thinking for itself. |
| Moon, Venus | 4th house (Nadir) | 10th | Nourishment, comfort and pleasure belong to the private, domestic quarter. |
| Saturn | 7th house (Descendant) | 1st | Saturn works through others, through duty owed outward — never through personal ease. |
| Sun, Mars | 10th house (Meridian) | 4th | Authority and action belong at the top of the chart, in full public view. |
Naisargika bala — the fixed order
Natural strength runs in a fixed sequence, brightest to dimmest: Sun, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn. It is the same in every chart and never changes, which makes it the least interesting of the six on its own — but it is the tiebreaker of last resort when two grahas are otherwise level.
It also explains a small asymmetry in the results: Saturn starts from the lowest natural base, so a Saturn that clears its threshold has done so on merit from position, direction and motion rather than from any inherent advantage.
The context rule — when the total is the wrong number to read
Ṣaḍbala is a mechanical instrument. It takes six different strengths, each answering a different kind of question, and averages them into one figure. That is exactly what you want when you have no particular question — and exactly what you do not want when you have.
If the question is direction in life — which way a person is pulled, toward duty, wealth, desire or renunciation — the component that matters is Dig bala, and a strong total built on positional strength will mislead you.
If the question is the Moon's condition, read Kāla bala first. A waxing Moon near full and a thin waning Moon differ enormously in their capacity to nourish, and that difference lives almost entirely in the temporal component.
If the question concerns a graha of essentially fixed nature, Sthāna bala carries the reading: exaltation, own sign, and the dignity it holds through the divisions.
So use the total for the general case and for settling yoga ownership, and read the columns when the question is specific. That is why this calculator shows every component rather than only the sum.
How to read your table
Take the percentages first. Anything at or above 100% means the graha has met its own requirement. Ignore how the raw virūpa totals compare between planets until you have done this — Mercury at 400 virūpas has failed its threshold while Mars at 320 has cleared its own, and the raw numbers say the opposite.
Then find your yoga-carrying planets — the lords of the trines and the kendras, and any graha in a yoga you already know about — and compare only those against each other. That comparison is what the measure exists for.
Finally, look at Dṛk bala for anything negative. A graha that is strong everywhere else and deeply negative in aspectual strength is a planet under sustained pressure from malefics: it has the capacity to act and is being fought while it acts.
How birth-time error affects a Ṣaḍbala total
Less than you might expect, and unevenly across the six. Sthāna bala and Naisargika bala barely move with a few minutes, since sign and dignity are stable. Dig bala and Kāla bala are the sensitive ones: Dig bala is measured from house cusps, so it changes continuously as the ascendant moves, and Kāla bala depends on where the birth falls within the divisions of the day. A ten-minute error will not usually flip a planet across its threshold, but it will move the total by a few virūpas — enough to matter when two grahas are close and you are using Ṣaḍbala precisely to separate them.
How this is computed
Positions come from an astronomical ephemeris, converted to the sidereal zodiac on the Lahiri (Citrapakṣa) ayanāṁśa and computed by our own Parāśara engine — no pre-written results, and no language model anywhere near a number. Where the classical texts disagree, this page names the convention we follow instead of quietly picking one.