Lesson 11

Planetary friendships and enmities

Grahas are friendlier in some company than others. Two separate friendship schemes combine into a five-fold result, and the natural one is not symmetrical.

Written by Akash10 min read

A graha placed in a friend's sign behaves more comfortably than one placed in an enemy's. This is one of the main inputs to judging strength, and it comes in two layers that are then combined.

Natural friendship (naisargika maitri)

Fixed, permanent, the same in every chart.

Graha	Friends	Neutral	Enemies
Sun	Moon, Mars, Jupiter	Mercury	Venus, Saturn
Moon	Sun, Mercury	Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn	—
Mars	Sun, Moon, Jupiter	Venus, Saturn	Mercury
Mercury	Sun, Venus	Mars, Jupiter, Saturn	Moon
Jupiter	Sun, Moon, Mars	Saturn	Mercury, Venus
Venus	Mercury, Saturn	Mars, Jupiter	Sun, Moon
Saturn	Mercury, Venus	Jupiter	Sun, Moon, Mars

Read the table carefully and you will find it is not symmetrical. The Sun counts Mercury as neutral, while Mercury counts the Sun a friend. The Moon has no enemies at all, yet Mercury, Venus and Saturn all count the Moon an enemy or a neutral. This asymmetry is deliberate in the tradition and is often the first thing a beginner assumes is a typo.

The Moon having no enemies is worth pausing on. The mind, in this scheme, can meet anything.

Temporal friendship (tatkalika maitri)

Chart-specific, and derived purely from position. From any graha:

Grahas in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 12th from it are temporal friends.
Grahas in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th from it are temporal enemies.

That is it — six and six. Nearness makes friends. Note that a graha in the same sign counts as a temporal enemy, which surprises people.

Combining them: five-fold relationship

The two layers add together into panchadha maitri, a five-step scale:

Natural	+ Temporal	= Result
Friend	Friend	Great friend (adhi mitra)
Friend	Enemy	Neutral (sama)
Neutral	Friend	Friend (mitra)
Neutral	Enemy	Enemy (shatru)
Enemy	Friend	Neutral (sama)
Enemy	Enemy	Great enemy (adhi shatru)

The logic is simply that the two layers can reinforce or cancel each other.

Where this is used

Compound relationship feeds directly into dignity, the ladder Lesson 12 sets out. A graha in a great friend's sign is meaningfully stronger than one in a neutral's, and one in a great enemy's sign is close to debilitated in practical terms.

It also matters in Shadbala, the six-fold strength calculation, where it contributes to sthana bala (positional strength).

A caution about over-reading

Friendship is one input among many, and a modest one. A graha in an enemy's sign but in a kendra, aspected by Jupiter and running its own dasha will outperform a graha in a friend's sign buried in the 8th and doing nothing. Beginners often treat the friendship table as a verdict; it is a modifier.

Key takeaways

Natural friendship is fixed in every chart; temporal friendship depends on position in this chart.
The natural table is not symmetrical — the Sun counts Mercury neutral, while Mercury counts the Sun a friend.
The Moon has no natural enemies.
Temporally, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th and 12th from a graha are friends; the rest are enemies.
A graha in the same sign counts as a temporal enemy.
The two layers combine into a five-step scale from great friend to great enemy.
Friendship is a modifier on strength, not a verdict — position and dasha usually matter more.

Practice

Put the Sun in Taurus and Saturn in Gemini in an imaginary chart. First, what is their natural relationship? Second, count the houses: which sign is Saturn in relative to the Sun, and is that a temporal friend or enemy? Combine the two using the table and state the compound result. Then reverse it — work out what the Sun is to Saturn — and notice whether the two answers agree.