🪐 Planetary Transit Calendar

➜ What is a transit (sign change)?

A transit, gochar, is a planet leaving one sign and entering the next. The Sun changes sign every month (sankranti), Mercury and Venus roughly every 3–4 weeks, Mars about every 45 days, Jupiter about once a year and Saturn about every two and a half years; Rahu and Ketu always move backwards, about every eighteen months. The effect is read from the house the new sign occupies when counted from your birth moon sign.

℞ Retrograde and direct

Seen from Earth, a planet sometimes appears to move backwards against the stars: that is retrograde. The moment it halts and reverses is its station, and the forward motion that follows is direct. Classical texts treat a retrograde planet as stronger but tangled: unfinished matters return and decisions get delayed. Mercury turns retrograde three times a year, Venus about once in eighteen months, Mars about once in two years, and Jupiter and Saturn for roughly four to four and a half months every year.

🌑 Combust and rising

When a planet comes very close to the Sun it disappears in the Sun's glare; it is then combust, and its results are held to weaken. The classical limits are Mars 17°, Mercury 14° (12° when retrograde), Jupiter 11°, Venus 10° (8° when retrograde) and Saturn 15°. As soon as it moves beyond that limit the planet rises again. Marriages and house-warmings are usually avoided while Jupiter or Venus is combust.

✨ Exalted, debilitated and own sign

Each planet has a sign of exaltation where it is strongest: the Sun in Aries, Mars in Capricorn, Mercury in Virgo, Jupiter in Cancer, Venus in Pisces, Saturn in Libra. The opposite sign is its debilitation. An own sign is a sign the planet rules, such as the Sun in Leo or Saturn in Capricorn and Aquarius. Such entries carry a coloured tag in the list.

⚡ Fast, slow and normal speed

Every planet has an average daily motion, for example about 0.52° for Mars, 0.08° for Jupiter and 0.03° for Saturn. Moving well above that average (about 1.3 times or more) it is called atichari, fast; well below it (under about half) it is mand-gati, slow. Slow motion usually comes just before a planet turns retrograde and just after it turns direct. Jupiter's atichara is watched closely, because the planet then leaves a sign before giving its full result there.

⚔️ Planetary war

When two star-planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn) come within 1° of each other, it is a graha-yuddha, a planetary war. Following the Surya Siddhanta, the planet with the more northern declination wins; the loser cannot give its full result at that time. The Sun, Moon, Rahu and Ketu are not counted in planetary wars.

🪐 How to read a transit for yourself

Transit results are usually counted from the moon sign: the house a planet moves into, counted from your moon sign, is the area of life it activates, and vedha and ashtakavarga raise or lower that result. See the general effect on all 12 signs under “Today's transit” and the personal effect on your chart under “My transit”. Saturn passing the 12th, 1st and 2nd houses from the moon sign is the Sade Sati.