8 min · Goal: Recognise the main difficult yogas and check their cancellations before concluding anything.
Because this is where the money is. A difficult yoga is named, the person is alarmed, and a remedy is available at a price. Almost every one of these combinations has well-documented cancellation conditions, and those conditions are precisely what goes unmentioned in that transaction.
Formed when no planet other than the Sun occupies the 2nd or 12th house from the Moon, and no planet is conjunct the Moon — the Moon standing entirely alone. Read classically as isolation and fluctuating circumstance, particularly earlier in life.
The cancellations are well established: a planet in a kendra from the Moon, the Moon itself in a kendra from the Lagna, or benefic aspect on the Moon. Any one nullifies it, and between them they cover a great many charts. Genuine uncancelled Kemadruma is uncommon.
Shakata: the Moon in the 6th, 8th or 12th house counted from Jupiter, read as fortune that rises and falls like a cartwheel. Most texts cancel it if the Moon occupies a kendra from the Lagna — frequent enough that the yoga is often nullified.
Grahan: the Sun or Moon conjunct Rahu or Ketu, read as the luminary’s significations being obscured. Degree distance matters enormously here. A conjunction within two or three degrees is a materially different thing from one at twenty, and a great many capable people have the wider version.
Daridra: usually defined as the 11th lord placed in a dushthana. The name means poverty, which makes it a favourite of predatory readings. Definitions vary widely between texts and the condition is frequently offset elsewhere in a chart.
When you meet any difficult yoga, ask three questions in order. How common is the base condition? What are the documented cancellations, and does this chart have one? And did the person telling me about it mention either?
A reading that names a difficult yoga without addressing the first two is incomplete. Whether the omission is ignorance or technique, the effect on the listener is the same — and the listener is usually paying.
Someone is told they have Kemadruma yoga and offered a remedy. What should they check first?