Vriddhi yoga is the eleventh nitya yoga, the yoga of growth. Its territory is the stretch of the combined sidereal Sun and Moon from 133 degrees 20 minutes to 146 degrees 40 minutes, 3.7 percent of the moments sampled fell inside it, and panchangs count it as favourable, particularly for anything meant to increase. Its deity is Surya, the Sun, its yogi planet Mercury, and a single planet, Mars, serves as duplicate yogi and avayogi at once. The word vriddhi also turns up elsewhere in the panchang, in the vriddhi tithi that a calendar prints twice, and the two are easy to mix up. The sections below cover the meaning of a birth in Vriddhi yoga, sort out that confusion with a table of how often each limb of the panchang is skipped or repeated, look at the deity and planets, and show where growth actually appears in a chart drawn by the kundali calculator.
Vriddhi follows Ganda yoga and comes before Dhruva yoga, the yoga of permanence.
Conventions used. Sidereal Sun plus Moon, Lahiri ayanamsa, divided into twenty-seven yogas. The skip-and-repeat table tracks every Delhi sunrise from 1950 to 2010, and the birth figures rest on random moments drawn from the same six decades, with Swiss Ephemeris positions throughout.
Born in Vriddhi yoga? See where your chart actually grows.
A consultation reads Mercury, Mars, the second and eleventh houses and the dasha you are running, and shows where your chart promises growth and when.
In this article
- Vriddhi yoga, the eleventh nitya yoga
- Growth and increase: the name
- Not the same as a vriddhi tithi
- What the texts promise the native
- Surya, the Sun
- Mercury, the yogi planet
- Mars in two roles
- Where growth shows in a chart
- Vriddhi in muhurta
- Vriddhi and KP
- Two Vriddhi births
- Frequently asked questions
Vriddhi yoga, the eleventh nitya yoga
Vriddhi is yoga number eleven, arriving straight after the cautionary Ganda. Around the new moon it turns up when the Sun is about 10 degrees into Gemini or Sagittarius, and around the full moon when the Sun is about 10 degrees into Virgo or Pisces; like every yoga it lasts a little under a day. It is the second member of Mercury’s family of yogas, after Priti, with Shiva, the twentieth, completing the three. About a third of Vriddhi births, 32 percent in the sample, fell on a date whose panchang printed another yoga at sunrise.
Growth and increase: the name
Vṛddhi means growth, increase, prosperity and expansion, from a root meaning to grow or to thrive. Older texts use the same word for the interest on a loan and for the waxing of the Moon, and in family usage a birth or a wedding in the household is a vriddhi, a happy increase to be marked with its own rites. Many calendars print it as Vridhi yoga. Sanskrit grammarians use vriddhi too, for the strongest grade of a vowel, the lengthened form a word takes when it grows. The vriddhi yoga meaning in the panchang is simply increase: a yoga for undertakings that are meant to grow.
Not the same as a vriddhi tithi
In a sunrise calendar, a tithi that spans two sunrises is printed on two consecutive days and called a vriddhi tithi, and one that falls entirely between two sunrises is skipped and called a kshaya tithi. The same thing happens to nakshatras and yogas, and a yoga can itself be vriddhi or kshaya in this sense, Vriddhi yoga included. None of it has anything to do with Vriddhi as the name of the eleventh yoga. The table shows how often each limb was named on one sunrise, skipped, or named on two, across every Delhi sunrise from 1950 to 2010.
| Limb | Named on one sunrise | Skipped (kshaya) | Named on two sunrises (vriddhi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tithi | 92.4 percent | 4.6 percent | 3.0 percent |
| Nakshatra | 92.9 percent | 3.0 percent | 4.1 percent |
| Yoga | 92.6 percent | 6.6 percent | 0.8 percent |
Yogas are skipped more often and repeated less often than the other two limbs because they are shorter on average, about twenty-two and a half hours against nearly a full day for tithis and nakshatras. A printed panchang that seems to jump from one yoga to the one after next has not made a mistake; it has passed over a kshaya yoga. Most panchangs show this by listing two yogas against the same day, each with the time it ends, so the skipped yoga is still there for anyone who reads the small print. For a birth the question never arises, since the chart takes the yoga at the moment itself, as the Pratipada tithi article explains in the case of tithis.
What the texts promise the native
The texts promise the Vriddhi native growth in the ordinary good things: wealth that accumulates, learning that deepens, a family that expands, and a talent for building on whatever they are given. Some add good looks and an open hand. It is a pleasant set of expectations, and the chart has to support it. The second and eleventh houses, their lords and Jupiter show far more precisely whether and when a life’s resources increase, as the section on growth below explains.
Surya, the Sun
The deity of Vriddhi is Surya, the Sun, whose daily rise and yearly return are the model of steady increase: light that grows each morning, a season that grows toward harvest. Surya is also the giver of vitality and reputation, and the tradition’s picture of the Vriddhi native as someone who grows in standing over a lifetime owes something to him. It is a reminder that growth in this sense is gradual, the way the Sun gains the sky a little at a time. The Sun is also the karaka of the father, of government and of a person’s standing, so in a Vriddhi chart its strength by sign and house is worth reading alongside the yogi planet.
Mercury, the yogi planet
The yogi point of every Vriddhi birth falls in Jyeshtha, the nakshatra of the eldest, of seniority and protective authority, ruled by Mercury. So Mercury is Vriddhi’s yogi planet, the planet of trade, calculation, communication and adaptability. Jyeshtha’s own deity is Indra, king of the gods, which lends the growth a note of leadership, of the eldest sibling who expands the family’s fortunes. Growth through Mercury is the growth of the merchant and the scholar, small advantages compounded and skills added one at a time. In a Vriddhi chart a strong Mercury is traditionally expected to make its periods productive, while a weak or badly afflicted one leaves the promise less room to work.
Mars in two roles
Because all of Jyeshtha sits in Scorpio, the yogi point’s sign lord, and so the duplicate yogi, is Mars. The avayogi lands on Mars as well: the sixth nakshatra from Jyeshtha, counted inclusively, is Dhanishta, a Mars nakshatra, and Vriddhi joins the group of yogas in which one planet holds both roles. In practice, the periods of Mars in a Vriddhi chart can bring the push that makes growth happen and the conflict or haste that sets it back, often within the same stretch of time, and the placement of Mars shows which is likely to dominate.
Where growth shows in a chart
Anyone born in a yoga called growth reasonably wants to know where the growth is. In a Parashari reading, wealth is read from the second house and its lord, gains and income from the eleventh, the steady widening of fortune from Jupiter and the ninth house, and timing from the dashas of the planets tied to those houses. None of this depends on the nitya yoga. A Vriddhi native with a weak eleventh house will not become prosperous because of the yoga, and someone born in a cautionary yoga with strong wealth houses will not be held back by it. The yoga describes a hope; the houses describe the means. Jupiter, the natural karaka of wealth, deserves its own look, and its transits over the second and eleventh houses often act as the trigger once the dasha has opened the door, since in timing the dasha comes first and the transit second.
Vriddhi in muhurta
Vriddhi is favourable in the standard lists, and its name makes it a common choice for beginnings meant to expand: opening a shop, launching a business, sowing a crop, starting a savings plan. As with every yoga, it counts for less than the date’s tithi, nakshatra and weekday and the lagna at the moment chosen. A well-chosen moment does not make an unsound venture sound, and no muhurta replaces proper financial judgement. None of these rules apply to a birth, which nobody chooses.
Vriddhi and KP
KP ignores the nitya yoga. Growth in KP terms is a question for the second, sixth, tenth and eleventh cusps and the planets that signify them, strongest first through occupation of their stars, a ranking the site covers in its piece on occupants and owners in KP signification, and the dasha of those significators times the gains. Mercury and Mars in a Vriddhi chart are judged in exactly the same way, through their stars and sub-lords, with no weight given to the yoga they happen to govern.
Two Vriddhi births
A woman born around midnight, details altered, with Gemini rising, the Sun at 25 degrees Virgo in the fourth with an exalted Mercury beside it, and the Moon at 25 degrees Aquarius in the ninth: a total of 140 degrees, Vriddhi yoga, on a Shukla Trayodashi. Mercury is her lagna lord as well as the yogi planet, and its exaltation is described on the page for Mercury in Virgo. She founded an agritech company that gives small farmers soil tests and weather-linked sowing advice by text message, and it now serves farmers in four states. The yoga of growth, a Sun deity that ripens crops and an exalted Mercury that turns data into advice make an unusually neat match.
A man born in the evening, details altered, with Leo rising, the Sun at 15 degrees Capricorn in the sixth, just set, and the Moon at 5 degrees Scorpio in the fourth: 140 degrees again, Vriddhi yoga, on a Krishna Dashami. Mars, the yogakaraka for a Leo lagna and ruler of his fourth house of land, sits in its own sign in the ninth, the placement the page on Mars in Aries describes, and it is also his duplicate yogi and avayogi. He is a property developer. His Mars antardasha brought his largest project, a housing colony of two hundred plots, and in the same years a boundary dispute with a neighbouring landowner that went through three courts before it was settled. Both the growth and the fight came through the planet Vriddhi places on both sides.
Frequently asked questions
What is Vriddhi yoga?
The eleventh nitya yoga, covering Sun and Moon totals of 133 degrees 20 minutes to 146 degrees 40 minutes. It is counted as favourable.
Is Vriddhi yoga the same as a vriddhi tithi?
No. A vriddhi tithi straddles two sunrises and so appears twice in a calendar, whereas Vriddhi yoga is simply the name of the eleventh nitya yoga.
What does Vriddhi mean?
Vṛddhi means growth, increase or prosperity. Many calendars spell the yoga Vridhi.
Does being born in Vriddhi yoga bring wealth?
Not by itself. Wealth is read from the second and eleventh houses, their lords, Jupiter and the dasha. The yoga adds a hopeful colour, never a guarantee.
Which deity and planet rule Vriddhi yoga?
Surya, the Sun, is its deity. Its planet is Mercury, since the yogi point of a Vriddhi birth always lands in Jyeshtha, Mercury’s nakshatra.
Why is Mars both duplicate yogi and avayogi in Vriddhi yoga?
Jyeshtha lies in Scorpio, ruled by Mars, and the sixth nakshatra from Jyeshtha is Dhanishta, also ruled by Mars. Its periods can bring both expansion and conflict.
Does KP use Vriddhi yoga?
No. KP reads growth from the second, sixth, tenth and eleventh cusps and their significators, timed by the dasha.
Growth in the name. Timing in the chart.
A consultation reads Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and your second and eleventh houses, and the dasha you are running, and shows when your chart supports growth.