Graha

Ketu

केतु

Ketu is the south node of the Moon, the point where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's going south, always exactly opposite Rahu. In the story of the churning of the ocean it is the headless body of the asura whose head became Rahu, and so the tradition reads it as a planet without a head: detachment, insight that does not reason, past karma, renunciation and moksha, the release from the round of births. In a chart Ketu often marks where a person already knows and no longer seeks. Like Rahu it moves backwards through the zodiac, about eighteen months in each sign, and the two change signs on the same day. Ketu begins the Vimshottari cycle: its period is the first, for those born under its nakshatras. In the classical scheme of sign lords, which the site follows, Ketu rules no sign, and these pages give it none; what the site's tables do hold is set out below.

At a glance

Nature
Natural malefic
Rules
No sign
Day
Tuesday
Vimshottari dasha
7 years

What Ketu signifies

The site's table of significations, the natural karakatva the birth report reads, gives Ketu: spirituality, detachment, moksha, past karma, intuition.

Ketu is one of the natural malefics in the site's table, with the Sun, Mars, Saturn and Rahu. Natural nature is only half the story: what a graha is for a particular chart depends on the houses it rules from that chart's Lagna, which each sign's page sets out.

Signs and dignities

In the classical scheme of sign lords, which the site follows, Ketu rules no sign. The birth report's interpretation says nothing of the nodes' dignities, on which the texts disagree; the site's table of dignities does list an exaltation and a fall for them, used where a strength or a dignity has to be named:

Friends and enemies

The natural friendships the site reckons with, from the table every dignity and strength is worked from (Parashara gives the nodes none of their own):

A planet in the sign of a friend is comfortable there, in an enemy's ill at ease; the sign pages list who is where.

Aspects, combustion and direction

The site casts no aspect from Ketu: aspects are by sign, every graha aspecting the seventh from it, and the nodes, being points rather than bodies, cast none.

In transit, counted from the Moon sign, the classical gochara table the site uses counts Ketu favourable in the 3rd, 6th and 11th houses.

Its dasha and its nakshatras

Ketu rules Ashwini, Magha and Mula, one in each third of the zodiac. Its period in the Vimshottari dasha lasts 7 years, of the cycle's 120; a person born with the Moon in one of its nakshatras begins life in it.

Ketu in the twelve signs

Varahamihira gives Ketu no reading in the signs: the Brihat Jataka reads the seven planets in each sign and leaves the nodes out, and the site writes none in its place.

Ketu in the twelve houses

The readings the birth report gives for Ketu in each house, counted from the Lagna:

In the 1st house. Ketu in the 1st house gives a detached, introspective and self-questioning nature; you appear enigmatic and are drawn inward towards spiritual identity.

In the 2nd house. Ketu in the 2nd house brings detachment from wealth and family ties and reserved, sometimes blunt speech; material security feels uncertain or unimportant.

In the 3rd house. Ketu in the 3rd house gives intuitive courage and unconventional communication; you act on instinct and may feel distant from siblings.

In the 4th house. Ketu in the 4th house brings detachment from home and a restless inner life; emotional roots feel uncertain, turning you towards inner or spiritual peace.

In the 5th house. Ketu in the 5th house gives intuitive, spiritual intelligence and detachment regarding children and romance; past-life wisdom surfaces in creativity and mantra.

In the 6th house. Ketu in the 6th house helps you overcome enemies and disease intuitively; you serve selflessly but should guard health, as ailments can be hard to diagnose.

In the 7th house. Ketu in the 7th house brings detachment in marriage and a karmic, spiritual quality to partnerships; you may feel unfulfilled by purely worldly union.

In the 8th house. Ketu in the 8th house deepens intuition into the occult, death and transformation; it grants psychic insight, sudden events and a research-oriented detachment.

In the 9th house. Ketu in the 9th house gives intuitive, non-dogmatic spirituality and detachment from conventional religion; you seek direct truth over inherited belief.

In the 10th house. Ketu in the 10th house brings detachment from worldly status and changeable ambition; you may leave a settled career to pursue meaning or service.

In the 11th house. Ketu in the 11th house brings detachment from gains and social circles; income and friendships fluctuate, and you care little for accumulation.

In the 12th house. Ketu in the 12th house is strongly placed for moksha, meditation and renunciation; you are naturally detached and inclined towards liberation and seclusion.

Observances

The tradition's observances for Ketu, as the site's reference lists them. Tuesday is its day and Lord Ganesha its deity. Its mantra is "Om Ketave Namah", and its beej mantra "Om Sraam Sreem Sraum Sah Ketave Namaha", recited 108 times. The customary gifts: donate multi-colored cloth or sesame; feed and care for dogs. Its stotra is the Ganesha Atharvashirsha.

Its stone is the Cat's Eye (Lehsunia). The site advises a stone only from a chart, never from a transit or a sign alone; a node has no Shadbala of its own, and its remedies page goes by the chart's own planets.

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