THE BLOG · THE CHART DESK
planetary friendship is not mutual
the moon counts mercury as a friend. mercury counts the moon as an enemy. that asymmetry is real, it is in the classical tables, and it is one of two friendship systems that combine into five levels. here is all of it.
here is a detail that tells u something about how carefully this system was built.
the moon counts mercury as a friend. mercury counts the moon as an enemy.
that is not an error in a table somewhere. it falls straight out of the derivation, it has been preserved for centuries, and it is the clearest sign that these relationships were computed rather than invented.
the short version
- naisargika maitri is permanent friendship, the same in every chart. it decides how a graha behaves in someone else's sign.
- it is derived from mooltrikona positions, which is why it is stable and why it is sometimes not mutual.
- tatkalika maitri is temporal, and depends on where the grahas actually sit in ur chart.
- combine the two and u get panchadha maitri, five levels from great friend to great enemy.
- friendship sits in the middle of the dignity ladder, between own sign and debilitation.
- the moon has no natural enemies. it is the only graha in that position.
quick facts
- Sanskrit
- Maitri, friendship. Naisargika (natural), Tatkalika (temporal), Panchadha (five-fold).
- What it governs
- How comfortably a graha operates in a sign it does not own.
- Natural table
- Fixed. Identical in every chart ever cast.
- Temporal table
- Chart-specific. Depends on house distance between two grahas.
- Combined result
- Five levels: adhimitra, mitra, sama, shatru, adhishatru.
- Derived from
- Each graha's mooltrikona sign and the signs around it.
- Not applicable to
- Rahu and Ketu in the standard table, since they own no signs.
- Only graha with no enemies
- The Moon.
the natural friendship table
Naisargika maitri is fixed for every chart. Each graha has friends, enemies and neutrals, and the classification decides how comfortably it can operate when placed in a sign belonging to somebody else.
| graha | friends | neutral | enemies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Moon, Mars, Jupiter | Mercury | Venus, Saturn |
| Moon | Sun, Mercury | Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn | none |
| 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 across the saturn row and something clicks. saturn is friendly with mercury and venus, the two grahas of method and fairness, and hostile to the sun, moon and mars, the three of ego, mood and impulse. those are exactly the three things saturn spends its life restricting.
and the venus row explains a pairing that confuses people: saturn and venus are mutual friends, which is why saturn is the yogakaraka for both venus-ruled ascendants.
why it is not always mutual
Friendship is calculated separately for each graha from its own mooltrikona position, so there is no requirement that two grahas agree about each other. Three pairs in the table are asymmetric.
| pair | A thinks B is | B thinks A is |
|---|---|---|
| Moon and Mercury | a friend | an enemy |
| Moon and Venus | neutral | an enemy |
| Moon and Saturn | neutral | an enemy |
| Mars and Mercury | an enemy | neutral |
| Sun and Mercury | neutral | a friend |
the moon is the interesting one. it has no enemies at all, and three grahas treat it as one. the mind is well disposed toward everything, and analysis, desire and discipline all find the mind inconvenient.
whether or not u find that poetic, it is a real feature of the tables and it is worth knowing before someone tells u a friendship is mutual when it is not.
where the table comes from
Natural friendship is derived from each graha's mooltrikona sign. Grahas ruling the signs in the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 12th from it count as friends. The rest count as enemies. Any graha that qualifies as both, counted from mooltrikona and from the exaltation sign, comes out neutral.
this is why the table is stable across sources. it is not a list of opinions, it is the output of a rule, and anyone can recompute it.
worked example with the sun, whose mooltrikona is simha.
- count the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 12th from simha: kanya, vrishchika, dhanu, meena, mesha, karka.
- the lords of those are mercury, mars, jupiter, jupiter, mars, moon.
- so mars, jupiter and the moon are friends. mercury appears once here and again in the exaltation-based count, which lands it as neutral.
- everything not on that list, venus and saturn, comes out as an enemy.
which matches the table exactly. and it explains why the relationships are not symmetric: each graha has a different mooltrikona, so each is counting from a different starting point. the mooltrikona table is here.
temporal friendship
Tatkalika maitri depends on the chart. Grahas sitting in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th house from each other are temporary friends. Those in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th from each other are temporary enemies.
the logic is proximity. six houses either side of a graha, counted close, are its neighbours. the six further away are not.
| houses apart | relationship |
|---|---|
| 2nd, 3rd, 4th | temporary friend |
| 10th, 11th, 12th | temporary friend |
| 1st (same sign) | temporary enemy |
| 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th | temporary enemy |
the first row of enemies surprises people: two grahas in the same sign are temporary enemies. the classical reading is that a shared house means competition for the same space, which is a very different idea from a conjunction being a partnership.
and unlike natural friendship, this one is always mutual, because house distance is symmetric. if a is in the 3rd from b, b is in the 11th from a, and both of those are friendly.
the five-fold combination
Panchadha maitri combines the two tables into five levels: adhimitra (great friend), mitra (friend), sama (neutral), shatru (enemy) and adhishatru (great enemy).
| natural | temporal | combined | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| friend | friend | Adhimitra | great friend |
| neutral | friend | Mitra | friend |
| friend | enemy | Sama | neutral |
| enemy | friend | Sama | neutral |
| neutral | enemy | Shatru | enemy |
| enemy | enemy | Adhishatru | great enemy |
notice the two middle rows. a natural friend that is a temporal enemy, and a natural enemy that is a temporal friend, both land on neutral. the system lets the chart-specific relationship cancel the permanent one in either direction, which is a genuinely balanced piece of design.
this five-fold result is what feeds into the dignity ladder, which most practitioners order like this, strongest first: exalted, mooltrikona, own sign, adhimitra's sign, mitra's sign, sama, shatru's sign, adhishatru's sign, debilitated.
how to actually use it
The practical application is the dispositor check: find the lord of the sign a graha sits in, and ask whether they are friends. It takes seconds and it is one of the highest-value reads available to a beginner.
run it in this order:
- pick a graha that matters. ur lagna lord is the usual choice. see why.
- find its dispositor. the lord of whatever sign it is sitting in.
- check the natural table. friend, neutral or enemy?
- check the temporal one. how many houses apart are they in this chart?
- combine. that gives u the level, and with it a real sense of whether the graha is on hospitable ground.
worked case. mars in kanya. kanya is ruled by mercury, and mars counts mercury as an enemy. so mars is operating in hostile territory: force in the sign of fussy analysis, which usually reads as irritable precision rather than clean drive.
second case. saturn in tula. tula is ruled by venus, and saturn and venus are mutual friends. saturn is also exalted there. that is about as comfortable as saturn ever gets, and it is why the exaltation sits where it does.
myths, one at a time
Planetary friendship is always mutual.
It is not. The moon counts mercury a friend while mercury counts the moon an enemy, and several other pairs disagree.
Two planets in the same sign are working together.
In the temporal table, grahas in the same sign are temporary enemies. Sharing a house is competition for the same space.
The friendship table is a matter of opinion.
It is derived from mooltrikona sign positions by a stated rule, which is exactly why sources agree on it.
A planet in an enemy's sign is ruined.
Enemy's sign sits between neutral and debilitated on the ladder. It describes discomfort, and the temporal table can cancel it up to neutral.
Rahu and Ketu have friends and enemies too.
Not in the standard naisargika table, because they own no signs. They are read through their dispositor and their companions instead.
Natural friendship is the only one that matters.
The five-fold combination is what practitioners actually use, and the temporal table can shift a relationship by a full level in either direction.
faq
what is planetary friendship in vedic astrology?
a classification of how comfortable each graha is in another's sign. naisargika maitri is the permanent version, fixed for every chart, and it decides how well a graha functions when it sits in territory somebody else owns.
is planetary friendship mutual?
often, but not always. the moon counts mercury as a friend while mercury counts the moon as an enemy. the tables are derived separately for each graha, so asymmetry is built in.
how is natural friendship derived?
from each graha's mooltrikona sign. grahas whose signs fall in the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 12th from it are friends, the rest are enemies, and those that qualify both ways come out neutral.
what is temporal friendship?
tatkalika maitri, which depends on the chart. grahas in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th house from each other are temporary friends. those in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th are temporary enemies.
what is panchadha maitri?
the five-fold friendship, made by combining the natural and temporal tables. the five levels are adhimitra, mitra, sama, shatru and adhishatru: great friend, friend, neutral, enemy, great enemy.
why does friendship matter?
because a graha in a friend's sign functions comfortably and one in an enemy's sign does not. it sits in the middle of the dignity ladder, between own sign and debilitation.
does the moon have any enemies?
no. in the standard naisargika table the moon counts the sun and mercury as friends and everything else as neutral. it is the only graha with no natural enemy.
who is saturn friendly with?
mercury and venus. it counts the sun, moon and mars as enemies and jupiter as neutral. that pattern lines up neatly with saturn being a yogakaraka for the two venus-ruled ascendants.
what is a dispositor?
the lord of the sign a graha sits in. checking whether a graha is a friend of its own dispositor is one of the quickest useful reads in a chart.
where does friendship sit in the dignity ladder?
the usual ordering, strongest first, is exalted, mooltrikona, own sign, great friend's sign, friend's sign, neutral, enemy's sign, great enemy's sign, debilitated.
do the friendship tables apply to rahu and ketu?
not in the standard naisargika table, because the nodes own no signs. practitioners generally read them through their dispositor and their companions instead.
do all texts give the same friendship table?
the naisargika table is broadly consistent across sources, with minor variation. the derivation from mooltrikona is what makes it stable, since it follows from sign positions rather than opinion.
read next
- exalted and debilitated planets the two ends of the ladder friendship sits in the middle of.
- benefic and malefic, properly explained the other classification that needs ur lagna.
- the nine grahas explained the whole cast, and what each wants.
- what planetary combustion actually is the condition that overrides all of this.
- how to read ur kundli, step by step where the dispositor check belongs.