Ketu

Ketu in the 10th House
Ketu in the 10th house, by Phaladeepika and Lal Kitab

What Ketu gives in the 10th house by Lal Kitab and by Phaladeepika, its upay, the houses it looks at from there, and what it means for each lagna.

CareerLal Kitab
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Ketu in the 10th house; the top square is the 1st, the lagna

Ketu in the 10th house causes sudden career changes, detachment from authority, and an unconventional profession.

Lal Kitab: a hard placement

Lal Kitab reads Ketu in the 10th house by the house, not by your lagna; Parashara’s view for your own lagna is further down, and Phaladeepika may differ. How Lal Kitab and Parashara differ · Lal Kitab: pakka ghar, rin and upay

Lal Kitab upay

Keep a pet dog or feed stray dogs. Donate brown/grey items.

This is Lal Kitab’s one upay for Ketu in the 10th house, offered to ease its harder side; it is a suggestion, and your whole kundli may call for another. All upay for Ketu

What Phaladeepika says

Mantreswara, Adhyaya 8, sloka 32

Phaladeepika 8.32 holds that Ketu in the 10th house (the house of career and status) puts obstacles in the way of good deeds and draws a person to impure or base acts. Yet the text also describes energy, boldness and wide renown.

How much of this holds turns on the rest of the chart: the rashi Ketu sits in, the 10th house’s lord and the grahas with it or looking at it. The old texts speak of a man; their readings apply to anyone.

Brihat Jataka gives no reading for Rahu or Ketu in a house: Varahamihira reads the seven grahas, the Sun to Saturn.

When Ketu in the 10th house shows, and where it looks

Its results show most in Ketu’s own mahadasha (7 years) and in its antardashas inside the others. The 10th house’s matters also come forward in the periods of the house’s lord, which depends on your lagna.

Its drishti (a graha’s glance: the houses it looks at feel its influence) from the 10th, by the rules our kundli reading weighs houses with:

  • on your 2nd house (money saved): weighs on it
  • on your 4th house (mother): weighs on it
  • on your 6th house (illness): is not counted against it there, an upachaya (the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th houses, which grow better with time and effort)

The 10th house, Karma bhava, rules career, status, reputation and authority; it is a kendra (one of the four angles of the chart, the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses, where a graha acts with most force) and an upachaya; its karaka (the graha that naturally signifies a house’s matters, whatever the lagna) is Budh, Surya, Guru, Shani. The 10th house, and every graha in it

Ketu in the 10th house, for each lagna

the rashi it sits in, and that rashi’s lord
LagnaKetu sits inThat rashi’s lordWhich is, for this lagna
Mesh (Aries)Makar (Capricorn)ShaniMalefic
Vrishabh (Taurus)Kumbh (Aquarius)ShaniYogakaraka
Mithun (Gemini)Meen (Pisces)GuruMalefic— lord of the 7th, but the killer the verse names for this lagna is Chandra (34.25–26)
Kark (Cancer)Mesh (Aries)MangalYogakaraka
Singh (Leo)Vrishabh (Taurus)ShukraMalefic
Kanya (Virgo)Mithun (Gemini)BudhBenefic · Yoga— gives yoga together with Shukra (34.32)
Tula (Libra)Kark (Cancer)ChandraNeutral · Yoga— gives yoga together with Budh (34.34)
Vrishchik (Scorpio)Singh (Leo)SuryaYogakaraka— as the verse names it, together with Chandra, the 9th lord (34.35–36)
Dhanu (Sagittarius)Kanya (Virgo)BudhBenefic · Yoga— gives yoga together with Surya (34.38)— lord of the 7th, but the killers the verse names for this lagna are Shani and Shukra (34.37–38)
Makar (Capricorn)Tula (Libra)ShukraYogakaraka
Kumbh (Aquarius)Vrishchik (Scorpio)MangalMalefic · Maraka— lord of the 3rd and 10th, not the 2nd or 7th; the verse names it a killer all the same (34.41–42)
Meen (Pisces)Dhanu (Sagittarius)GuruBenefic · Yoga— gives yoga together with Mangal (34.44)

Ketu is counted the lord of no house, so it gives the results of the rashi it sits in and of that rashi’s lord. Where that lord is good for your lagna, Ketu here leans good. Parashara says the same: Ketu gives mostly the results of the bhava it sits in and of the bhava lord it joins (BPHS 34.16), and in a kendra, joined or seen by the lord of a kendra or a trikona (the 1st, 5th and 9th houses, the houses of fortune), it becomes a yogakaraka, a graha that lifts the chart (34.17). The tradition’s “Kujavat Ketu” adds that Ketu acts like Mangal; Phaladeepika says so too (8.34). With all seven other grahas between Rahu and Ketu, a kundli is read for Kaal Sarp dosha.

The labels, from Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, chapter 34:

  • Yogakaraka: the strongest graha a lagna can have: the one Parashara names as bringing yoga, or the one lord of both a kendra (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) and a trikona (1st, 5th, 9th) (34.13)
  • Benefic, Malefic, Neutral: works for the lagna; brings its harder matters; neither
  • Lagna lord: the lagna’s own graha, where the verse calls it neither good nor hard
  • Maraka: a killer Parashara names for the lagna, watched for health and longevity; printed alone, or after another label. It is not always the lord of the 2nd or 7th: where it differs, the line under it gives the verse
  • · Yoga: one of two grahas he says give yoga together for this lagna

Ketu in the 10th house: where it leans good, and where hard

by the rashi’s lord, from the table above
Leans goodVrishabh, Kark, Kanya, Vrishchik, Dhanu, Makar and Meen lagna, where the rashi’s lord is benefic or a yogakaraka
Leans hardMesh, Mithun, Singh and Kumbh lagna, where the rashi’s lord is a malefic or a maraka

Ketu passing through the 10th from your Moon

the gochar of Ketu, not the birth chart

Not the birth placement above: here Ketu is moving through the 10th counted from your Moon rashi. Phaladeepika counts the 10th among Ketu’s good transit houses (all twelve, on the Ketu page). Our Monthly Prediction reads it as good: steady progress at work, success in what you take on, quiet authority.

Ketu in the other bhavas

Other grahas in the 10th house

Is Ketu in the 10th house in your kundli?Astro Vyasa reads it with your lagna, its rashi and your dasha.

Common questions

3 questions
Is Ketu in the 10th house good?

Lal Kitab counts it a hard placement; Ketu does well in the 9th, 11th and 12th. How it works out depends on the rashi it sits in and on your lagna.

What is the Lal Kitab upay for Ketu in the 10th house?

Lal Kitab’s upay for it: Keep a pet dog or feed stray dogs; donate brown/grey items.

Which houses does Ketu look at from the 10th?

The 2nd (money saved), 4th (mother) and 6th (illness).

A graha reads the same for everybody. Your chart does not.

Where each graha sits in your kundli, which bhavas it rules for your lagna and which dasha is running decide what it does for you. Make your free kundli to see all nine.

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