Chara Kārakas: Your Soul Planet and Its Ministers
How Jaimini astrology ranks your planets by degree to find your soul planet (ātmakāraka) and the six planets that serve it.
A different way to pick the most important planet
Most astrology answers the question "which planet matters most for me?" by looking at the sign rising at birth and the planet that rules it. The sage Jaimini, and the chapter on kārakas in the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra (BPHS), add a second answer that has nothing to do with signs or houses. It looks only at how far each planet has travelled through the sign it is in.
The planet that has travelled furthest becomes your ātmakāraka, the "significator of the self", often called the soul planet. The next one down becomes its minister, and so on down a ladder of seven roles. Because this ladder changes from one person to the next, these are called chara kārakas: "movable" significators, as opposed to fixed ones that are the same for everyone.
This article explains how the ladder is built, what each rung describes, and how to read it without needing to learn astrology first.
How the planets are ranked
The rule is simple, and it is stated in BPHS 33.3–5 and in the Jaimini Upadeśa Sūtra (JS 1.1.10):
Which planets are counted? BPHS 33.1 allows "from the Sun to Saturn, or up to Rahu", and 33.2 explains when Rahu joins in: only when two planets stand at the same degree. The site follows that rule. Normally it ranks the seven planets Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Only if two of them share the same degree, minute and second does it add Rahu and use eight roles. Because Rahu moves backward, its degree is counted from the end of the sign (30° minus its position, BPHS 33.6). Ketu is never a kāraka.
You will meet astrologers who always use eight kārakas. That is a real school of thought, not an error, but it is a convention: the site states which rule it applied in your report so you can compare.
The seven roles
| Kāraka | Planet rank | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Ātmakāraka (AK) | 1st, highest degree | You: the soul, the self, what you are here to work through |
| Amātyakāraka (AmK) | 2nd | The minister: career, counsel, the people and paths that serve your aims |
| Bhrātṛkāraka (BK) | 3rd | Brothers and sisters, courage |
| Mātṛkāraka (MK) | 4th | The mother, home |
| Putrakāraka (PK) | 5th | Children, creativity |
| Jñātikāraka (GK) | 6th | Relatives, rivals and obstacles |
| Dārakāraka (DK) | 7th, lowest degree | The spouse and close partners |
These names come from BPHS 33.13–15 and JS 1.1.12–17. The texts are not perfectly tidy: BPHS names a father kāraka too, and 33.16 notes that some authorities merge the mother and children roles. The site uses the common seven-role order above and adds a pitṛkāraka (father) only when Rahu is counted.
The soul planet as a king
BPHS 33.7–12 compares the ātmakāraka to a king. A king's ministers and sons carry out his orders; in the same way, the other kārakas give their results through the ātmakāraka. If the king is well placed, the others cannot do much harm; if he is badly placed, they struggle to do good. The Jaimini sūtra adds that the ātmakāraka "presides over bondage and release" (JS 1.1.11): it shows what ties you down and what sets you free.
In practice this means the ātmakāraka is read first. Its sign, the planets with it, and especially its position in the navāṁśa (the ninefold division of the chart) set the tone for everything else. That last point has its own name, the kārakāṁśa, and its own article in this series.
The fixed kārakas
Alongside the movable ladder, BPHS 33.18–21 lists sthira (fixed) kārakas, the same for everyone. For the father, take the stronger of the Sun and Venus; for the mother, the stronger of the Moon and Mars. Mars also describes younger siblings, Mercury maternal relatives, Jupiter the paternal grandfather, Venus the husband, Saturn a son, and Ketu the spouse's parents. The site measures "stronger" with Ṣaḍbala, the six-fold strength score, and BPHS 33.16–17 says the fixed kārakas take over a role if two movable kārakas tie.
A worked example
Take the site's sample chart: born 25 December 1990 at 03:20 in Paris, Libra rising. Here are the seven planets ranked by degree within their signs:
| Planet | Sign | Degree in sign | Kāraka |
|---|---|---|---|
| Venus | Sagittarius | 22°20′ | Ātmakāraka |
| Jupiter | Cancer | 18°51′ | Amātyakāraka |
| Sun | Sagittarius | 9°17′ | Bhrātṛkāraka |
| Moon | Pisces | 8°49′ | Mātṛkāraka |
| Mercury | Sagittarius | 7°25′ | Putrakāraka |
| Mars | Taurus | 4°23′ | Jñātikāraka |
| Saturn | Capricorn | 1°08′ | Dārakāraka |
No two planets share a degree, so the seven-kāraka rule applies and Venus is the soul planet. Venus also rules the rising sign, Libra, so the "who I am" of the ascendant and the "who I am" of Jaimini point to the same planet, a theme worth noting. Jupiter, the minister, sits in the 10th house of career. Saturn, the slowest-moving planet, is the dārakāraka in its own sign.
Notice what would change under the eight-kāraka convention. Rahu is at 5°46′ Capricorn; counted backward that is 24°14′, higher than Venus. An astrologer who always counts Rahu would call Rahu the soul planet here. This is exactly why the site tells you which rule it used.
Does my birth time need to be exact?
Less than for most techniques. The planets move slowly, so an error of a few minutes rarely swaps their order. The exception is the Moon, which moves about half a degree an hour. If your Moon sits within a quarter of a degree of a neighbouring planet, roughly thirty minutes of birth-time error could swap their roles, and the site flags it. In the example the Sun and Moon are about half a degree apart, so the order holds for an error of up to about an hour.
In your own chart
Your report lists your seven (or eight) kārakas with their degrees, says which rule was applied and why, and flags any pair close enough to swap. Start with your ātmakāraka: its sign and companions describe the core of the person, and the rest of the ladder fills in the people around you. Calculate your chart to see your own ladder.