योगकारक Yogakāraka

A yogakaraka is a single planet that rules both a pillar house and a fortune house for a given ascendant — power and luck in one hand. Five ascendants have one, and it becomes that chart's premier planet. Normally a raja yoga needs two planets — an angle lord and a trine lord — to join forces. A yogakaraka carries both roles inside itself, so it is a raja yoga standing on a single pair of legs: wherever it goes it brings power and grace together. For the charts that have one — Mars for Cancer and Leo risings, Saturn for Taurus and Libra, Venus for Capricorn and Aquarius — this planet becomes the one to watch above all others. Its strength and placement colour the whole life, its major period is often the making of the chart, and even a planet that is a natural malefic, like Mars or Saturn, turns into that person's great benefactor. When astrologers speak of a chart having a clear 'key planet', a yogakaraka is usually what they mean.