Retrograde, Combust & Dignity Check

What this tool answers

A planet’s strength in Vedic astrology is not fixed. The same graha that gives freely from its own sign can be scorched into silence a month later by sitting too near the Sun. Classical texts track this through two independent axes, and this tool searches both at once:

• Condition — is the planet combust (too close to the Sun) or retrograde (apparently moving backwards)? These depend on where the planet is relative to the Sun and to Earth, and can arrive in any sign.
• Dignity — is it exalted, debilitated, in its own sign, or in moolatrikona? These depend only on the degree it occupies.

Both are date questions rather than chart questions. “Is Mercury combust in my chart” is answered by a birth chart; “when is Mercury combust” needs a search across time, which is what this page does.

Combustion (Asta) — the degrees used

Combustion, also called Asta, Lope, Moudhya or Moudyami, is measured as angular separation from the Sun. The orbs below come from the Surya Siddhanta and are the ones this site computes against. Mercury and Venus take a tighter orb when retrograde, because a retrograde inferior planet is on the near side of the Sun and is judged more strictly.

The Sun cannot be combust by its own light. The Moon is deliberately excluded here: a Sun–Moon conjunction is Amavasya, a tithi and a phase of the lunar month rather than a scorching, and it belongs in the Panchang tools. Some publishers do list a 12° Moon figure, so this is a doctrinal choice rather than a universal one — stated plainly so you know which convention you are reading.

Dignity — exaltation, debilitation, own sign and moolatrikona

Dignity is a degree band, not a whole sign. That distinction matters far more than it first appears: the Moon is exalted only across the first 3° of Taurus, which at roughly 13° of motion a day is about five and a half hours a month — not the two and a quarter days it spends in the sign. A page that labels the whole visit “exalted” overstates it by roughly ten to one.

Where a sign carries more than one band, the tool shows each with its own start and end time. Mercury in Virgo is the clearest case: exalted to 15°, moolatrikona from 15° to 20°, then its own sign for the remaining ten degrees — three distinct windows inside one visit.

Why some states are greyed out

Not every state can occur for every graha, and the tool disables rather than hides those so the reason is visible:

• Sun — cannot be combust by its own light, and never appears retrograde from Earth.
• Moon — never retrograde; its Sun conjunction is Amavasya, as above.
• Rahu and Ketu — shadow points rather than bodies. They own no sign, so neither own-sign nor moolatrikona applies; they are permanently retrograde, so isolating a retrograde window would return the whole range; and they are not treated as combust here.

True node or mean node?

The lunar nodes can be computed two ways, and the answer differs by roughly ten days at a sign change. The mean node moves at a smooth average rate; the true node tracks the actual oscillating intersection, which wobbles about ±1.3° around the mean at only ~0.05° a day.

This site’s charts and Dasha calculations use the true node. Most printed Indian panchangs quote the mean node. Neither is wrong — they answer slightly different questions — so the tool offers both and labels which one produced the dates you are looking at.

Reading the result

• Each card is one sign visit, with its ingress and egress times.
• Dignity bands break the visit at each degree boundary the planet crosses.
• Special State rows show retrograde and combust windows. Where the two overlap, the overlap is its own row — a planet that is both is in a materially different condition from one that is merely either.
• The Matched chips above each card say which of your selected states put it in the results.
• Times are shown on your chosen location’s clock. The states themselves are geocentric and identical worldwide — only the wall clock changes.

Every figure comes from the Swiss Ephemeris under the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, the same engine behind this site’s charts, so a date found here will agree with the corresponding transit page to the second.

Related checks

• Transits hub — live positions and per-planet timelines for all nine grahas.
• Full Birth Chart — whether a planet is combust, retrograde or dignified in your chart rather than in the sky today.

Per-planet hubs, each with its own live tracker, date lookup and peyarchi timeline:

• Sun Transit — never retrograde and never combust; exalted in Aries, debilitated in Libra.
• Moon Transit — exalted only across the first 3° of Taurus — about five and a half hours a month.
• Mercury Transit — the busiest of the nine here: combust within 14° (12° retrograde), retrograde roughly three times a year.
• Venus Transit — combust within 10° (8° retrograde); retrogrades about every 19 months.
• Mars Transit — the widest combustion orb at 17°; retrogrades roughly every two years.
• Jupiter Transit — combust within 11°, and retrograde around four months of every year.
• Saturn Transit — combust within 15°, retrograde about four and a half months a year.
• Rahu Transit — a shadow point — permanently retrograde, never combust, exalted in Taurus.
• Ketu Transit — the opposite node, exalted in Scorpio; true and mean positions differ by roughly ten days.