Retrograde (Vakri)

Retrogradation (Vakri) — a period when a planet moves "backward" relative to an observer on Earth. The name comes from the Sanskrit "vakri" — "crooked," "bent." Retrogradation is a real astronomical phenomenon, and Indian tradition reads it as a special period of a planet's influence.

Place in the system

Transits describe the current motion of the planets. Retrogradation is a period when a planet moves backward relative to an observer on Earth. Astronomically, this happens because of the difference in orbital speeds between Earth and the other planets.

Surya (the Sun) and Chandra (the Moon) are never vakri — they never move backward. Five tara-grahas go retrograde periodically: Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Guru (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus), and Shani (Saturn). Tradition holds Rahu and Ketu permanently vakri; calculated by the true rather than the mean node, they do have brief direct stretches.

In the tradition of the classical text (BPHS), a retrograde planet among the five tara-grahas gets maximum Cheshta Bala — one of the six components of a planet's strength — and is held to be strengthened; Shadbala, Cheshta Bala included, isn't calculated for Rahu and Ketu at all. A later, school-dependent reading is "vakri as a time of delay and reconsideration," described below.

Practical meaning

In the school-dependent reading, retrogradation is a period of return and reconsideration. Tradition holds that matters begun during a retrograde period may need redoing or a return to the start. But the same time is also good for going deeper, for meditation, for inner work.

The outward motion seems to slow, while the inward intensifies — a good time for self-examination.

In Indian folk practice, retrograde periods are a time when devout Hindus hold back from major worldly undertakings and deepen their spiritual practice.

In daily practice

In that same school reading, retrogradation is a time for inner work and for returning to what's already begun: this reading holds such periods better suited to reconsidering and finishing what's underway than to genuinely new steps.

Retrogradation also suits meditation: it's a time when the inward intensifies.

Retrogradation also suits reviving old projects: if you started something long ago and it stalled, retrogradation is a good time to return to it.

How much retrogradation is felt personally depends on which houses of the birth chart the retrograde graha rules, and whether the period falls within its mahadasha or antardasha.