Parvata literally means “mountainous.” The parvata yoga helps an interpretation that the native will “rise higher” than his or her peers and be notably distinguished.

Here’s how it’s formed:

1) A benefic must be in an angle.

[Benefics are Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus, in increasing order of magnitude. An angle is the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house.]

2) Malefics must not be in the 7th or 8th houses.

As always, judge the impact of the yoga based on the impact of the planets forming it. If the yoga forms by a planet without much impact in the horoscope, don’t interpret it as having much importance.

Meryl Streep

She’s got a benefic (Jupiter) in an angle (7th house), and she doesn’t have any malefics in the 7th or 8th houses. Her’s is a particularly clean and ideal form of the yoga. There are no other planets getting in the way. You could almost say that the only planet she has in an angle is a benefic. There is just the moon in house 10, exalted. Now look from the moon (chandra-lagna, lower left chart, above). Jupiter continues to form parvata yoga. It’s still in an angle (10th house) and there are still no malefics in the 7th or 8th (from the moon). This is a big sign that the yoga is strong. When a yoga exists both from the asc. and the moon, you can almost certainly interpret it as strong and important. Look at her navāṁśa (bottom right chart, above). Even there Jupiter remains in Parvata-yoga!

In addition look at the impact graph for her planets:

Jupiter is immensely important.

Paul McCartney

McCartney also has Parvata yoga. Mercury is in an angle (4th house), and no malefics in the 7th or 8th houses. It’s not a picturesque version of parvata, though, because Saturn and the Sun are with Mercury. In the moon’s chart (bottom left) Mercury does not continue to show parvata yoga, but Venus does – and its alone in its house. (Rahu and Ketu are not natural malefics or benefics, they are not to be counted in the scheme here).

So you might want to go out of your way to show that somehow these Parvata Yogas for McCartny must be important, since he is a super star, but actually his parvata yogas aren’t terribly important, they are average. It’s other yogas that make him a superstar. First of all, note that Mercury is not just in parvata yoga from the ascendant, its also in Mahāpuruṣa Yoga (“Outstanding person” – because it is in its own sign in an angle). And the same is true for Venus in the chandra lagna. Its not just in parvata yoga, its also in mahāpuruṣa yoga (its in Taurus in the 10th from the moon).

And most of all, on the Parāśarī rule that when Rahu or Ketu is an angle strongly aspected by a trine lord, or in a trine strongly aspected by an angle lord, there is rāja-yoga (“kingship”). McCartney has Ketu extremely influential in the first house very close to the ascendent (birth time is not exact, it could likely be even closer to the ascendant than shown here). The first house is both an angle and trine. Ketu in the first as an angle is very strongly aspected by Mars, the lord of the trine 9th house. And Ketu in the first as a trine is very strongly aspected by Jupiter, the lord of the angles 1 and 10. And what this amounts two is that he has both the 9th and 10th lord aspecting the ascendant, another cause for delcaring rāja-yoga. So he has a super-mega-hyper rāja-yoga in the first house on the ascendant, and that’s really the defining feature of this chart, far outclassing the parvata or mahapuruṣa yogas in importance (though they certainly also contribute to the interpretation).

Bill Gates

Here is another example of parvata yoga. A benefic (Mercury) is in an angle, and there are no malefics in the 7th or 8th houses. There is no such parvata yoga in the chandra lagna. In the navāṁśa Jupiter has parvata-yoga.

Like McCartney, this is a case where we shouldn’t stretch the importance of parvata yoga just because it happens to be the yoga we’re studying right now. I believe the raja-yogas formed in the 4th and 5th house and 4th and 10th houses are much more impactful, as well as the kalpadruma-yoga (wish-fulfillment). The raja and kalpadruma yogas are particularly important because they involve the 1st lord in the 10th house, as the most impactful planet in the horoscope.

– Vic DiCara

VicDiCara.com