Jupiter Retrograde Dates

Jupiter turns retrograde once a year and stays so for about four months. The motion is apparent, caused by the Earth passing Jupiter on the inside. From here the guru seems to walk back over ground already covered. Jyotish calls this vakra, and treats a retrograde Jupiter as a strong Jupiter that gives late and from within.

Parashara's shadbala grants a retrograde graha full chesta bala. Uttara Kalamrita counts a vakri graha as strong as an exalted one. By the same rule a retrograde Jupiter in fall is read as freed of its debility. The tradition treats a retrograde benefic as a giver of more good, with results delayed, repeated or turned inward.

Jupiter's fields are wisdom, teachers, children, wealth, dharma, law and faith, and during the retrograde these are reconsidered. A teacher's advice given months earlier returns with new meaning. A decision about study, marriage or children is revisited, and money expected is delayed and often arrives larger. Faith is tested by a question one had thought settled.

Count the house from the Moon and from the lagna; that names the field. Phaladeepika's favourable houses for Jupiter are the second, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh, and a retrograde in one of them repeats a blessing. In the eighth or twelfth it brings a lesson learnt through loss.

What is shown is how one holds wisdom that has already been given. Jupiter retrograde returns the same teaching until it is understood from the inside. A person who studies during this period learns more than in the direct motion that follows.

The remedy is to go back to the teacher. Reread a text already studied, honour the guru on Thursday, and give yellow cloth and gram as Parashara prescribes for Jupiter. Recite Om Brihaspataye Namah. Decisions about marriage and children can wait for the direct motion.