Jupiter Retrograde Dates

Jupiter turns retrograde once a year and stays retrograde for about four months. The motion is apparent: the Earth passes Jupiter on the inside, and from here Jupiter seems to move back over ground it has already covered. Jyotish calls this vakra, and reads 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, and by the same rule a retrograde Jupiter in its fall is read as freed of its debility. The tradition treats a retrograde benefic as giving more good, with the results delayed, repeated or turned inward.

Jupiter's fields come up for review during the retrograde: wisdom, teachers, children, wealth, dharma, law and faith. Advice a teacher gave months earlier returns with a new meaning. A decision about study, marriage or children gets revisited. Expected money is delayed and often arrives larger, and a question one thought settled tests faith again.

Count the house from the Moon and from the lagna to name the field. Phaladeepika's favourable houses for Jupiter are the second, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh, and a retrograde there repeats a blessing. In the eighth or twelfth, the lesson comes through loss.

The same teaching keeps returning until it is understood from the inside. Study done during these months pays more than study in the direct motion that follows.

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, and let decisions about marriage and children wait for the direct motion.