01What is Bhakoot in kundli matching?
Bhakoot, also written Bhakut or Rasi koota, is the seventh of the eight kootas and worth 7 points. It compares the two Moon signs by counting from one to the other round the zodiac. Count from the girl's rashi to the boy's and back again, and the two numbers always add to fourteen: 1 and 1, 2 and 12, 3 and 11, 4 and 10, 5 and 9, 6 and 8, or 7 and 7. The texts read three of those pairs as a dosha and award nothing; every other count takes the full seven. The rashi here is the Moon's sign, never the Sun's, and it comes from the birth date, time and place rather than from a name.
02What do 6/8, 2/12 and 5/9 mean?
Each pair has a Sanskrit name and a reading the texts attach to it, and the report gives the reading in those terms.
Shadashtaka, the 6/8 count
One Moon sign is the sixth from the other and the eighth back. The texts read the sixth and the eighth as the houses of friction and of upheaval, and this is the pair they weigh heaviest of the three. The Muhurta Pradipa's named pairs below are mostly 6/8 pairs.
Dwirdwadasha, the 2/12 count
The second from one side and the twelfth from the other. The texts read it as one partner's gain being the other's outlay, an imbalance of giving rather than a clash of natures, and it is the pair most often set aside by the lords rule.
Navapanchama, the 5/9 count
The fifth and the ninth, which are elsewhere the best of houses. The texts still count it as Bhakoot dosha, but several of them read it in one direction only, as the next section explains, so the report states which way it counted.
03Which Bhakoot cancellations do the texts give?
Four are classical, and the report names the text beside each one it applies. The rule every text shares is read from the lords of the two Moon signs: the same lord, or two lords in natural friendship, sets the dosha aside. The Muhurta Pradipa names particular pairs of rashis for which the count is disregarded, chiefly the pairs that share a lord: Mesha with Vrischika, Vrishabha with Tula, Makara with Kumbha. The Kala Prakasika sets the dosha aside when the two rashis stand in a vashya relation, one amenable to the other on the vashya table the second koota uses. The Jyotih Prakasha reads the 5/9 count in one direction only, so the same two signs are a dosha counted one way and clean counted the other; the report says which way it counted and why. No cancellation is applied without its text.
04Why do two websites disagree about Bhakoot dosha?
Because they stop at different points. One site counts the signs and stops. Another applies the lords rule. A third applies the Muhurta Pradipa pairs or the Kala Prakasika vashya rule as well, and a fourth reads the 5/9 count in the Jyotih Prakasha's direction. Each is following a text, and the texts do not all agree. The honest answer is not a single number but a number with its rule beside it, which is what the report gives: the count, the dosha if it stands, and the cancellation with the name of the text it comes from. Then a reader can see where another site's figure comes from rather than wondering which is right.
05Is Bhakoot dosha the same as Rasi porutham?
They are the same comparison in two traditions. The southern almanacs run the same count between the two Moon signs as Rasi porutham, read 2/12 and 6/8 as not met and 4/10 as mixed, and add Rasi Adhipathi porutham for the lords, which is the northern lords rule under its own name. Several of the same texts, the Kala Prakasika among them, are quoted on both sides. The Rajju and Vedha check gives the southern reading of the same two charts beside the northern one.
06What remedies does the tradition prescribe for Bhakoot dosha?
Less than is claimed for it. The texts give no ritual specific to Bhakoot dosha, and it is worth saying so plainly, since the shanti sold under that name is a modern label. What the tradition prescribes where the dosha stands is a shanti of the lords of the two Moon signs, the grahas whose relation the cancellation rule turns on, or the Navagraha shanti that propitiates all nine together. We list these because they are what the tradition prescribes, not as a prescription of our own. No effect of any of them has been measured or demonstrated, and nothing here is sold. The texts' own first step is the cancellations above: a shared or friendly lord closes the question before any shanti is considered, and the report checks it first.
07What will this page not tell you?
It will not say what is going to happen to two people. Bhakoot is a count between two signs read against one table, and the classical writers who set the table down read it beside the whole chart, never alone. The report gives both rashis, the count, the dosha if it stands and the text behind any cancellation, with the other seven kootas, both Mangal checks and the southern checks beside it. Where the reading is unfavourable the tradition's instruction is a chart reading, and the report repeats it rather than improving on it.
