Which Planets Are Friends and Enemies? The Complete Table

In Vedic astrology each of the seven classical planets keeps a fixed list of friends, neutrals, and enemies. The Sun counts the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter as friends, Mercury as neutral, and Venus and Saturn as enemies. The Moon befriends the Sun and Mercury and calls no planet an enemy. Mars befriends the Sun, Moon, and Jupiter and opposes only Mercury. Mercury befriends the Sun and Venus and opposes only the Moon. Jupiter befriends the Sun, Moon, and Mars and opposes Mercury and Venus. Venus befriends Mercury and Saturn and opposes the Sun and Moon. Saturn befriends Mercury and Venus and opposes the Sun, Moon, and Mars.

These are the natural relationships, naisargika maitri, fixed and identical in every chart. This page is the full table with every planet's row explained. For why the system exists at all, and how this fixed layer combines with the chart-specific temporary layer, see how planetary friendships work.

The complete friend and enemy table

Each row reads from that planet's own point of view: who it befriends, who leaves it indifferent, who it opposes. The table is given in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra and carried again in the Phaladeepika.

How to use the table

When a planet sits in another planet's sign, look up the visiting planet's row, not the owner's. Mars in Sagittarius, for example: Sagittarius belongs to Jupiter, and Mars's row lists Jupiter as a friend, so Mars sits in a friend's sign and works with ease.

The direction matters because the rows are not symmetric. Saturn in Cancer is an enemy placement, since Saturn opposes the Moon; the Moon in Capricorn or Aquarius is merely neutral, since the Moon opposes no one. Same pair of planets, two different welcomes, depending on who is visiting whom.

The seven planets, one by one

The rows make more sense as characters than as lists. The classical image is a royal court: the Sun its king, the Moon its queen, Mars the commander, Mercury the prince, Jupiter and Venus the ministers, Saturn the servant. Each planet's friendships follow its station and temperament.

The Sun befriends the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter, stays neutral toward Mercury, and opposes Venus and Saturn. The king keeps warm, noble company and cools toward the planets of pleasure and toil.

The Moon befriends the Sun and Mercury and counts the other four as neutral. The gentlest row in the table: the mind, at its core, holds no permanent grudge.

Mars befriends the Sun, Moon, and Jupiter, opposes only Mercury, and is neutral toward Venus and Saturn. The commander stands with the royals and the wise counsellor.

Mercury befriends the Sun and Venus, opposes only the Moon, and is neutral toward Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The clever prince keeps light, easy company.

Jupiter befriends the Sun, Moon, and Mars, opposes Mercury and Venus, the two worldly minds, and is neutral toward Saturn. The teacher favours the noble and the devout.

Venus befriends Mercury and Saturn, opposes the Sun and Moon, and is neutral toward Mars and Jupiter. The minister of pleasure keeps cool, refined company.

Saturn befriends Mercury and Venus, opposes the Sun, Moon, and Mars, the hot, royal planets, and is neutral toward Jupiter. The old servant stands apart from the court of kings.

The relationships that run one way

Six pairs are mutual friends: Sun and Moon, Sun and Mars, Sun and Jupiter, Mars and Jupiter, Mercury and Venus, and Venus and Saturn. Two pairs are mutual enemies: Sun and Venus, and Sun and Saturn. Everything else mixes, with one planet feeling something the other does not return.

Saturn opposes the Moon and Mars while both stay neutral toward it. Jupiter opposes Mercury and Venus while both stay neutral toward Jupiter. Mercury befriends the Sun, which stays neutral in return; Saturn befriends Mercury, which stays neutral in return. And the strangest crossing of all: the Moon befriends Mercury while Mercury counts the Moon its only enemy.

None of this is sloppiness in the texts; the asymmetry is the design, and it follows from the derivation covered below. For reading a chart, the practical rule stays constant: judge each placement from the visiting planet's point of view.

The two camps

Step back and the table resolves into a pattern. The Sun, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter form one camp, warm and royal, friendly among themselves. Mercury, Venus, and Saturn form the other, cooler and worldly. Nearly every fixed enmity runs across the divide, heat against cold, royalty against the servant's side of the court.

The camps echo the planetary temperaments described in the navagraha guide, and they are independent of the benefic and malefic classification: Venus, a natural benefic, and Saturn, the sternest of the natural malefics, are firm friends. Friendship measures compatibility, not goodness.

Where the table comes from

The friendships are derived from sign ownership. According to the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, a planet befriends the lords of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, and 12th signs counted from its moolatrikona, the portion of its own sign that serves as its seat of office, along with the lord of its exaltation sign. Lords of the remaining signs become enemies, and a planet appearing on both lists settles as neutral.

The rule rewards neighbourliness: a planet warms to whoever rules the territory around its home and its place of honour. You can take the table as given, since the derivation produces exactly the rows above, but knowing the logic makes the asymmetries feel less arbitrary. Two planets' neighbourhoods need not contain each other equally.

A neutral is an open relationship

Do not skim past the neutral column. A neutral is not a weak relationship; it is an open one, easily warmed or cooled by the particular chart through the temporary layer. A natural neutral lifted by temporary friendship behaves as a friend in that chart, and one chilled by temporary enmity behaves as an enemy.

Much of any chart is lived among neutrals. The Moon alone contributes four neutral relationships, and Mercury three, so placements in neutral territory are the everyday case, workmanlike and plain, neither blessed nor strained.

An enemy is not a villain

A planetary enemy is not a moral judgment. The table records temperamental fits and frictions, the way some pairs of people work easily together and others grate. A planet in an enemy's sign is not cursed; it is uncomfortable, and its results ask more patience and effort.

The friction also has its uses. An enemy's sign can teach a planet something it would learn nowhere else, the way an exacting employer sharpens a skill that a kind one lets slide. And every enemy placement carries its own softeners: temporary friendship in the same chart can lift the compound relationship to neutral, and strength by degree, good houses, and supportive aspects all steady the result.

What the table changes in a chart

Sign placement is the table's main job. A planet in a friend's sign gives its significations smoothly: the Moon in Gemini rests in the sign of its friend Mercury, and Venus in Capricorn rests in the sign of its friend Saturn. A planet in an enemy's sign delivers the same significations with friction and delay, as with Venus in Leo or Saturn in Aries.

The natural table is half the story. Each chart adds its own temporary layer, and the blend of the two, the five-grade compound relationship from great friend to great enemy, is what an astrologer finally reads; the temporary friendship guide covers that blend step by step. To see which signs your own planets occupy, a free birth chart lists all of them, and this table turns that list into a first reading.