Lights, not a science-class list
Sun and Moon are luminaries. Rahu and Ketu are the lunar nodes, the points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn are the grahas that wander against the sidereal signs. Jyotish still calls all nine grahas, seizers, because they seize a part of life and colour it. A Vedic birth chart that skipped Rahu and Ketu would be a Western solar list with extra Sanskrit. VedicAstrology.com calculates the nine in the sidereal zodiac from your date, time, and place of birth.
Nature, friendship, exaltation
Each graha has a nature, friends, enemies, a sign of exaltation, and a sign of debilitation. Benefic and malefic are starting words, not the whole truth. A malefic in the right house, in the right dasha, can build. A benefic poorly placed can spoil ease. Jupiter is growth and meaning. Venus is bond, beauty, and the sweetness of being with someone. Mercury is speech and the linking mind. Mars is heat and the will to act. Saturn is time and work. The Sun is soul and father. The Moon is mind. Rahu is hunger and the unconventional path. Ketu is the cut, the past, the release. Those are sketches. The janam kundli is the combination, not a list of lucky stones.
Where a graha is, and whose dasha it is
Sign, house from the lagna, house from the Moon, nakshatra, and whether the graha is running a dasha: that is the reading. A well-placed Venus that is not running a period can be a quiet gift. A troubled Saturn that is running the years can be the whole room. Retrograde motion, combustion near the Sun, and the company of other grahas in the same sign all change the sentence. A reader working with VedicAstrology.com uses those facts when they belong to your question, and does not parade them as a glossary.
Ask from the nine, not from a stereotype
Work may run through the Sun, Saturn, and the tenth house. Love through Venus, the Moon, and the seventh. Money through Jupiter, Venus, the second and the eleventh. Study through Mercury. Conflict through Mars. The reply stays with your sidereal chart. Western sun-sign columns usually skip Rahu and Ketu. This house does not. The nodes are part of the sky you were born under.
