Compatibility
Graha Maitri — the planetary-friendship koot, in plain English
Graha Maitri — literally “planetary friendship” — is the 5-point Guna Milan koot that reads mental and conversational compatibility between two partners. It does not check the partners themselves; it checks the planets that rule their Moon signs against the classical Vedic friendship-enmity table. A high Graha Maitri means “your minds will click without effort.” A low Graha Maitri means the opposite — chronic, low-grade, “we just don't see the same things the same way” fatigue.
The mechanic in one paragraph
Each of the 12 Rashis (Moon signs) is ruled by one of seven classical planets — Sun (Leo), Moon (Cancer), Mars (Aries, Scorpio), Mercury (Gemini, Virgo), Jupiter (Sagittarius, Pisces), Venus (Taurus, Libra), Saturn (Capricorn, Aquarius). To compute Graha Maitri, look up the lord of each partner's Moon sign and check the friendship-enmity table. The score depends on whether those two planets are friends, neutral, or enemies — both naturally and in the partners' specific charts (which can flip a planet from natural friend to temporary enemy or vice versa).
The classical natural-friendship table
The default classical relationships between the seven Vimshottari planets:
| Planet | Friends | Neutral | Enemies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Moon, Mars, Jupiter | Mercury | Venus, Saturn |
| Moon | Sun, Mercury | Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn | — |
| Mars | Sun, Moon, Jupiter | Venus, Saturn | Mercury |
| Mercury | Sun, Venus | Mars, Jupiter, Saturn | Moon |
| Jupiter | Sun, Moon, Mars | Saturn | Mercury, Venus |
| Venus | Mercury, Saturn | Mars, Jupiter | Sun, Moon |
| Saturn | Mercury, Venus | Jupiter | Sun, Moon, Mars |
Scoring
- Mutual friends (both planets see each other as friend) → 5/5. Maximum.
- One friend, one neutral → 4/5.
- Both neutral → 3/5.
- One friend, one enemy → 1/5.
- Mutual enemies → 0/5. The hardest possible Graha Maitri.
Note the asymmetry. Sun considers Venus an enemy. Venus considers Sun an enemy. So Sun-Venus is mutual-enemy → 0/5. But Moon considers Mercury a friend, Mercury considers Moon an enemy. Moon-Mercury is “mixed” → 1/5 in most schools, 3/5 in some. DestinIQ uses the most common scoring (1/5 for one-sided friendship-enmity).
What Graha Maitri actually predicts
Graha Maitri is the koot most directly tied to conversational compatibility. A high score predicts:
- You finish each other's thoughts within months of marriage.
- Daily decisions (what to eat, where to spend, when to leave for the airport) get made fast and without friction.
- Long car rides feel comfortable in silence as well as conversation.
- Disagreements stay logical, don't personalize quickly.
- Both partners enjoy similar humour, which is more important than people realize.
A low score predicts:
- The same conversation has to happen multiple times because each partner heard a different version.
- Daily decisions get small-fight fatigue around them — nothing major, just death by a thousand “wait I thought we agreed on...”
- Each partner often feels that the other “just doesn't get it” even when both intend the same outcome.
- Humour styles diverge. One partner's jokes don't land for the other.
- Stress responses are different shapes — one wants to talk it out, the other wants quiet.
Critically, a Graha Maitri 0/5 does not predict big fights, infidelity, or marriage failure. It predicts chronic, low-volume mental fatigue. Lots of marriages run on Graha Maitri 1/5 or 0/5 and remain stable; the partners just have to consciously over-communicate where natural-flow couples don't.
Why it matters as much as it does (5 points)
Five points sounds modest until you realize the higher-weighted koots are mostly about specific aspects of life (Bhakoot = household, Nadi = progeny health, Yoni = physical chemistry). Graha Maitri is the ambient texture of every conversation. You have hundreds per week. Over a 30-year marriage, even small daily friction adds up to a real burden — or a real source of warmth, depending on which side of this koot you're on.
How temporary friendship changes things
Classical Vedic astrology adds a layer most online tools skip: temporary friendship. Two natural friends can become temporary enemies based on their relative house positions in a specific chart, and vice versa. The combined “5-fold relationship” (panchadha maitri) blends natural and temporary status into a final score. This is why two charts with the same Moon-sign-lord pairing can produce slightly different Graha Maitri reads — the per-chart house structure flips some friendships.
DestinIQ's engine computes the natural relationship for the headline Guna Milan score. The full Rishta Score AI report goes deeper and considers the per-chart temporary friendship, surfacing it in plain English when relevant.
How DestinIQ surfaces this
Both free Guna Milan and Rishta Score show the Graha Maitri score with both Moon-sign lords named (e.g., “Mars × Mercury: 0/5 (mutual enemies)”) and a one-line plain-English read. The full Rishta report explains how the mental-wavelength gap will play out in this specific couple's daily life and what conversation patterns to watch.
The honest summary
- Graha Maitri reads mental wavelength via Moon-sign-lord friendship. Worth 5 of the 36 Guna Milan points.
- Mutual-friend lords → 5/5 (minds click). Mutual-enemy lords → 0/5 (chronic mental fatigue).
- It does not predict fights, infidelity, or divorce. It predicts ambient conversational texture.
- Couples with low Graha Maitri can run stable marriages by over-communicating consciously.
- Temporary friendship from per-chart house positions can flip the score — DestinIQ's full Rishta read accounts for this.
See Graha Maitri on a real chart
DestinIQ shows the Moon-sign-lord pairing in plain English with the practical mental-wavelength read.
Free Guna Milan →