Kendra and trikona houses
Kendra houses are 1, 4, 7 and 10, the angular houses counted from the Lagna. Trikona houses are 1, 5 and 9, the trinal houses, which the classical texts regard as auspicious.
What it is
The kendras are the four cardinal points of the chart and are considered strong positions. The trikonas, along with the kendras, make the most favourable houses in the traditional scheme. The first house belongs to both groups.
How it is worked out or read
The groups are counted from the Lagna in whole-sign houses on this site, and the Gajakesari and Pancha Mahapurusha yogas use the kendra rule.
Where it appears on this site
The kendra rule is used in the chart checks and the birth chart yoga section.
The kendras as strong positions
The kendra houses are 1, 4, 7 and 10, the angular houses counted from the Lagna. They form the four cardinal points of the chart, and the classical texts regard them as strong positions for the grahas. Many yogas and rules begin with a graha in a kendra, which is why the kendra group appears so often in the lists of conditions.
The kendras also describe the broad structure of life: the self, the home, the partnership and the career. A reader can see the chart's main supports by looking at which grahas fall in these four houses.
The trikonas as favourable houses
The trikona houses are 1, 5 and 9, the trinal houses, which the classical texts count as auspicious. The first house belongs to both groups, which gives it a special place in the chart. The fifth and the ninth are the houses of intelligence, merit, teaching and fortune, and their lords are often read in relation to the first.
Because the trikonas are auspicious, rules that use them usually describe supportive conditions. A reader who finds the lord of a trikona in a kendra, for example, reads the combination as a sign of support for the themes of those houses.
The combined groups in practice
Kendra and trikona relations are used in several classical rules, including the raja yoga family, in which the lords of a kendra and a trikona are connected. The reader should state which rule is used, since the texts differ on the conditions. This site lists the kendra and trikona houses so that the reader can apply the rules as written in the chosen source.
What the grouping does not decide
Membership of a group does not settle a question on its own. A kendra with a weak lord and difficult planets is not automatically strong, and a trikona with afflicted grahas is not automatically favourable. The groups are a first classification, and the reading depends on the details that follow.
Kendra and trikona together in one chart
A chart often has grahas in both groups, and the reader then looks at how a kendra lord and a trikona lord relate. A connection between them is read as a link between the strength of the angles and the favour of the trinal houses, and it is one of the reasons the two groups are studied together.