The List of yogas and ava-yogas tabulated by the Vedic seers is another valuable gift to humanity.
Yoga is a set up of planets in a nativity in such a way that an astrologer can evaluate the worth of a horoscope and classify it as superb, excellent, very good, Good, Average, Very ordinary, Bad or worse at a glance.

The Good combinations are good yogas and the bad combinations are ava-Yogas. The Good combinations give Good parents, Good home, Good education, Good occupation, Good spouse, good children, Name, Fame, Power, prestige and possession.

The ava yogas are poverty, injury, lack of education, incarceration, accidents, suicide, Incurable diseases, slavery, madness etc.

There are over a thousand such combinations, which have been mentioned, in various astrological classics like Brihat Jataka of the Great Varaha Mihira, Saravali etc. Many of the yogas overlap with each other.
To be fruitful, a yoga has to materialize in the main as well as the varga charts. For e.g. Venus exalted in Pisces in a horoscope in Rasi chart promises all luxuries. But the same Venus debilitated in Navamsa chart cancels the gift of Rasi chart.

The combust planets do not give any Yoga even though such combinations exist. So in order to be useful, Yoga has to form with benefic planets, should occupy benefic houses, should aspect each other properly, and should be aspected by benefics.

Though there are a thousand yogas there are a few prominent one's which determine the status of the horoscope. These are called the PANCHA MAHA PURUSHA YOGAS OR THE '5 GREAT YOGAS'.

They are by name: -
1) Hamsa yoga of Jupiter
2) Ruchaka yoga of Mars
3) Bhadra yoga of Mercury
4) Malavya yoga of Venus
5) Sasa yoga of Saturn.

A person having all these 5 in his horoscope will be a divine incarnation. Even three are enough to make a person a president or prime minister. Two can make a C.E.O. Besides these there is a yoga called "PARIJATA" when this is inter mingled with another Yoga called "PARIVRAJAKA" it produces great ascetics, pontiffs, saintly persons with Princely regalia.

Similarly bad combinations produce Marauders as seen in the world history. Similarly combinations exist for lawyers, Doctors, Great statesman, Engineers, Artists, Craftsman, etc.

The nature of profession change with changing times so a Vedic astrologer has to keep with the times and note the new combination for new Professions. To cite an example the planets give a combination for a Doctor or a Person who cures diseases. Now the medical profession has branched out into various specialized groups such as a) General physician, b) A surgeon, c) a neurologist, D) an E& T specialist E) An eye specialist etc. Similarly new sciences like genetic science, space research, computer technology etc have come and new ones are on the way.
So a Vedic astrologer has to be doing continuous research for unfolding new combinations for the new things of new age. Some devoted souls do this work for the benefit of others. We thank them for their dedication to Vedic astrology.