Combinations = two or more planets in the same direction, within a few degrees of each other. A combination "flags" a life theme as intense, contested, or doubly emphasized.
Examples:
Mars + Saturn in SOUTH (both 20-22° Aquarius): A combination of aggression/conflict with restriction/loss. Life theme: struggle, delay, but eventual harsh clarity. Often seen in charts with major health crises or losses in later life.
Venus + Jupiter in WEST (both 8-10° Libra): Benefic combination. Marriage, wealth, and partnership flourish. One of the most auspicious combinations.
Sun + Mercury in NORTH (both 15-17° Virgo): Intellect + authority. Career is intellectual or communicative, with leadership potential. But Mercury-Sun combinations can also indicate ego conflicts or over-reliance on logic.
Strength: Combinations clearly mark life themes as significant or contested. A single planet in NORTH says "career is relevant"; Mars + Saturn in NORTH says "career involves struggle and competition" or "late career success after early hardship."
Weakness: Combination interpretations in nadi texts are often contradictory (one text says Mars+Saturn = success through discipline; another says = chronic obstacles). Practitioners must develop intuition or cross-reference multiple texts.
The combination detector scans a chart for all planetary pairs and groups within directions. You will examine combinations in your chart and note which life domains are "flagged" (intensive themes).
What counts as a combination. Two or more planets close in degree within the same direction are read as a single blended influence rather than as separate factors. How close is close enough varies between sources, which is another place where the method admits unhelpful latitude.
Reading the blend. The combination takes on the significations of both planets, weighted toward the one whose nature is stronger in context. Mars with Saturn reads differently from Mars with Venus, and the difference is qualitative rather than a simple sum.
Intensity rather than cancellation. A malefic joining a benefic does not cancel it, and a benefic does not neutralise a malefic. The theme is modified and usually intensified, because both sets of significations are now attached to one point in the sequence.
Fix the orb first. Decide what degree separation counts as a combination before you read the chart, and apply it consistently. A reader who widens the orb when a useful combination is just out of range, and narrows it when an inconvenient one is just in range, is generating readings rather than finding them.