Exalted Planets in Astrology: Where Each Planet Is Strong and Weak

Every classical planet has one sign where tradition ranks it at full strength, its exaltation, and one directly opposite where it runs weakest, its debilitation or fall. The list of exalted planets in astrology is one of the oldest artifacts in the field: it predates the Greeks, and Western and Vedic astrology inherited it almost unchanged, down to the exact degrees. The divergence between the two systems is not the rule but the ruler: each counts its signs in a different zodiac, so the same planet can be exalted in one system and ordinary in the other.

The dignity ladder: domicile, exaltation, detriment, fall

Western astrology grades a planet's placement on four rungs, the essential dignities. A planet in its domicile rules the sign it occupies, like the Sun in Leo. In its exaltation it is a distinguished guest, traditionally read as operating even more impressively than at home. Opposite the domicile lies its detriment; opposite the exaltation, its fall.

Vedic astrology keeps the same skeleton under Sanskrit names: swakshetra for own sign, uccha for exaltation, neecha for debilitation, plus a rung Western astrology lacks, moolatrikona, a preferred stretch of one home sign. There is no Vedic detriment; the fall does the negative work alone.

The exalted planets, sign by sign

Both systems agree on the signs, and largely on the traditional degree of deepest exaltation. Debilitation is always the opposite sign at the same degree.

Planet	Exaltation	Deep degree	Fall	Domicile
Sun	Aries	19° (10° in Vedic texts)	Libra	Leo
Moon	Taurus	3°	Scorpio	Cancer
Mercury	Virgo	15°	Pisces	Gemini, Virgo
Venus	Pisces	27°	Virgo	Taurus, Libra
Mars	Capricorn	28°	Cancer	Aries, Scorpio
Jupiter	Cancer	5°	Capricorn	Sagittarius, Pisces
Saturn	Libra	21° (20° in Vedic texts)	Aries	Capricorn, Aquarius

Mercury is the scheme's one oddity, exalted inside its own domicile, Virgo. Vedic astrology extends the table to the lunar nodes, though its authorities disagree on where: Taurus and Scorpio for Rahu and Ketu in some texts, Gemini and Sagittarius in others. The disagreement is old and unresolved, so most practitioners state their source and move on.

The zodiac gap makes the table bite differently in each system. Jupiter in 2026 is the live example: tropically it entered Leo in June, while sidereally it stands in Cancer, its exaltation, through 2027. Same planet, same sky, one system calls it exalted and the other does not, purely because of the 24-degree offset between the zodiacs.

A Babylonian scheme both systems inherited

The exaltations are older than horoscopes. Babylonian texts assign each planet a bit nisirti, a "secret house": the same signs that later appear as Greek hypsoma and Vedic uccha. When Babylonian sky-lore flowed into Greece and India around two thousand years ago, the exaltation list crossed intact, and the two small degree variants that survive, the Sun at 19 or 10 Aries, Saturn at 21 or 20 Libra, read like copying differences between manuscript lines. Few things in astrology demonstrate shared ancestry this cleanly.

Does a debilitated planet ruin a chart?

No tradition reads it that way. Vedic astrology maintains an explicit list of conditions, neecha bhanga, under which debilitation is cancelled, and some cancellations are read as producing exceptional strength, a raja yoga born from a weak spot. Western practice reaches the same verdict by weighing the whole chart: aspects, house position, and the rest of the dignity ladder can outvote a fall. A single cell in the table above is a modifier, not a sentence. If you want the full weighing done for your own chart, a Personal Blueprint lays out your chart in plain words, strong placements and stretched ones included.