Papasamyam — how the South weighs the malefics

What this tool computes

Papasamyam counts the malefic burden carried by each of the two charts and asks whether the two burdens are comparable. It is a verdict about a pair, not about a person: a heavily afflicted chart is not refused by this test on its own, only against a partner carrying much less. Malefics are counted in six houses — the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th and 12th — and counted three times over, from the ascendant, from the Moon and from Venus.

The tool runs both charts through both of the models this engine implements, prints each total with the positions that produced it, and says whether the balance falls the way the rule requires.

The part usually left unsaid

There are two models, and they do not reconcile. The first is the equal-weight count in common South Indian use: five malefics, six houses, three reference points, one point each. The second is the classical Kerala weighting, in which a house in the 8th counts six times one in the 12th, Mars counts four times what Rahu counts, an exalted malefic contributes nothing at all, and the three reference points are weighted at full, half and a quarter rather than equally.

The sharpest difference is Ketu. In the equal-weight model it is a full malefic; in the Kerala model it contributes zero. The same affliction is worth a whole point under one reading and literally nothing under the other. So the two models can return opposite verdicts on the same couple, and when they do, this tool says so on the result rather than picking a winner. Reference weighting is not a detail either: on the manglik axis, where it has been measured directly, changing only the reference points a tradition judges from moves the share of charts flagged by 29 percentage points.

What the result does and does not mean

An acceptable verdict means the two totals stood in the relation the source prescribes, under a model we name. A rejection means they did not, under that model. Neither is a statement about how a marriage will go, and no figure we compute would support one. One gap is worth declaring: Dosha Samyam, the wider bhava-by-bhava balance that the Kerala source rates as more important than papasamyam itself, needs planetary strength measures this engine does not compute, so it is not included here.

Is this the southern version of a manglik check?

Not quite, and the difference matters. A manglik verdict is about one chart. This one is about the relation between two, so it can accept a pair that a manglik reading would refuse, and refuse a pair a manglik reading would pass.

Why does the rule allow the groom more than the bride?

Because that is what the tradition states: equal burdens pass, a heavier burden in the groom’s chart passes up to double, and a heavier burden in the bride’s is refused. We report the rule with its direction visible rather than presenting a symmetric test that happened to fall one way.

Which of the two models should our family follow?

We do not answer that, and a tool cannot. What it can do is tell you which model produced the verdict you were given, which is the question to take back: was it the equal-weight count or the Kerala weighting, and does Ketu appear in it. If the two models agree here, the verdict is robust to that choice. If they disagree, the disagreement is the finding.