Why the Modern Class Is Kept Separate

Keeping a category for combinations that are not in the classical corpus is a deliberate choice and worth defending, because the alternative is worse in both directions. Omitting them would misrepresent contemporary Indian astrology, in which several of them are widely used and widely discussed. Filing them with the classical yogas would misrepresent the corpus, by implying an authority they do not have.

Kala Sarpa Yoga is the clearest case. It is discussed constantly in modern Indian astrological literature and consultation, it carries a formidable reputation, and it is not found under that name and description in the older handbooks. Both of those statements are true at once, and a reference work that states only one of them is misleading whichever it chooses.

The general principle behind the category is the same one the atlas applies to the Dreamspell against the Maya count and to nineteenth-century yuga reform against the Puranic scheme. A modern development within a living tradition is real and deserves description; what it must not do is borrow the authority of the older material it grew out of. Naming the author, the date and the source where they are known is what keeps the distinction visible.