Ketu is the second of Hindu astrology’s two shadow grahas and corresponds astronomically to the descending lunar node. Ketu is linked with Rāhu: after Viṣṇu severed the nectar-drinking asura during the churning of the cosmic ocean, the immortal head became Rāhu and the headless remainder became Ketu.
Ketu’s symbolism is almost the inverse of Rāhu. Rāhu represents appetite, fascination, and worldly expansion; Ketu is associated with separation, dissatisfaction, renunciation, intuition, experience, and spiritual liberation. Because he has no head, Ketu can symbolize experience without ordinary rational direction—something instinctive, mysterious, or beyond conventional identity.
In Jyotiṣa, his influence can therefore be both disruptive and profoundly spiritual. Ketu may remove attachment to things that once seemed important, producing confusion before insight. His deeper theme is release: the discovery that freedom sometimes comes not by acquiring more, but by ceasing to identify with what is temporary.
