Ashtakavarga Philosophy — Planets as Dimensions of Self & SAV Score

Ashtakavarga Philosophy — Each Planet as a Lagna

The Question

A student has Saturn in the 12th house of his rasi chart and a high score in the 11th house of Saturn's AV. Does it mean the 12th house gains? PVNR: forget where Saturn is from lagna. In Saturn's AV, Saturn is the lagna.

Lagna Means Reference Point

• Lagna = a reference point. The rising sign is only the default lagna.
• Moon taken as lagna is Chandra lagna. Mars taken as lagna is Kuja lagna (Angaraka lagna). Jupiter can be taken as Guru lagna.
• Ashtakavarga = "group of eight": the seven planets and lagna. Lagna is only one of the eight references.
• Houses counted from a planet qualify the quality that planet stands for: its resources, its work, its gains, its losses.

"Lagna is not the only reference point which is important. You take various other planets as references and see houses from them."

What Each Planet Stands For Inside the Person

Reading the Houses from a Planet

• 9th, 10th and 11th strong from any reference = very auspicious for what that reference stands for.
• 6th, 8th and 12th strong from a reference = obstacles to the ability that reference stands for.
• 11th from Saturn strong: the hard work within the person gets fully fulfilled. He can work hard and be disciplined.
• 12th from Saturn strong with the 9th, 10th and 11th weak: not very disciplined, cannot work hard without asking questions.
• Mars: trines (1st, 5th, 9th) or the 9th, 10th, 11th strong = aggressive, full of initiative. Those weak and the 6th, 8th, 12th from Mars strong = obstacles to the aggression; it does not manifest; the person is not brave.

The 1st House Is the Basic Test

• The 1st house is the basis of everything. So the score in the planet's own sign in its own AV shows how strong that planet is.
• Jagannatha Hora highlights that sign in each planet's AV chart.
• Saigal: the Sun's AV has only 2 in the Sun's own sign (Pisces). The Sun is weak in Ashtakavarga.
• This is not the strength of a yoga the planet gives. For that we use Shadbala.
• What AV measures: how many of the eight references cooperate with the planet in each sign. "Sun has the cooperation from 2 planets in this sign, from 4 in this sign, from only 1 in this sign."

Jupiter's AV — The Wisdom Within

• 1st house from Jupiter = the basic wisdom of the person.
• 10th from Jupiter = the karma of the wisdom. Wisdom does not work in society; it works inside the person. Its profession is to guide the mind: make the right calls and tell the mind what to do. Whether the mind obeys depends on Moon.
• Weak 10th from Jupiter = sluggish intelligence that does not want to do its work; a poorly guided mind.
• 3rd from Jupiter = the initiative of the wisdom to process what the mind brings and apply itself. Weak 3rd = little initiative to apply intelligence for one's own good.
• Saigal: Jupiter is in Pisces. The two signs that stand out in Jupiter's AV are the 3rd (Taurus) and the 10th (Sagittarius), with 7 each. His wisdom takes initiative and does its job of guiding the mind. Forget that these are the 9th and 4th houses from lagna — in Jupiter's AV only Guru lagna matters.
• Jupiter is the planet of dharma. The Jupiter inside every person knows what is right and what is wrong — "the Dakshinamurti within you". The Sun, the soul, also knows. The Moon, the mind, is under illusion and does not know.

Artha Trikonas and Kama Trikonas

• Artha trikonas (2nd, 6th, 10th) = the effort you put in, what you do. Kama trikonas (3rd, 7th, 11th) = what you get.
• Artha trikonas weak, kama trikonas strong: little resource, little hard work, yet it gets what it wants. For Jupiter's AV: the mind follows the intelligence easily, without a fight.
• A king may have a weak 10th and strong 11th, weak 6th and strong 7th, weak 2nd and strong 3rd.
• This holds only if the 11th is strong. With a very weak 11th the person nurtures many desires and has plenty of initiative but does not get what he wants.
• The twelve houses are interlinked but independent. One very strong house can fructify on its own — only the 11th strong, and "whatever he touches will turn gold".

Mercury's AV — The Learner Within

• Saigal: Mercury has 6 in his own sign (Aries). The ability to learn is very strong. A weak Mercury in AV = not a good learner.
• 11th from Mercury (Aquarius) has 8, the maximum. The learner within him gets whatever he wants.
• 8th from Mercury = hard work, anxiety, tension. Here it is weak, and the 12th is weak too. He has no anxiety in learning and meets few obstacles.
• Strong 8th from Mercury = a perturbed learner. Even with the opportunity, learning is turbulent: he does not understand at one go and has to ponder.
• Read it at two levels. Gross (sthula): when he wants to learn singing or astrology, he finds someone to teach him. Subtle (sukshma): the learner inside him is at ease.
• 2nd from Mercury = the resources of the learner: intellect, memory, open-mindedness — and a guru. Mercury is the shishya; Jupiter is the guru. In Saigal's chart this house is weak. PVNR: no cause for concern if the 9th (dharma), 10th (karma) and 11th (fulfilment) are strong. It is bad only if all the houses are weak.
• The advaita view: the outer guru and the inner guru are one. The same Jupiter who teaches the gods pervades each person as his wisdom. It is a matter of activating him and giving him control over the Mercury within.

The Chain: Medha → Buddhi → Mana

PVNR corrects what he said earlier — Jupiter and Moon do not talk to each other directly. There is a layer in between.

Medha (Jupiter)  →  Buddhi (Mercury)  →  Mana (Moon)

• The mind has an experience and asks buddhi what to do. Buddhi consults the wisdom. The medha tells the buddhi how it should be done.
• Buddhi is consciousness. Medha is supra-consciousness — "that is why it is God".
• Jupiter saying it does not mean Mercury understands it. Only when buddhi digests and appreciates it does buddhi try to control the mind.
• The Jupiter–Mercury relationship shows whether the buddhi will learn. The Mercury–Moon relationship shows whether the mind will follow what the buddhi has realised.
• So one may feel unease while doing something wrong without knowing why: the truth is still at the level of Jupiter. When it reaches Mercury one is conscious of it — and may still go against it, because the mind is not yet willing.
• Normal people are imperfect, so it matters that medha, buddhi and mana each do their job.

An Open Question

A student asks whether the 12th house must be strong in someone's AV for moksha. PVNR: "I am not actually 100% sure. I have to contemplate on it." Study the charts of such people.

SAV Score Interpretation

Sarvashtakavarga

Add the scores of a sign in the AVs of Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. That is the Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) — the overall strength of that house.

Scale

• In a single planet's AV the maximum in a sign is 8.
• PVNR gives the theoretical maximum of SAV as 64. He has never seen it.

The Test: 9th + 10th + 11th Against 6th + 8th + 12th

For any successful, lucky, fortunate person the SAV scores of the 9th, 10th and 11th added together should exceed those of the 6th, 8th and 12th. "Usually when you apply to successful people, you do find that."

Example: K.L. Saigal

• Born April 4, 1904, 6:17 PM, Jammu (74°52′E, 32°44′N). Singer and actor; the first superstar of Indian films in the 1930s and '40s; he sang his own songs.
• The data came from Shri K.N. Rao, who spoke to Saigal's daughter. The time was approximate and was settled with the help of a psychic in Bombay who has the gift of finding birth times. PVNR: "This must be either the correct chart or very close to being the correct chart."
• As read in class: 6th house 29, 8th house 28, 12th house 21. Total 78, average exactly 26 — the lower end of average.
• 9th, 10th and 11th: average 33.33 — very high.
• A student objects that 26 against 33 is not far apart. PVNR: it is a big difference. This is not a 0-to-100 scale; in this chart the least is 21 and the highest 37.
• The site's ashtakavarga count for this birth data agrees with every single-planet score quoted in class (Sun 2, Jupiter 7 and 7, Mercury 6 and 8) but puts 21, 28 and 29 in Taurus, Gemini and Cancer — the 9th, 10th and 11th from Virgo lagna. The house totals read in class are kept above as he gave them.

Example: King Abdullah of Jordan

• Scorpio lagna. The 11th house (Virgo) has 47 — the highest SAV score PVNR has seen.
• 9th house 31: strong dharma. 10th house: good, not great — average.
• All the planets within him gain what they want. Little initiative, little effort, and he still gets it.
• 3rd and 7th not great, 11th extremely strong = born with a silver spoon. "You just call somebody and tell him, they have designed a new Rolls-Royce, get one for me."

"This is simply a matter of 11th house. No initiative, no hard work, you just get it."

Rahu's Ashtakavarga

Why Only Seven Planets

• A student asks why Rahu and Ketu are not among the references.
• For most purposes the seven planets are enough. They are the concrete aspects of the person; Rahu and Ketu are abstract.
• Some classics do give an Ashtakavarga for Rahu. PVNR names Shambhu Hora Prakasha.

Lagna's AV Is Not Rahu's AV

• Some, including Pt. Sanjay Rath, use the Lagna Ashtakavarga as Rahu's Ashtakavarga.
• PVNR: there is no classical basis for it as far as he knows. Parashara clearly calls it Lagna Ashtakavarga.
• Rahu stands for the deceit, deception and illusion within the person — the veil of ignorance. The dharma of that ignorance is to put you on the wrong path. Houses from Rahu mean something quite different from houses from lagna, so the auspicious places of the planets from him must differ too.
• "Either don't take Rahu's Ashtakavarga, or take it carefully." Dr. B.V. Raman uses the Rahu AV of that classic. PVNR follows Dr. Raman here and uses Lagna AV simply as Lagna AV.

When Gurus Disagree

"When there is a clash, I just go by whichever appeals to my buddhi. Finally, it is buddhi that guides you."

Where the Tables Come From

• For each of the eight references, each planet is auspicious (1) or inauspicious (0) in each of the twelve houses from it. Parashara gives the tables.
• They follow from the philosophy. The 2nd from Mercury is the resource of the learner. Jupiter there is good.
• A later class takes Ashtakavarga in detail.