Ashtakavarga Bala vs Vimsopaka Bala — Correct Usage & D60 Verification

Ashtakavarga Bala

What it shows: how much cooperation a planet gets from the other planets for the events it wants to give. "It doesn't show anything else."

• Each planet has an agenda. To implement it, it needs cooperation.
• With cooperation from everybody the planet gives its result more easily, and in more circumstances — in the dashas and antardashas of the various other planets that have an argala on it, aspect it, and so on.
• With weak Ashtakavarga Bala the planet lacks cooperation.
• So this bala matters when judging dashas and antardashas. It is the interplay between planets.

Analogy: if the whole class supports PVNR's plan, he can ask any of them to get it done. If everyone thinks it is a crazy idea and only one student will help, only that one can be asked — so the result comes "in my dasha or his dasha".

It changes from varga to varga. A planet may get full cooperation in D-24 and a poor response in D-10. In learning, everybody cooperates with what it represents. In career it is a loner — the other planets walk away, and it has to struggle and deliver the result on its own.

Against Shadbala: Ashtakavarga Bala is cooperation between planets. Shadbala is used once you know a result will come from one of two, three or four planets, to decide which of them delivers it.

Vimsopaka Bala

"According to Parashara, this is the most important bala to judge the strength of a planet."

Which scheme to use:

• Dasavarga — human charts
• Shodasavarga — royal charts
• Saptavarga — muhurta charts
• Shadvarga — prasna charts

What it shows: how strong the planet is overall in the chart — not only in rasi and navamsa, but across all the important areas of life. Unlike Ashtakavarga Bala it is one figure for the whole chart, not per varga.

Strong and weak are not good and bad

PVNR starts to say this bala shows how benefic the planet is, and corrects himself at once: whether a planet is benefic or malefic depends on its agenda, and none of the balas capture that. You judge it in the individual chart from ownership and placement. His example from the Navamsa on screen: Mercury as 9th lord in the 11th wants to give good dharma — a good planet; the Sun as 8th lord is not so good.

Once good or bad is decided, Vimsopaka Bala says how strong or weak the planet is:

Then add the other influences:

• A good, strong planet that is also in a good Raja Yoga is pleased — it is in good company.
• A bad, strong planet that is also afflicted is being provoked. Example: Mars is a very bad planet in the chart, very strong, and afflicted by Rahu. He wants to ruin you, has the ability, and is irritated because he is being pushed. The result is even more terrible.

Associations, yogas, strength, and the nature from ownership and occupancy all have to be read together.

"Sometimes if you make judgments just based on one thing, it may be right, but your judgment of the degree of the result may be off. But if you include all the factors, then you can get closer and closer to perfection in terms of getting the degree of the result as well as the nature of the result."

D-60 Shashtiamsha Verification

"Just out of curiosity" — the Shashtyamsa is not known to be accurate.

How much room there is. The D-60 lagna is Leo. It changes 41 seconds earlier and 29 seconds later. The earlier change was already ruled out, because 41 seconds earlier is where the D-20 lagna becomes Virgo, and that did not fit. So the D-60 lagna is Leo, or Virgo if the birth was about half a minute later. Moving the time by half a minute changes nothing in the charts read so far — only the Shashtyamsa.

Both options are read from the Arudha Lagna, for the past life:

If Leo — AL is in Scorpio.

• Mars, Sun and Ketu are in AL. Sun and Mars are friends and both are with Ketu, the Sun's enemy; Mars is in own sign as much as Ketu is. They shut Ketu down.
• A dominant, political, very powerful, Martian person.
• Jupiter in Pisces in the 5th from AL: knowledgeable.

If Virgo — AL is in Cancer.

• 8th from AL (Aquarius): Saturn, the 8th lord, with Mercury, the 12th lord. A Viparita Raja Yoga, in a sign of mysticism and philosophy. Someone interested in mysticism.
• 9th from AL (Pisces): the 9th lord Jupiter in his own house. A very good guru and a strong sense of dharma.
• 5th from AL (Scorpio): Ketu, Sun and Mars. The fire belongs to the 5th, not to lagna: fiery devotion, highly religious.

"This seems more likely given that she is interested in spirituality in this particular life."

Moola Dasha (to illustrate the previous class):

• She is running Jupiter's Moola Dasha. Jupiter is in Saumya shashtyamsa: the past-life karma he carries is flower-like — tender, fragrant. Nothing negative.
• With Virgo lagna Jupiter is in the 7th: a strong desire, given at the karmic level, for Jupiterian and Piscean matters — spirituality, the knowledge of the rishis.
• This supports Virgo over Leo. PVNR's caveat: "We can't really rectify confidently just based on it, but that is definitely a good point." The time could be off by half a minute.