BPHS Ch.9 Balarishta Verses 31–45 (Complete) — Father/Mother Combinations, Final Summary Verse & Karma Philosophy

Opening — Karma, Doership and Homakunda Gifts

Why a homakundam is a safe gift

The teacher offers small homakundams to anyone in the class, free, with no commitment.

• Any gift can turn into bad karma for the giver. "If you really follow the dharma sūkṣma, the subtlety of dharma, giving something to somebody is not always good karma."
• His example: you donate your eyes. The man who receives them uses them to pick out a woman and rape her. He gets that karma, "but I will get a small part of it because I gave my eyes."
• Which part of a karma goes to whom is too complicated to know. Only a great yogi who can see karmas, or Chitragupta, keeps track of it.
• Even a million dollars given to a non-profit can be bad karma; the bad may outweigh the good.
• A homakundam is very unlikely to be misused. With the kind he gives, people will only do sāttvic homas. So it is a very good gift.

The only way out of karma

"As long as you think you are doing karma, you will continue to accumulate the results of that karma for a long time. So the only solution is, give up that sense of ownership."

• The results keep coming from whatever follows from the act, even 1000 years later, even after you are dead.
• Give up kartṛtva bhāva. Hand it to a devatā. "Think that you don't exist. It is Mahā Lakṣmī everywhere, she is doing everything. If you really believe it 100% to the core, then you don't get any karma."

"Kṛṣṇārpaṇam astu" — a student's question

A student asks why one hears only "Kṛṣṇārpaṇam astu" and "Brahmārpaṇam astu", never an offering to another devatā.

• Kṛṣṇa is Viṣṇu as Vāsudeva, who encompasses the whole universe. Brahman is the nirguṇa form. That is why these two are standard.
• He has heard "Śivārpaṇam astu" from Śaivas. Offer to the highest form of whichever devatā you hold. The name does not matter.
• What matters is whether you mean it. Say "Sarvam Śrī Kṛṣṇārpaṇam astu" and then think "what a great homa I did today", and the offering is lost.
• Feeling it from the core is hard. "It is very easy to preach but it is actually very difficult to practice."
• The aid: keep telling yourself this is a dream. If someone praises or insults you in a dream, it does not matter. This life is the same and will be over soon. A yogi who can leave this state and come back knows it directly.

Mantra from a guru

• A mantra read from a book works, but you start "a new bank account with a zero balance".
• A mantra taught by someone who has done it lakhs or millions of times starts you with a positive balance.
• That balance is normally not sufficient to raise you to any level. It makes the climb easier. It is a push at the start.
• The same holds for a homakundam received from someone with spiritual practice.
• After using a homakundam for some time, buy some and give them away. Pay it forward; do not sell them.

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BPHS Chapter 9 — Balarishta Verses 31–45 (Completion)

The class had finished verse 30. The teacher says more than once that he cannot explain why most of these combinations work; he asks the class to remember them and test them on charts.

Verse 31 — Jupiter in Lagna, Saturn in 2nd, Rahu in 3rd: Mother Does Not Live

• Jupiter in lagna, Saturn in the 2nd, Rahu in the 3rd.
• Result: the mother does not live.
• What he can see: the 4th house is hit. Saturn from the 2nd has his 3rd aspect on the 4th, Rahu from the 3rd aspects it too, and Jupiter has a partial aspect. "Why exactly those combinations are supposed to be for mother, I am not fully sure."
• Rare. Each placement is 1 in 12 and all three must happen together, so the probabilities multiply: 1/12 × 1/12 × 1/12 = 1 in 1,728. (In class he says "something in the range of 16,000"; the product he sets up is 1 in 1,728.)
• If you ever meet it in a chart, check whether it happened.

Verse 32 — Malefics in Trines from a Waning Moon: Mother Gives Up the Child

• Waning Moon, malefics in the trines from it, no benefic there.
• Result: within six months the mother gives up the child. The word can be read two ways: the mother should give up the child, or the mother will give up the child.
• Either way it is a separation of mother and child. Adoption counts.
• One reading: if she does not give the child up there is danger to her, and by giving the child up she overcomes it.

Verse 33 — Mars and Saturn in One Aṁśa, or in Kendras from Moon: Two Mothers

• Mars and Saturn in one aṁśa, wherever they are in the rāśi chart. Saturn may be in Taurus and Mars in Aquarius in rāśi; it does not matter.
• Which aṁśa is not stated. Navāṁśa or dvādaśāṁśa. The teacher takes navāṁśa, because the result includes longevity and navāṁśa is the chart of overall fortune.
• The verse says vā (or): in one aṁśa, or in kendras from Moon. Santhanam translates it as "and". The teacher reads it as: in the aṁśa chart, Mars and Saturn are in the same sign, or, if not, they are in mutual kendras and also in kendras from Moon.
• Result: vimātṛbhyāṁ na jīvati — two mothers, and longevity is still at risk. The mother may die or leave, or the child may be adopted, and the child's own longevity stays weak.

Verse 34 — Saturn in Lagna, Mars in 7th, Moon in 6th: Father Does Not Survive

• Saturn in lagna, Mars in the 7th, Moon in the 6th.
• Result: the father does not survive.

Verse 35 — Jupiter in Lagna, Saturn/Sun/Mars/Mercury in 2nd: Father Dies at the Native's Marriage

• Jupiter in lagna; Saturn, Sun, Mars and Mercury in the 2nd.
• The verse does not say whether all four are needed. One alone makes no sense. Take it as all of them or several of them.
• Result: the father dies not at the birth but at the time of the native's marriage.

"So marriage is dangerous for father in this case."

Verse 36 — Sun with a Malefic, Hemmed by Malefics, or a Malefic in the 7th from Sun

• Sun joined by a malefic, or Sun between malefics (pāpa-kartari: malefics in the 2nd and 12th from Sun), or a malefic in the 7th from Sun. Any one of the three is enough.
• The verse says the father passes away. The teacher does not take it that far: this is a common combination, not a rare one. "When you see it, you should not conclude that father will die very early."
• What to expect: the father dies early, or lives away from the native, or there is enmity with the father.
• Benefics alleviate it. Read the verse as "only malefics, or at least a majority of malefics".
• Example he knows: Aries lagna with Sun, Saturn and Mercury in lagna. Mercury with Sun and Saturn counts as a malefic here, so Sun is afflicted by two malefics and no benefic, and the verse applies strongly. The father did not die young. He was a sailor in the navy and away most of the time. The native grew up with his mother and maternal uncle, felt the father was ignoring the mother, and disliked him, almost hated him, until he was well grown up.

Verse 37 — Sun in 7th, Mars in 10th, Rahu in 12th: Father Lives with Great Difficulty

• Sun in the 7th, Mars in the 10th, Rahu in the 12th.
• Result: the father lives, but with a lot of difficulty.
• This one the teacher can justify. Parāśara sees the father from the 9th from lagna and the 9th from Sun. Take the 9th from Sun (the 3rd house) as the father's lagna:
  • Mars in the 10th is in the 8th from it: hard labour, struggle.
  • Rahu in the 12th is in the 10th from it: the house of karma holds Rahu, so no great career.
• A student gives his own chart: Sun in the 7th, Mars in the 5th. His father lost his job on the very day he was born. The teacher calls it a partial result: Rahu falls in the 10th from the 9th from Sun, which is bad for career, but Mars is not in the 8th from it.
• Mars in that chart is in the 3rd from the 9th from Sun (the 11th from Sun). Mars is kāraka for real estate, and in the 3rd he can show loss of property. He is also kāraka of the 3rd, of boldness, so there he gives initiative and the will to fight. "It shows father having some fighting spirit." The student confirms the father went through the job loss and went after the property.

Verse 38 — Mars in the 10th in an Inimical Sign: Father Dies Very Soon

• Mars in the 10th house in an enemy's sign. Nothing else.
• Parāśara: the father dies very soon, no doubt.
• Logic: from the 9th house, the 10th is the 2nd, a māraka sthāna for the father. A malefic in an inimical sign is more inclined to kill.
• The teacher's warning: this is a generic combination found in many charts. "Even though Parāśara says there is no doubt, you should take it with a pinch of salt." Do not predict the father's death in the first months or years from this alone.
• Probability: Mars in the 10th is 1 in 12; in an inimical sign roughly 1 in 3; together about 1 in 36. His guess is between 1/32 and 1/40.
• Santhanam takes Mercury as the sole enemy of Mars (Ch. 3, v. 55), so for him the verse works only for Mars in Gemini or Virgo in the 10th, i.e. Virgo and Sagittarius lagnas. The teacher disagrees: use the compound relationship. Where Parāśara wants adhi-śatru he says so; here he says only śatru, so both śatru and adhi-śatru signs count, for any lagna.
• He has no example chart for this verse.

Verse 39 — Moon in 6th, Saturn in Lagna, Mars in 7th: Father Will Not Live

• Moon in the 6th, Saturn in lagna, Mars in the 7th (the placements of verse 34 again).
• Result: the father will not live. "Why? I do not know."
• A student asks whether these are all combinations at birth. Yes, natal combinations. Everybody's father dies some day; when Parāśara says emphatically that he will not live, it means soon after the birth, perhaps within a year.

Verse 40 — Sun in an Aṁśa of Mars, Aspected by Saturn: Father Gone Before the Birth

• Sun in Aries or Scorpio aṁśa (navāṁśa or dvādaśāṁśa, probably navāṁśa), aspected by Saturn.
• The aspect is probably in the aṁśa too, since the verse speaks only of the aṁśa and says nothing about the rāśi.
• Result: the father has already died, or already left the child, before the birth.
• A student mentions children born after their fathers died, around 9/11 and among soldiers. The teacher suggests collecting five or six such charts and testing this verse on them; it would also settle which aṁśa is meant. Another case the class names: the child of the reporter Daniel Pearl, born after he was killed in Pakistan. None of these charts is examined in class.

Verse 41 — Malefics in the 4th, 10th and 12th: Parents Die, the Native Wanders

• Malefics in the 4th and the 10th and the 12th. The verse uses tathā (and), not "or".
• "Malefics" is in the plural, but it need not be exactly two in each. The teacher's reading: at least one malefic in each of the three houses.
• Result: pitaraṁ mātaraṁ hatvā deśād deśāntaraṁ vrajet — he kills father and mother and roams from one country to another.
• It does not mean he kills them with his own hands. It means he causes their death. A student brings up a case where it happened literally.

Verse 42 — Rahu and Jupiter in Inimical Signs in Lagna or the 4th: 23rd Year

• Rahu and Jupiter in an enemy's sign, in lagna or in the 4th.
• The teacher finds it odd: it is hard for both to be in an inimical sign at once. His reading: Jupiter and Rahu must each be in lagna or the 4th, and both in inimical signs.
• Result: in the 23rd year the father is in danger. (He first says 13th and corrects himself: trayoviṁśati is 23.)
• "Why he came up with that number, God knows, Parāśara knows."

Verses 43–45 — The General Rule: Sun for Father, Moon for Mother

• Sun is the significator of the father, Moon of the mother.
• Sun joined or aspected by a malefic, or hemmed between malefics: some ariṣṭa for the father is to be understood.
• The 6th, 8th or 4th from Sun occupied by malefics, with no benefic: again evil for the father. Here he speaks of occupation, not aspect.
• Why these houses: the 6th and 8th are duṣṭhānas from the kāraka. The 4th from Sun is included because it is the 8th from the 9th from Sun, the father's longevity.
• Read the same from Moon for the mother.

The Closing Verse — "Balābala-vivekena"

"By wise reckoning of strength and weakness, either troubles or death should be indicated."

• The whole chapter has been death of mother and death of father. At the end Parāśara says: weigh the strength of the planets involved, then predict either death or only suffering.
• This is the summary. It applies to every combination in the chapter, not only to the last few.
• The afflicting malefic strong and the afflicted planet (Sun, Moon, a benefic) weak: it may be death itself.
• The afflicting planet weak, or the afflicted planet strong: trouble, not death.

Chapter 9 is complete.

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What Comes Next

• Next class: Chapter 10, a quick chapter of 9 verses, the antidotes for the evils given so far.
• After that: the judgment of houses. First the chapter on the meanings of the houses, then one chapter for the effects of each house.
• He finished Chapter 9 in one sitting "so that we do not have to do any of these evil things from the next class". The houses "will be more fun".

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