BPHS Ch.11 — Houses 1–7 Significations per Parashara: Enemies in 2nd, Vision Loss in 7th & Death from 7th

BPHS Chapter 11 — Bhava Viveka Adhyaya, the First Seven Houses

Bhava Viveka Adhyaya = the meaning, the wisdom, of the various houses.

Maitreya's question (opening verse): Arishtam tat-prabhangam cha shrutam tvatto maya mune; kasmad bhavat phalam kim kim vicharyam iti me vada. — The evil and its breaking I have heard from you, O sage. From which house, which results are to be judged — tell me that.

Parashara answers one house per verse. These are the primary indications of each house.

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1st House — Lagna Bhava

Deham rupam cha jnanam cha varnam chaiva balabalam, sukham duhkham svabhavam cha lagna-bhavan nirikshayet.

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2nd House — Dhana Sthana

Dhana-dhanyam kutumbam cha mrityu-jalam amitrakam, dhatu-ratnadikam sarvam dhana-sthanan nirikshayet.

"So for enemies, Parashara is saying second house, an important house."

Asked whether anything so far was a surprise, the class picks this one: enemies are normally seen from the 6th.

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3rd House — Vikrama

Vikramam bhritya-bhratradi chopadesha-prayanakam …

The rest of this verse is lost in the recording.

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4th House

The start of this verse is garbled. What survives:

… chaturthat parichintayet — all these are to be thought of from the 4th house.

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5th House — Putra

Yantra-mantrau tatha vidyam buddhesh chaiva prabandhakam, putra-rajyapabhramshadin pashyet putralayad budhah.

So getting the kingdom, losing the kingdom and children are all seen from the 5th by the learned.

Lack of a thing is seen from the same house as the thing. A remark prompted by "losing the kingdom":

• The 2nd house shows wealth. If somebody is a pauper, the lack of wealth is also the 2nd house.
• The 10th house is career. Having no career is also seen from the 10th.

"Lack of anything — as long as you have an object, lack of this object is also basically seen from weaknesses in that house."

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6th House

Matulantaka-shankanam shatrumsh chaiva vranadikan, sapatni-mataram chapi shashtha-bhavan nirikshayet.

Enemies again. The 2nd house was named for enemies, and now the 6th is named too.

"So enemies should be seen from second as well as sixth, not just sixth."

A student suggests the 6th may be the serious enemies. The teacher: perhaps. His own suggestion:

• Enemies come in two ways: in general, and on account of what you have.
• "A rich man has more enemies, they say. A poor man has no enemy. His poverty is his enemy."
• If a man has enemies on account of his wealth — litigation over wealth and so on — the 2nd house is probably more relevant than the 6th.
• "That may be one possible interpretation. The thing is, he has advised both the houses."

Sapatni-mataram:

• Sapatni = for a woman, the husband's other wife. "Co-wife", if English can be Indianised.
• A student notes that polygamy still exists in places. In old India, and in many societies, it was common for a man to have many wives.
• A student suggests step-mother; the teacher accepts it. It covers the step-mother, and the woman the father is married to while the mother is alive.
• More widely it shows motherly people who are not the mother — the maternal aunts, any siblings of the mother.
• Why the 6th: it is taken as the 3rd from the 4th — a sibling of the mother — not as the 6th from the 4th, an enemy of the mother.
• Today two wives of one man would see each other as rivals, and the 6th-from-4th reading would fit better. Parashara is using the 3rd: there is sibling-like love between them, maybe sibling-like rivalry too. It fits that kind of society.

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7th House — Jaya Bhava

Jayam adhva-prayanam cha vanijyam nashta-vikshanam, maranam cha sva-dehasya jaya-bhavan nirikshayet.

Prayana and prayanaka: journeys are named for both the 3rd and the 7th.

• The 3rd-house verse says prayanakam; the 7th-house verse says prayanam.
• Ka is a general suffix. It does not necessarily mean small, but it is what you add when you want to show something small. It hints at small.
• So small journeys are from the 3rd house. Long journeys, where you just keep going — start in Hyderabad and go by road all the way to Kashi — are the 7th.
• Long by time or long by distance: "We don't know for sure."

Loss of vision from the 7th: the teacher cannot explain it.

• The 2nd house shows the eyes, and the dharma of the 2nd is seeing. The 9th from the 2nd is the 10th, so normally the 10th is said to show eyesight.

"But it is not entirely clear to me why he says seventh house shows the loss of vision."

• He asks the class for thoughts. The students have none: it is the first time they have heard of the 7th for this, and one says he would have thought of the 12th.
• What the teacher says next is lost in the recording, as is his comment on death of one's own body.

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