Body Parts Mapped to Houses via Drekkanas — 3 Sets: Head (1st Drekkana), Torso (2nd), Lower Body (3rd)

Body Parts Mapped to Houses via Drekkanas

Parāśara gives three lists of body parts, one for each drekkana the lagna can fall in. Each sign has 3 drekkanas of 10°, so there are 36 in the zodiac.

"Basically he is dividing the body into 3 parts and then each part is further divided into 12 parts."

Head down to the chin is one part, the middle is one part, the bottom is one part.

How PVNR arrives at 12 per list. The verses name only six or seven words per list. Some are in the dual number (two eyes, two ears) and some in the singular. A dual word gives two houses: the right one counted forward from lagna, the left one counted backward. A singular word gives one house. Five duals and two singulars make 12.

Tradition already gives the right eye to the 2nd house and the left eye to the 12th. The same pattern is carried through: 2nd to 6th houses are the right side, 12th to 8th the left side, and the 1st and 7th take the two singular parts.

"So symmetrically he has arranged various parts of the body."

Use: wounds and moles (vraṇa, cihna) and ailments in a particular part of the body, seen from lagna and also from Chandra lagna. The 10° a planet occupies decides which part it influences.

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Set 1: Lagna in the 1st Drekkana (0°–10°) — Head

Where PVNR departs from Santhanam:

• Santhanam gives "left side of head, right side of head" and "right face, left face". But śiras and mukha are in the singular. They are one part each: 1st house and 7th house.
• Śiras is the top of the head, not the whole head — as in aṅga-nyāsa.
• Nāsike is dual: Parāśara is splitting the nose into two nostrils.
• Hanu is the chin. Santhanam's "temple" is wrong.

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Set 2: Lagna in the Middle Drekkana (10°–20°) — Neck to Navel

• Santhanam again gives two necks. PVNR does not agree: neck is one, navel is one.
• Hṛdaya literally means heart, and Santhanam translates "right side of the heart, left side of the heart". The heart is on the left. PVNR reads it as the whole area holding the heart — the chest.

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Set 3: Lagna in the 3rd Drekkana (20°–30°) — Below the Navel

• Vasti ends in the singular: one part, the 1st house.
• Liṅga-gude is one dual compound, a pair like the two eyes: liṅga from the 2nd, guda from the 12th. Santhanam's reading here differs and PVNR drops it.
• Pāda is not in the dual. Both feet are one entity, seen from the 7th house — not from two different signs.
• For a female chart PVNR is not sure what muṣka maps to. Santhanam suggests ovaries in place of testicles, and PVNR says that makes sense.

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Front and Back of the Body

A student asked where the back of the body is seen.

The lists divide the body only into left and right. There is no front and back. "Chest" covers the front of the chest and the back of it; a thigh is the whole thigh. The left half of the spine falls with the left side, the right half with the right side.

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What About the Other Two Lists?

PVNR's own question: everybody has all 36 body parts. If lagna is in the 1st drekkana, the first list is distributed over the 12 houses. How are the second and third lists seen in that chart?

"What if he is born in the 2nd drekkana of a sign? Doesn't he have eyes?"

Santhanam only prints the three lists as diagrams for Aries lagna. He does not say whether all 36 parts are to be seen in each chart. Parāśara is "obviously expecting us to generalize this."

Readings discussed in class:

1. Corresponding drekkana of each house (PVNR's reading). The parts are seen from the same drekkana in every house. If lagna is at 10°–20°, then 10°–20° of the 1st house shows the first item of its list, 10°–20° of the 2nd house the next, and so on round the 12 houses. The following drekkana of each sign (20°–30°) carries the next list. So the three lists are spread over the 36 drekkanas.
2. An exclusive list (a student's reading). The drekkana the lagna is born in fixes the one list of 12 parts where that person can have disease, moles or wounds. PVNR calls it a valid speculation but says he is skeptical of it.
3. A third reading starts from the fact that Parāśara's own words may not strictly say "if the lagna is in the 1st drekkana of a sign". The recording breaks at this point and the question is not settled in the class.

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