BPHS Ch.33 v23-31: Gulika in Karkamsa+Moon=Thief; Gulika+No Aspect=Death by Poison; Ketu+Malefic=Ear Disease; Ketu+Venus=Dikshita; Ketu+Mercury+Saturn=Impotent; Ketu+Saturn Only=External Sannyasi; Ketu+Sun+Venus=Royal Servant; 2nd from Karkamsa Rahu=Money Loss; Mandi=Gulika (NOT Two Separate Entities)

Verse 23 — Gulika in Karakāṁśa Aspected by the Full Moon

Condition: Gulika is in the Karakāṁśa of a divisional chart (Parāśara does not say which) and the full Moon aspects him (pūrṇa candra … vīkṣite).

• "Full Moon" is probably not an exact full Moon. It is a Moon more full than empty, close to Pūrṇimā.

Result: his money is stolen by thieves (caura = thief, hṛta = stolen, dhana = money), or he is himself a thief.

The two halves are not two extremes:

"He is literally talking about somebody who is among thieves and his money may be taken away by other thieves, but he is one of the thieves. It's not like he is a noble person whose money is taken away by thieves."

Why the full Moon? (a student answers "abundance", and the teacher accepts it)

• Gulika is the son of Saturn. He shows thieves and shady dealings.
• Atmakaraka is the soul. Gulika on it shows bad morals.
• Moon is the mind and the giver of happiness. A full Moon is the pursuit of fullness of the mind.
• A full Moon aspecting this combination: wanting to make oneself happy and going to any extent for it, including stealing.

Which divisional chart? A student guesses D-10 or D-30, and the teacher agrees.

• D-10 is the work one does. D-30 is the evils one does, the pāpa puruṣas within.
• "It is probably D-30. A lot of people take all this to be in D-9, but most likely this is either D-10 or D-30. D-30 makes more sense than D-10."
• Parāśara keeps it ambiguous on purpose.

Weight: Gulika shows people in shady dealings. In Lagna he is already bad. On the Atmakaraka he is worse, because the Atmakaraka is the very sense of "this is I".

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Verse — Gulika in Karakāṁśa with No Aspect

Condition: Gulika is in Karakāṁśa and no planet aspects him (graha adṛṣṭe). The previous verse had the full Moon aspecting; here there is nothing.

Result: two words.

• The first is rendered in translation as one who gives trouble to others. The teacher: it need not mean that. It can as well be one who gets into trouble — many problems, many hardships, a life that is not smooth.
• The second: killed by poison (viṣa = poison, hata = killed).

Poison is wider than a snake or a scorpion:

"Even different kinds of cancer — maybe some people have lifestyles today where they take a lot of thermocol and plastic into their system. So suddenly one day they may get a cancer because of it. That is also poison."

• Gulika shows evil that comes because the body gets something it should not naturally be getting.
• He dies from unfortunate and unnatural causes.

Divisional chart: D-30. "D-30 is the only logical chart." In the previous verse the person's own work was involved, so D-10 could be considered. Here it is an evil that happens to the person, up to death.

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Verse — Mercury Aspecting Gulika in Karakāṁśa

Condition: Gulika is in Karakāṁśa and Mercury aspects (Budha dṛṣṭe).

Result: bṛhad-bīja — one with a big bīja. Parāśara adds "there is no doubt".

• The published translation takes it as an anatomical description. The teacher: that is not necessarily accurate. It can also mean one who has many children.

A student objects: Mercury and Saturn are said to be bad for children. How does Mercury give many?

• For fertility Mercury is not conducive. In a house related to fertility Mercury and Saturn cause trouble conceiving.
• But this verse is not about fertility. It is about Karakāṁśa aspected by Mercury.
• Mercury is the planet of variety and multitude. In any divisional chart, when Mercury aspects the Karakāṁśa, that area of life has "many".
• This combination must be in D-7. Karakāṁśa aspected by Mercury in D-7 = multitude in the matter of children.

What Gulika adds: some bad deed, some bad karma. Several children from many wives — "not necessarily even wives".

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by a Malefic

Condition: Ketu is in Karakāṁśa and a malefic aspects him. The teacher reads it as a functional malefic.

Result: ear disease (karṇa roga), or the ear is cut off — the ear does not function at all.

• Malefic aspects bring out the worst of Ketu. Benefic aspects would relieve the worst and bring out the best.
• Ketu in Karakāṁśa can show many other things, spirituality among them. The ear result is specifically in D-30.

Why Ketu and the Ear

A student expected a speech problem, not a hearing problem. The teacher takes speech first.

• Ketu gives trouble to whatever house he is in. He is the one who takes away.
• Ketu in the 2nd house gives very clear, sharp speech. Weak or afflicted, he gives speech trouble there: stammering, or a boy of almost five who does not speak at all.
• That is Ketu tied to the 2nd house. Ketu in general is not linked with speech.
• Speech and hearing problems usually come from an afflicted Jupiter. Jupiter is the giver of hearing.

Here Ketu is in no particular house from Lagna. He is in Karakāṁśa, and Parāśara still says hearing. The chain:

1. Each sense belongs to a tattva. Hearing is Ākāśa tattva. (Taste is Jala, sight is Agni.)
2. Jupiter shows hearing. His Moolatrikona is Sagittarius.
3. Sagittarius and the 7th from it, Gemini, are the important signs for ears and hearing.
4. Ketu owns Scorpio, the 12th from Sagittarius.
5. From Gemini, the natural 3rd sign of the zodiac, Ketu is the 6th lord — the impediment.
6. Mars also owns Scorpio. But Mars is a friend of Jupiter and neutral to Mercury. Ketu is not. "In spiritual matters, Jupiter and Ketu are like friends. But in other matters, Jupiter and Ketu are not at all friends."

Tattvas in D-30: the planets fall in ten signs there, all but Cancer and Leo. The sign a planet afflicts in D-30 tells which tattva is afflicted: Mercury's signs (Gemini, Virgo) Pṛthvī, Venus's signs Jala, Mars's signs (Aries, Scorpio) Agni, Jupiter's signs (Sagittarius, Pisces) Ākāśa, Saturn's signs Vāyu. (The recording is garbled on the Venus and Saturn pairs.)

Do Not Jump to Conclusions

• The 3rd house shows ears. If Ketu owns the 3rd house of the Rāśi chart, or is a friend of the 3rd lord, he will not give the problem.
• "He has a natural propensity to give hearing problems, but he doesn't have to give it in every chart where he is in Karakāṁśa."
• Ketu is in Karakāṁśa in D-30 in one chart of twelve. Say half of those have malefic aspects. That is one person in 24 with the combination. Not that many people have ear problems.

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Venus

Condition: Ketu is in Karakāṁśa and Venus (Bhṛgu-putra) aspects.

Result: dīkṣita — one who has taken a dīkṣā. A religious, spiritual person initiated into some paramparā, some lineage, some mantra, some tradition. He does sādhana.

• These are now the positive results. Ketu shows hearing problems and health problems, but he is also the planet of spirituality.
• Ketu in Karakāṁśa can make a person spiritual.

Divisional chart: probably D-20, the chart of upāsanā.

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Mercury and Saturn

Condition: Mercury (Budha) and Saturn (Ārki) aspect Ketu in Karakāṁśa, instead of Venus.

Result: nirvīrya.

• The published translation: devoid of strength, weak. The teacher questions it. Saturn can make someone weak, but Mercury is not a planet of weakness.
• Vīrya also means the power to beget. Nirvīrya = impotent, not fertile, not capable of begetting children. "That will make more sense."

Why:

• Mercury and Saturn are neither male nor female. They are the neuter planets.
• Ketu is the planet of not giving, of keeping things away from you.
• In D-7, Ketu in Karakāṁśa aspected by Mercury and Saturn makes it difficult to get a child. Or the person gets an adopted child.

One or both? The verse can be read as either one aspecting or both.

• "If both of them aspect, then you can be confident. If one of them aspects, you won't be so confident."
• They need not be together. They may sit in different signs, as long as both aspect Ketu in Karakāṁśa.

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Mercury and Venus

Condition: Mercury and Venus aspect Ketu in Karakāṁśa.

Result: dāsī putra — the son of a servant maid. A lowly birth.

Divisional chart: D-12 — parents and the circumstances of birth. "This is applying to D-12, not to other charts."

Why Mercury and Venus (Saturn shows lowly things, so these two are a surprise):

• Ketu in the lagna of D-12 shows something not right about the birth, something about the parents.
• Venus is the karaka for licentiousness.
• Mercury is the illicit son of Moon and Tārā.
• The two together aspecting an undesirable planet in lagna show an undesirable birth.

What the verse does not say:

"He is not saying his mother and father all belong to a low caste and then mother is a servant maid and father is also a servant and then he is born to them. That is not what he is saying. Because if that is the case, the combination doesn't make sense."

• What he presumably says: the mother is a servant maid working in a house and compromised with the master of the house. The birth is the result of the licentiousness of a couple of people.

The verse's alternative: or he is born to a woman who has no husband — a woman whose husband has passed away. In both cases the birth is socially inappropriate.

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Saturn

Condition: Saturn aspects Ketu in Karakāṁśa.

Result: a tapasvī — he has great penance. Or he looks like one who does penance and puts up a show of it.

• "It's tough to judge the difference. But the bottom line is somebody who is associated with sādhana, penance."

Why ("it makes very good sense"):

• Saturn, Ketu and Venus give tapasvī yoga.
• Saturn gives austerity. Ketu gives dispassion.
• Ketu in Karakāṁśa lagna: the person's sense of "this is I" has a high level of detachment.
• Saturn aspecting: he is able to do austerities.
• Detachment plus austerities is penance.

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Saturn Alone

Condition: only Saturn aspects Ketu in Karakāṁśa. No other planet aspects.

Result: he wears the robes of a sannyāsī. He has renounced outwardly. He may or may not have renounced inwardly.

Why Saturn alone is not enough:

"Even though Saturn is the karaka for renunciation, he can't give perfect renunciation internally unless the real wisdom is there, like Jupiter or Venus. They are the givers of wisdom. Unless they are associated, just Saturn, he can only give external renunciation. Basically, he gives renunciation by way of deprivation."

Outer renunciation is not detachment:

• Having no wife, no children, no job and no responsibility does not mean one has renounced everything.
• A man may live in a forest or a hermitage for 20 years. Then he meets a beautiful woman, or people become his śiṣyas and praise him as a great saint. Will he stay detached, or become proud and want wealth and women?
• One who has deprived himself of a thing has not necessarily overcome the attachment to it. Money, fame, following and the opposite sex pull when one is in their company.
• Many sannyāsīs today are like that — not all. Their intention is good. But they overcome a weakness only by isolating themselves from it. Exposed to it, they may fall.

"Somebody may be living in the middle of the saṁsāra, have a wife, have children, have a job, have a lot of followers, have people who praise you. But still it is possible for such a person to become highly detached, like for example, Lahiri Mahasaya. Real detachment is in the mind. It's not really in what you do externally."

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Verse — Ketu in Karakāṁśa Aspected by Sun and Venus

Condition: Sun (Ravi) and Venus (Śukra) aspect Ketu in Karakāṁśa.

Result: he serves the king. Not one who sweeps the king's floor. One with a good position in the king's court.

Why:

• Venus shows luxuries. Sun shows royalty.
• They are not friends, but together they show luxuries tied to power — the marks of royal insignia. Example: you work for a big politician and he sends you a message every day.
• If Sun and Venus alone aspected the Karakāṁśa, he would himself carry the insignia, like a king or a minister.
• Ketu is there. Ketu does not make a very powerful person. So he is not at the top. He serves the king: an advisor, a spiritual advisor, a court official with a respectable position.

Divisional chart: D-10, the work done by the person.

Parāśara closes the list: the results of Karakāṁśa are told in brief. "You can give so many other results. These are just a few samples so that you know how to think."

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Verse 31 — The 2nd House from Karakāṁśa

Venus and Mars

Condition: the 2nd from Karakāṁśa (svāṁśa) falls in a varga of Venus or Mars.

• The verse is ambiguous. One reading: Venus or Mars sits in the 2nd. The teacher's reading: the 2nd is owned by Venus or Mars. That is four signs — Aries, Scorpio, Taurus and Libra. (The recording garbles the list.)

Result: pāradārika — one who is interested in other people's spouses (para-dāra).

Stronger form: if the two planets aspect or conjoin the 2nd from Karakāṁśa, the result is permanent. Otherwise it is a fleeting thing.

Why the 2nd from Karakāṁśa:

• The 12th is the house of pleasure, the pleasures of bed.
• The 2nd is the 3rd from the 12th. It is the interest and the initiative the person has for 12th-house matters.
• Lagna is not used here, because lagna is what actually manifests. Karakāṁśa is the natural instincts of the person.
• A strong influence of Venus and Mars on the 2nd from Karakāṁśa: he has a lot of initiative in pursuing the other sex.

Ketu and Jupiter

• If Ketu's influence is there, it puts a brake on that. Ketu, the planet of deprivation, can restrain the person.
• With Jupiter there, he is still interested in that only. Even Jupiter is not capable of restraining him.

Rahu

• Rahu in the 2nd from Karakāṁśa: money goes away from the person. He loses money.
• The 2nd is mainly the house of money. Licentiousness is only one of tens of possible results; it was spelt out so that one can think along that line too.

The class stops at verse 31. Verse 32 is for the next class.

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Mandi and Gulika Are One Upagraha

The teacher raises this while reading verse 23.

The theory he rejects: Mandi and Gulika are two different bodies. In the same portion one rises at the beginning and one in the middle. One shows the evils you do to others, the other the evils others do to you.

His reading: they are the same.

1. They are used as synonyms in some books, and some classics say outright that the two are one.
2. Parāśara defines only the calculation of Gulika. Later he uses "Mandi" as though it were already defined, though he never defined it.
3. Māndi means one coming from Manda — Saturn. Gulika is defined from Saturn's portion.
4. Verse 23 gives both results from Gulika alone: you take somebody's money, and somebody takes yours. That debunks the split into one who does and one who suffers.

"There is basically only one Gulika and he is also known as Mandi. Some people call him Mandi, some people call him Gulika. Parāśara used both the terms in his book for the same upagraha."

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