Example Chart — 1984 (Virgo Lagna): D9 Leo Lagna Jupiter MD+Saturn AD=Marriage Aug 2007 (Saturn=7L in 7H=Own Sign; From 7H Perspective=Lagna Lord in Lagna=Auspicious); D9 Scorpio Char Dasha=Mars-Venus Parivartana from Scorpio; Tajika 2007=Mercury(7L)-Ketu(in 7H) Antardasha; D4 Pisces Char Dasha=9L in 12H=Going Abroad Dec 2007; D24 Rahu MD+Moon(5L) AD=MCA Degree Mid-2008

The Case — Data and Events

Events given by the student

• Married August 26, 2007. Arranged in the normal way, not sudden. Her husband was already in the US.
• Came to the US December 22, 2007.
• Completed MCA (Master of Computer Applications) in mid-2008.
• Now works in software quality assurance at an insurance company.
• Her question: when will she have children?

How much can the time be trusted

• The question is about children, so the teacher looks at D7 first. The D7 lagna changes only if birth was 13 min 7 s earlier or 4 min 36 s later.
• Recorded birth times usually run a little late: people note the time afterwards. So the true time tends to lie before the given time, and backward there is plenty of room. The D7 lagna is mostly reliable.
• He still checks the time against the known events, one varga at a time, before predicting.

"If the Saptamsa lagna is not on a border, you can directly proceed to give a prediction also. But let us see."

A note on the charts shown on this page

• The class works with Surya Siddhanta positions. The chart drawn on this page gives the same D9 lagna (Leo), D7 lagna (Leo) and D4 lagna (Gemini) and most placements, but a few planets close to a division boundary fall one sign away from the class (Jupiter and Moon in D9; Mars and Jupiter in D7; Saturn and Venus in D4; Mars and the nodes in D24). The placements below are the ones the teacher reads out.

D9 (Navamsa) — Marriage, August 26, 2007

D9 lagna: Leo.

Placements used in class

• Sun (lagna lord) and Jupiter (5th and 8th lord) together in Leo lagna, aspecting the 7th house.
• Saturn (6th and 7th lord) in Aquarius, the 7th house, own sign. Rahu, the other lord of Aquarius, in the 9th house (Aries).
• Mars (4th and 9th lord, yogakaraka) in Taurus. Venus in Scorpio, aspecting Taurus.
• Mercury (2nd and 11th lord) in the 8th house, debilitated in Pisces.
• Ketu in Libra. Moon in Gemini.

D9 Vimshottari: Jupiter Mahadasha, Saturn Antardasha

Jupiter:

• 5th lordship is benefic.
• For the 8th lord, Parashara's rule is: see the other house owned and the company. The other house is the 5th. The only company is the Sun, lagna lord in lagna, a benefic. So the 8th lordship also turns benefic.
• Jupiter is a functional benefic, and gives a Raja Yoga with the Sun: 5th lord and lagna lord together in lagna.
• So Jupiter Mahadasha can bring the blessings of this area of life, including marriage.

Saturn:

• 7th lord in the 7th house.
• Parashara: the lord of a house who is exalted, in own house, or aspecting his own house becomes very auspicious for that matter. Saturn is a very strong candidate for giving marriage.

The objection: Saturn is not a benefic for Leo lagna

• The teacher had written up Rajiv Gandhi's chart: same Leo D9 lagna, Saturn in Aquarius in the 7th, marriage in Rahu Mahadasha, Saturn Antardasha (Rahu being the other 7th lord).
• A listener wrote a long critique: you say you look at whether a planet is functionally good or bad, but Saturn is not a benefic here.
• The answer:
  • From lagna, Saturn is neutral or slightly malefic. 7th lordship is not bad for a natural malefic (kendra ownership), but he also owns the 6th.
  • Lagna is the person's overall self in that area of life. The functional nature from lagna tells whether a planet is conducive to that.
  • There is also the matter you are asking about. Take that house as the reference and ask whether the planet is well disposed toward it. Both readings are combined.
  • Take the 7th house as lagna: Saturn is lagna lord in lagna. Very auspicious.
  • The cost: such a planet may give the event while the person's sense of self suffers a little on account of it.

"If the lord of any house is very well placed, strong, like own house or Moolatrikona or exaltation, without too many afflictions, then that planet is capable of giving that result no matter what, because that is his agenda."

Who can give marriage in this D9

• Three powerful candidates: Sun, Jupiter, Saturn. Sun and Jupiter are functional benefics with a yoga in lagna, aspecting the 7th house. Saturn is the 7th lord in the 7th.
• Mars is yogakaraka but weak here. He is in Taurus, Venus's sign, and Venus aspects Taurus. A sign aspected by its own lord is more firmly under that lord's control. Venus is a bitter enemy of Mars in this chart. In another chart a poorly placed yogakaraka might still deliver; here better placed planets exist.
• If the marriage had fallen in, say, Mercury Dasha, Moon Antardasha, something would be wrong: the time, or another dasha applies (the Sun is in lagna), or a factor not yet understood.

Do not justify every planet

• Any planet can be argued into giving marriage here: Sun is Darakaraka; Venus is the karaka; Mars is 7th from Venus; Moon is 9th lord from Venus and 12th lord from lagna, and Upapada is the arudha of the 12th; Rahu is a 7th lord, in the 9th; Mercury is 11th lord.
• The teacher refuses to work that way.

"The desire to somehow explain everything means you will end up justifying everything."

• Keep to Parashara's simple guidelines. Then Saturn, Sun and Jupiter dominate.
• His estimate: about 40% of charts read this cleanly as given. In about half of the rest, a shift of a few minutes makes them clean. In the remainder the dasha does not work for a reason not yet known. Say "sorry, I can't help you" and revisit later.

How far the dasha moves when the time moves

• Old thumb rule for the Rasi chart: an error of m minutes moves the dasha dates by about m × n ÷ 4 days, where n is the length in years of the first Mahadasha at birth.
• For the Vimshottari of divisional chart D-k, multiply by k. Navamsa is 9 times as sensitive.
• Here the first dasha is Mars (7 years). For 5 minutes: 5 × 7 ÷ 4 × 9 ≈ 78 days. Checked in the software: moving the time 5 minutes moved the dasha start by about two and a half months.
• Mercury Antardasha began in November 2007, three months after the wedding. Mercury is 2nd and 11th lord, debilitated in the 8th: no candidate for marriage. So the time cannot be late by more than about 4–5 minutes.
• D9 lagna itself holds from 5 min 15 s earlier to 8 min 34 s later.

Arranged marriage

• A student expected suddenness because the 8th lord's dasha was running. The marriage was planned and normal.
• D9 lagna has Sun and Jupiter: elders and respected people play their part. The 7th has Saturn: conservative and slow. This points to an arranged marriage, not a love marriage or a forced one.

D9 Char Dasha: Scorpio

• Scorpio dasha was running at marriage.
• In the natal D9 its link with the 7th house is weak: only that 7th lord Saturn aspects Scorpio by his 10th aspect (graha drishti from Aquarius).
• Take Scorpio as lagna: lagna lord Mars is in the 7th (Taurus) and 7th lord Venus is in lagna. Lagna lord – 7th lord parivartana. That makes the dasha capable of giving marriage.
• A student objected that Mars and Venus are in each other's enemy signs. The teacher agreed, and added that from Scorpio Venus (7th and 12th lord) is neutral or slightly malefic and Mars is benefic or neutral — no outright malefics — and the exchange between lagna lord and 7th lord stands.
• Compared with the neighbouring dashas it is the best: Libra holds Ketu with Rahu in its 7th; Sagittarius has its lord with the 9th lord in the 9th, but its 7th holds the 8th lord Moon. Aquarius dasha would have been the best candidate of all, but it came far too late, at about 43.
• Rasi transit on August 26, 2007, from Scorpio as lagna: lagna lord Mars in the 7th (Taurus); Jupiter in Scorpio. Jupiter is 5th lord both from Leo lagna and from Scorpio — the 5th lord on the dasha sign, purva punya reaching it. Mars and Jupiter were within a couple of degrees of exact opposition.
• Transits are read in the Rasi chart, because the event is a physical one. Transits in Navamsa and other vargas can be looked at, but the Rasi transit is the fundamental one.
• Vimshottari and Char Dasha both make decent sense. The time is most likely right.

Tajika (Annual) Chart 2007 — Marriage Year

• Use the plain Tajika chart cast for the Sun's return. The "Sambhavish" style chart is not mentioned in any classic and is ignored.
• Cast for July 22, 2007, 10:23 AM. Its Navamsa lagna is Pisces, with Mercury and Rahu in it.

Reading the Tajika Navamsa

• To judge any chart: who is in lagna, what yogas they join, who aspects them, and how strong the trine lords are.
• Mercury in lagna: debilitated, with neecha bhanga. 4th and 7th lord — a natural benefic owning two kendras, so neutral or malefic from lagna. But from the house of interest he is the 7th lord aspecting the 7th.
• Rahu with him is the 12th lord, neither benefic nor malefic by ownership. For Rahu the rule is the house he occupies and the company he keeps: in lagna, with a neutral planet. Rahu comes out slightly benefic, and Ketu also. So the 7th lord is not afflicted by malefics.
• Ketu is the 9th lord and sits in the 7th. Mercury and Ketu in mutual aspect: a yoga of the 7th and 9th lords.
• Trine lords: lagna lord Jupiter is in Moolatrikona — always a blessing for a chart. The 5th lord Moon and 9th lord Mars are together in the 9th. Moon is debilitated but has neecha bhanga; Mars is in his own sign.
• Lagna lord and both trine lords strong, 7th lord in lagna aspecting the 7th: a good chance of marriage in the year.

Rahu on the lagna of the year

• A student noted that the lagna sits on the Rahu–Ketu axis, yet the marriage had nothing of Rahu about it — no quarrels, no forcing.
• Rahu and Ketu are not functional malefics in this chart. And the manner of the marriage is read from the natal chart, not the annual one. In the natal D9 Saturn sits in the 7th and dominates: slow, disciplined, patient, conservative, probably arranged.

Compressed Vimshottari of the Tajika chart

• In Jagannatha Hora: Dasha window → Preferences related to dashas → Dasha seed settings for Tajika → uncheck the first two boxes. Then the dasha is seeded from the Moon's nakshatra in the Tajika chart itself.
• The traditional Mudda Dasha takes the natal nakshatra and advances it one nakshatra a year. The teacher finds no basis for that — the annual progression is by a rasi, not a nakshatra — and found no usable signal with it.

"Progressing Moon by a nakshatra every year, there is no basis for it. It is just arbitrary. Somebody thought of it and it became the standard."

• Moon in the Tajika Navamsa is at 10° Scorpio, Anuradha. The first dasha is Saturn's.
• The marriage fell in Mercury Dasha, Ketu Antardasha. Mercury is the 7th lord; Ketu is in the 7th house.
• Mars, powerful in the 9th, could also have given it. But when the 7th house itself carries a yoga, that yoga can deliver the event. It need not be a benefic.
• Mercury–Mercury would also make sense. Mercury–Venus would not: Venus is the karaka, but here he is 3rd and 8th lord in the 2nd. Saturn, 11th and 12th lord in the 2nd, is out as well. Walking the birth time back and forward until the period leaves Mercury–Mercury / Mercury–Ketu would narrow the time to a couple of minutes. Not done in class.
• The Tajika Navamsa lagna holds from 3 min 54 s earlier to 9 min 45 s later.
• He applies the unchecked seed setting to all nakshatra dashas.

Char Dasha in the Tajika chart does not work

• Compressed Char Dasha of the Tajika D9 gives Aries dasha at the wedding. That makes no sense; Pisces, Virgo or Scorpio would have.
• He has tried it from Muntha, from the chart's own lagna, with two cycles (144 years) compressed to a year. Only noise.
• Compressed Vimshottari of the divisional chart works reasonably in perhaps half the cases. Use that. Anyone who thinks Char Dasha works here should show a simple rule holding across 30 charts and 30 events.

D4 (Chaturthamsa) — Going to the US, December 22, 2007

D4 lagna: Gemini.

D4 Vimshottari: Rahu Mahadasha, Rahu Antardasha

• Rahu is the 9th lord (co-lord of Aquarius), a karaka for foreign lands, and sits in the 3rd house, the house of travel, aspecting the 9th.
• The lord of a house aspecting his own house is always auspicious for it. His own antardasha gave the event.
• This does not tighten the time (D4 lagna holds from 8 min 41 s earlier to 22 min later), but the chart keeps giving what is expected, which raises confidence in it.

D4 Char Dasha: Pisces

• Pisces contains Jupiter, the 7th and 10th lord.
• Saturn has a full aspect on Pisces (3rd aspect). Saturn is a 9th lord (co-lord of Aquarius) and is joined with the 12th lord Venus. So a 9th lord tied to the 12th lord aspects the dasha sign.
• From Pisces as lagna, the 9th lord is in the 12th house (Ketu, lord of Scorpio, in Aquarius).
• Both ways the dasha can take her abroad.
• Rasi transit on December 22, 2007, from Pisces: the 12th house Aquarius is transited by its own lord Rahu. The other 12th lord Saturn aspects it from Leo, and is with the 9th lord Ketu. Both the 9th and the 12th lords are on the 12th-house axis.

"Any house, if the lord is transiting in that house, that house becomes powerful."

Tajika 2007, D4

• Checked afterwards "so that this case study will be complete".
• In the Tajika D4 the 7th lord, who is also the 10th lord, is in lagna. The 9th house holds Rahu with malefics, and Rahu is the karaka. Both can show going abroad in the year.
• The compressed D4 Vimshottari period on December 22 was Mercury's — the 7th and 10th lord in lagna.

D24 (Siddhamsa) — MCA Degree, mid-2008, and the Time Correction

Three possible lagnas

• The D24 lagna changes 3 min 32 s earlier and 1 min 39 s later. Within the window established so far, the previous sign (Capricorn), the given one (Aquarius) and the next one (Pisces) are all possible.
• With three candidate lagnas the Char Dasha gives three different answers. The teacher uses Vimshottari to choose.
• D24 Vimshottari in mid-2008: Rahu Mahadasha, Moon Antardasha (with the 360-tithi year, Moon Antardasha begins in January 2008).

The test

"It has to be a very important event in life, getting any degree. So it has to be a good dasha."

• A degree is not the "death of education". It is the certification of the learning. Whoever studies two years and leaves without the degree is counted as having learnt nothing.
• Mahadasha must be conducive; the antardasha is the main determinant of the event.

Aquarius lagna (the given time):

• Rahu is a lagna lord, but Parashara gives no ownership-based nature for Rahu and Ketu. Ownership counts for yogas. For basic nature, look at the house occupied and the company.
• Rahu is in the 3rd with Mars (3rd and 10th lord — overall malefic) and Ketu. Rahu is a clear malefic.
• Moon is the 6th lord in the 12th. A Viparita Raja Yoga, not bad, but no great benefic.
• Rahu–Moon giving a degree makes little sense.

Capricorn lagna:

• Rahu is in the 2nd with Mars, the 4th and 11th lord, a malefic. Again a functional malefic.
• Moon is the 7th lord in lagna; a waning Moon owning a kendra is neutral or slightly benefic. Nothing great.
• A student argued that the 2nd house suits a master's degree. The teacher: whether the 9th shows a bachelor's degree and the 2nd a master's (the scheme of taking the 6th from each stage) comes from the SJC tradition and is untested. Parashara never spoke of bachelor's or master's education. He did speak of benefics giving good results and malefics bad ones. That is the fundamental.

Pisces lagna:

• Time moved forward by a little over a minute and a half, to 11:31:45 AM.
• Mars is 2nd and 9th lord. The 2nd lord is neutral and follows the other house and the company; 9th lordship is benefic. By Parashara's guideline for Pisces lagna Mars is a bigger benefic than even Jupiter, who owns lagna but also a kendra, the 10th.
• Rahu is in the 2nd (a neutral house) with Mars. Rahu behaves like his company and his house: a strong benefic. Rahu, Mars and Ketu are all benefics.
• Moon is the 5th lord and aspects the 5th house. A planet who owns and aspects a house gives very good results of that house.
• Rahu gives the 9th-house result because he is with the 9th lord; Moon gives the 5th-house result. Rahu–Moon gives the degree.
• Mars, Rahu and Ketu in the 2nd would also show technical education, computers. But a 2nd-house link to Rahu can be found for many lagnas, so the teacher does not rest the choice on that.

What the correction means

• The time was off by about 1¾ minutes. Further error is unlikely: "either this time or the next half minute".
• A degree is a tangible thing, so its arudha should be seen. The teacher does not yet know how to find arudhas in divisional charts and will not teach it until settled.

Mars as maraka

• A student: Mars Dasha would also be good for her education. Yes — Mars is a benefic.
• His one blemish: he is the 2nd lord in the 2nd house, so he is also a maraka. His dasha is good but may carry some problems.
• Rules for maraka: the 2nd lord; the 7th lord; and planets afflicting the 2nd or 7th, especially the 2nd, if they are malefics.
• Rahu and Ketu here are benefics by Parashara's rules. Their sitting in the 2nd does not make them marakas. Rahu Dasha is a very good dasha.