How to Approach a Chart — D4 Residence, Foreign Travel & Lagna Leeway

How to Approach a Chart — No Fixed Order

A student asked: what is the first thing you look at — the Atmakaraka, the Arudha lagna, the lagna? PVNR answered with a question: when you go to a doctor, what does he look at first — the X-ray, the MRI, the pulse, the temperature?

"There is no order. It depends on what your priorities are, what the person wants and what questions you want to answer."

• No list is given anywhere in the literature, "and for a good reason".
• A man waiting on a job offer in the next two weeks: go straight to the annual chart, see which Tithi Ashtottari daśā runs for those weeks and whether it can give a job or a disappointment. No natal chart, no Narayana daśā. PVNR has made many correct predictions with this shortcut.
• A life reading: the whole chart.
• A politician asking when he will rise, or a man in spiritual turmoil asking when it ends: the Atmakaraka and what goes with it become important.
• A man out of work for two and a half years: the annual chart alone may not show why. Go to the natal chart.
• What a class can teach is what each parameter means — a chara karaka, a naisargika karaka, graha dṛṣṭi, rāśi dṛṣṭi, argala, Moon's daśā in one system or another. Which of them matters more is situation-dependent. That is why the class works through so many examples.
• Pulse, heartbeat and temperature are taken for everybody. Beyond that the doctor orders tests from the symptoms. Astrology is the same.

A student added a story: a businessman went to an astrologer about his business. She looked at the chart and told him only to see a doctor at once. He was operated on the next day. PVNR: that is a good astrologer.

Checking Lagna Leeway Before Any Analysis

For the man out of work, the first thing PVNR looks at is not a karaka. It is how close the Dasamsa lagna is to a sign boundary.

• In the software: right-click the divisional chart → "When will lagna change sign in D-10". It answers with two figures, for example "3 minutes 55 seconds earlier or 7 minutes 38 seconds later". The same menu can move the birth time so that the lagna falls in the previous or the next sign, so both can be tried.
• Example shown: a chart for December 5, 2004 at 9:10 AM has its D-10 lagna 16 seconds from the border. Taken as Gemini, it may as well be Taurus.

"It's so close to the border that any analysis that you do with Gemini may be wrong. It has a 50% chance of being totally off."

• In that case the first job is rectification: check when he got his first job, when he joined, when he was laid off, and settle the lagna.

"Having the right lagna is absolutely the key to any chart."

How much leeway against how much error

• Leeway 6 minutes on each side, and the native says the error cannot exceed 2–3 minutes: the D-10 lagna is safe. Proceed. (People who say "not even one second of error" are sometimes five minutes off.)
• Leeway 2 minutes on one side and 3 on the other, error up to 5 minutes: look at both neighbouring lagnas.
• Leeway 1 minute on one side and 10 on the other, error up to 5 minutes: look at the lagna on the 1-minute side.

A large uncertainty — back off to D-3

• "I was born between 9 and 10": within that hour there are six possible D-10 lagnas. There is no point looking at the Atmakaraka or Vimshottari. Comparing six lagnas against events "is not fun".
• Do not start with D-10. Go to the Drekkana, which has three divisions in a sign and changes about once every 40 minutes.
• Ask about siblings, even if the person only wants to know about career. Time the siblings' events and fix the D-3 lagna.
• That cuts the hour to 40 minutes, or 20–30 with luck. Then two or three D-10 lagnas remain instead of six.
• See where each varga has its boundaries inside the window, decide which chart to attack first, then go to the next.

Foreign Travel — Houses, Badhakasthana and Signs

The three houses

In the Rasi chart and in D-4:

• 7th house: a long journey made with a strong desire. The person thinks he will do well by going far away.
• 9th house: fortune in a faraway place. He may live abroad and prosper there.
• 12th house: being displaced from where you are, and missing the motherland.

Rahu is the karaka for going abroad.

Badhakasthana lord

The lord of the Badhakasthana can also displace a person.

• Badhakasthana gives inexplicable troubles — something bothers you and you cannot say why.
• If a person goes abroad in the daśā of a planet tied to the Badhakasthana, some worry or problem pushed him out. He escaped something in the motherland.
• A student asked why the 9th should be the badhaka for fixed signs. PVNR said he has not heard a convincing answer, even for why the 11th is badhaka for Aries. The one he has heard, and is not fully convinced by: people with a fixed lagna are stubborn and rigid in their views, they hold to a certain dharma, and that dharma is their badha.

Signs

• Watery signs.
• The signs owned by Saturn and Rahu — Capricorn and Aquarius.

The student's Rasi chart (Sagittarius lagna)

• He came to the US on August 8–9, 1995. Vimshottari from lagna: Mars daśā began in March 1995, and he left as soon as it began.
• Mars is the 12th lord and sits in the 7th house, Gemini.
• With him in Gemini are the 9th lord Sun and the 7th lord Mercury. The 7th, 9th and 12th lords are together in one sign.
• Gemini is also the Badhakasthana, the 7th from a dual lagna.
• Gemini is the most important sign in this chart for foreign travel.

D-4 (Chaturthamsa) — Residence and Travel

D-4 shows where you live and where you travel to. It is the chart of residence.

The student's natal D-4 (Gemini lagna)

• Leeway: the D-4 lagna changes 18 min 41 s earlier or 12 min 42 s later. Safe both ways.
• Mars is with Sun in the 7th house (Sagittarius), so Mars gives Sun's results.
• Sun is the 3rd lord — losing the home — placed in the 7th house of travel to a faraway place.
• The 7th from Gemini lagna is also the Badhakasthana.
• Reading: he was pushed, escaping something, and he also had a strong desire to do something in the new country.

The 1995 Annual Chart — Hora Lord, Sahamas and Which Daśā Gave the Journey

The annual Tithi Pravesha chart for 1995–96 was cast for July 10, 1995, 2:53:09 AM IST. Lagna Taurus. Hora Lord Sun.

Hora Lord and the year

• When you open an annual chart, first see whether the Hora Lord owns good or bad houses, then whether he is in good or bad yogas.
• If the ruler of the year is a yogakaraka, expect a good and important year overall. If he is the 8th or 12th lord, expect a year of losses and troubles.
• Sun is the 4th lord. He is in Gemini (2nd house) at 23°26′ with lagna lord Venus at 11°53′ and 5th lord Mercury at 4°55′ — a Raj Yoga. The planets are not close, so it is not a great Raj Yoga, but it is one. A good year.
• In the annual D-4 (Leo lagna) Sun is the lagna lord in the 8th house with his worst enemy Saturn. Comfort from residence is badly hit. The 8th is not necessarily bad, but it shows instability: many changes in where he lives during the year.
• (In class PVNR first read the year as if Saturn were the Hora Lord, and was corrected by a student. What he said of Saturn stands as a reading of the daśā lord.)

Saturn — the daśā that gave it

He left in Saturn daśā, Saturn antardaśā of Tithi Ashtottari.

• In an annual chart give the Rasi as much weight as the divisional chart.
• Rasi: Saturn is the 9th and 10th lord for Taurus lagna — the yogakaraka — in the 11th house. The 10th lord in the 11th shows gains through career. As 9th lord he can raise the fortune and take a man abroad. The 9th house is Capricorn, one of the signs of foreign residence.
• D-4: Saturn is the 7th lord, joined with the lagna lord Sun.

Paradesa and Jalapatana Sahamas

Jalapatana is crossing the ocean. Paradesa is a foreign land. If either sahama is associated with the 7th, 9th or 12th house or its lord in the annual chart, foreign travel can come that year.

"The sahamam of interest should have a link with the houses of interest. Then the event will happen."

• Jalapatana Sahama is at 29° Capricorn — the 9th house. That raises the chance of Saturn, the 9th lord, giving the journey in his daśā.
• Paradesa Sahama is at 1° Leo. Mars is in Leo, and for Taurus lagna Mars owns the 7th (Scorpio) and the 12th (Aries).
• In the software: the longitude window → Sahamas. Do not choose "natal sahamas" when reading an annual chart.

Saturn or Mars?

• Rahu is the karaka but sits in the 6th house with no link to the sahamas or the houses. Ignore him.
• Ketu is in the 12th, in Mars's sign, and has no daśā in this system. Mars gives his result.
• So the candidates are Saturn (July–August) and Mars (the following April–May). That he would go abroad in this year could be said with near certainty.
• PVNR's honest choice would have been Mars: 7th and 12th lord in the Rasi, in the sign of Paradesa Sahama, and in D-4 the 9th lord joined with the 12th lord Moon, who is exalted.
• He left in Saturn.

"This should make us humble. This should make us realize that there are still things that we do not completely understand."

• When you see an event is possible in a year, do not name only the most likely daśā. Give two or three periods. Sometimes the second-best candidate gives the result.
• A student pointed out that Saturn is with Sun in D-4 and the exchange of results makes Saturn's case stronger. PVNR agreed, and left the three-way exchange with Jupiter to be worked out later.

Narrowing down with a second daśā

• Use more than one daśā and take the intersection of the periods they show.
• In a Tithi Pravesha chart Vimshottari does not give good results. Use Tithi Ashtottari, with Narayana daśā of the Rasi chart or of the concerned varga.
• Narayana daśā of the annual Rasi: Gemini daśā ran from July 24 to August 29. Gemini holds the Raj Yoga with the Hora Lord, so the important events of the year can fall in that window. It fits.
• Narayana daśā of the annual D-4 did not make sense to PVNR. "This is a bad example." He left it.