LMT vs Standard Time & Graha Arudha — Deep Philosophy

Local Mean Time vs. Standard Time — Detailed Clarification

The Student's Question

A student has a chart — January 10, 1953, a town in England at 2°13′ W — with two times, 9 minutes apart: "local time 8:16 PM" and "GMT 8:25 PM". Which is right?

Before answering, PVNR notes that a 10-minute uncertainty is manageable; "born in the morning, the Sun was in the east" is the difficult kind. He also finds the pair suspicious: why exactly these two?

The Answer: They Are the Same Chart

• Whoever recorded the birth did not mean local standard time by "local time". He meant local mean time (LMT).
• Before standard time existed, every place kept its own time, set for its own longitude.
• Standard time in England is defined for 0°0′ (Greenwich). The birthplace is 2°13′ west, so everything there happens a little later.
• 4 minutes of time per degree of longitude: 2°13′ ≈ 2¼° → about 9 minutes.
• So 8:16 PM LMT = 8:25 PM GMT.

Shown in the Software

• 20:16 with "Use local mean time instead" ticked → lagna 12°10′ Leo.
• 20:25 with the standard time zone (0:00), LMT button not ticked → lagna 12°11′ Leo.
• The one-minute-of-arc gap is rounding. 2°13′ is 2.2166°, not 2.25°; × 4 = 8.866 minutes = 8 min 52 sec, not 9 minutes. 20:16:08 LMT gives exactly the same lagna as 20:25 GMT. Somebody rounded to the nearest minute when converting.
• If instead you enter 20:16 as standard time, you are 9 minutes off and the chart changes considerably.

Which One to Enter

"It is not that one is more accurate than the other. It depends on which clock they use to time it."

• Watch calibrated to radio or TV time (the standard time of the zone, defined for some other longitude) → enter standard time. Do not tick the LMT button.
• Time already converted to LMT — by an old-fashioned astrologer who corrected "8:30" to "8:34:52" for the town's own longitude — → tick the LMT button.
• A student asks about a baby born on June 12, 2005 at 9:44 by the clock. Answer: clock time is standard time; do not tick the button.
• People write asking whether the LMT button gives a "more accurate" chart. It is not a matter of accuracy. It is a matter of which time the birth was noted in.

Old Charts

• A chart from, say, 1890 was probably noted in LMT. People set their watches, or whatever instrument they used, for their own place.
• Somebody may already have converted it to standard time before it reached you. Ask.
• A student asks when the change-over from LMT to standard time happened. There is no single moment; it happened at different times in different parts of the world.
• If the person who passes on the data does not know, try both and see which makes more sense.
• A student objects: you rectify anyway, so the starting time does not matter. PVNR: the right starting point helps. If you begin 20 minutes off you may rectify further in the wrong direction. Three or four events may not give a one-point solution.
• For big politicians, check the year as well. Some celebrate the right day, but the year on record is off by a year or two — often changed by the parents at school admission.
• Dr. B.V. Raman's basic books (Hindu Predictive Astrology and the like) answer these questions clearly.

The Philosophy Behind Graha Arudhas

This comes up in the middle of the Tendulkar chart, when the class is asked how to judge the career of the wife.

Houses and House Lords — Both Are Satya

• Houses are the limbs of Kālapuruṣa, time personified. They are inanimate. They just exist. No potency, no energy, no intelligence.
• House lords are the avatāras of Viṣṇu (Ketu is Mīna avatāra, Rāhu is Varāha, and so on). They show the intelligence of Nārāyaṇa, the Paramapuruṣa — some call it Sadāśiva, some Śakti — that moves the matters of each house.
• 7th house = the relationship itself, the inanimate part. 7th lord = the intelligence running the relationship.
• Whose intelligence — mine or my wife's? At the level of truth it is one universal intelligence. It may work through my thinking, my wife's thinking, or an elder who steps in.
• Likewise the 4th lord is intelligence applied to my learning — through my own brain, my guru's, a student's, even an enemy whose mockery makes me think.
• Just as houses show only satya, house lords also show only satya.

Arudhas — the Manifestation (Māyā)

Śakti made Kālapuruṣa and Paramapuruṣa, who are unbounded, manifest in a bounded way. Arudhas show that manifestation.

"Arudha of houses will show manifestation of the circumstances and arudha of the house lord will show manifestation of intelligence — how the intelligence acts in a tangible way to the world."

• The trophy I won is the tangible, inanimate manifestation of my ability. A circumstance. House arudha.
• "How fast he ran — he was so far behind and caught up in the last ten seconds" is also tangible to the world, but it is not inanimate. Some intelligence is making it happen. That is the house-lord arudha.

Applied to Yourself

• Lagna — your true existence; the circumstance of your existence.
• Lagna lord — the intelligence actively running that existence: deciding, thinking, feeling. Still at the level of satya.
• Arudha lagna (AL) — how your existence looks to people: "he is lucky, he has houses and cars."
• Arudha of the lagna lord (L1) — how you look to people as a thinking, intelligent being: "he is very intelligent, very knowledgeable."
• Take L1 as the reference and see which planets join and aspect it. That governs how people's perception of you as a thinking, intelligent being changes with time.
• PVNR adds that the lagna lord is easier to understand than lagna; Nārāyaṇa is easier to understand than Kālapuruṣa.

How to Calculate a Graha Arudha

Same counting as a house arudha, but started from the lord:

• House arudha: count from the house to its lord, then the same number from the lord.
• Graha arudha: count from the lord to the house, then the same number from the house.

Example (Tendulkar's Navamsa, Aquarius lagna): the 7th house is Leo and its lord, the Sun, is in Cancer. From the Sun, Leo is the 2nd. The 2nd from Leo is Virgo → L7 = Virgo. (A7, the house arudha, is Gemini.)

In the software: right-click the chart → Choose a View → "Standard view with graha arudhas". The chart then shows L1, L2, L3… in place of A1, A2, A3…

Which Lord, Which Chart

• Each house has its own lord-arudha. In this Navamsa L1 and L12 are both arudhas of Saturn — one counted for the 1st house, one for the 12th.
• For a sign with two lords (Scorpio: Mars and Ketu), PVNR says ideally take only Mars.
• Every divisional chart has its own set. L1 in a divisional chart = how intelligent you appear to the world in that area of life.
• L9 in the Dasamsa = the boss, as a tangible, intelligent being.
• A relative's rise in a given year — the wife became a prime minister, the father became a president, the wife became a doctor and won a best-doctor award — is read from the graha arudha of that relative's house lord, in the divisional chart that shows that relative.
• Not all of them are used.