Mundane Vimshottari Seeds — Pranapada Lagna & Multiple Classical Sources

Moon vs. Lagna Vimshottari in Mundane Charts

What the two seeds show

• Lagna = application of intelligence, what you do to the world. "You act in the world through lagna and you experience the world through Moon."
• Moon = the mind; how you take the world, react to it, experience it.
• A person with a strong Moon is reactive: what the world thinks of him defines his life. A person with a strong Lagna is proactive: his actions are not unduly influenced by what the world thinks.
• That is the motive for the rule: find which of the two is stronger and start Vimshottari from its nakshatra.

The count

• Count the planets in quadrants (1, 4, 7, 10) from Lagna and from Moon. The one with more planets is stronger.
• Do not count Moon himself — that would bias the comparison toward Moon.
• If the two counts are equal, then count Moon too. Moon gets the tie-breaking vote, "like a vice president in a senate".
• Pakistan, counting by signs: quadrants from Aries lagna hold 5 planets (four in Cancer, Jupiter in Libra). Quadrants from Moon in Gemini hold 1 (Mars). By the nakshatra-pada method the software shows Lagna 7, Moon 1 (see the section on Vimshottari seeds). Either way Lagna Vimshottari applies to Pakistan.

Human charts: a bias toward Moon

• The tradition taught here holds that Chandra is the most important. Sanjay Rath teaches that Lagna Vimshottari and Chandra Vimshottari both apply to every human being, but Chandra Vimshottari is enough to see the events unless the person is very strongly self-motivated.
• So in a human chart, if Moon has 2 planets in quadrants and Lagna has 3 or 4, the teacher would still favour Moon "unless Lagna is much stronger". He deliberately leaves "much stronger" undefined.

Mundane charts: no bias

A student asks whether this means the strength need not be checked in mundane charts. The answer is no:

"Check the strength and go by the strength… for mundane charts, you don't have any such bias. You just go by the rule. Whichever is stronger, you use it."

• In a mundane chart Lagna is equally important. What Pakistan does matters more to its fortune than how Pakistan feels about what others think.
• A nation is made up of human beings, but as an entity it is not a human being, so Moon has no special claim — the Pranapada Lagna rule below shows why.

The Kerala practice

In some regions of India Lagna Vimshottari is very popular. Some Kerala astrologers do not use Chandra Vimshottari at all; they always take Vimshottari from Lagna and predict with it. The teacher does not reject this — Sanjay Rath "doesn't necessarily disagree" with them, since both daśās are relevant.

A student's question: transits from Moon in a nation's chart

A student asks whether transits for a country should still be reckoned from Moon.

• The teacher has done little transit work on nations, and what he did used the standard Moon-based rules.
• He accepts the point: what Moon, Jupiter and Venus stand for in a nation may differ from what they stand for in a person.
• Moon in a nation's chart shows the common mood of the country (and of the market). The important decisions of the country are better seen from Lagna.
• Example: when Musharraf chose to go with the US after September 11, the decision may have been wise while the whole country was against it. Reckoned from Moon it could be a bad transit.
• "Some work needs to be done on that."

Pranapada Lagna and Species-Specific Rules

Why Moon rules human charts

Moon is the kāraka for human beings. The proof offered is Pranapada Lagna.

• Pranapada Lagna is shown as PP in the software. Pada means base: it is the basis of one's prāṇa, the basis of life.
• Rule: in the navāṁśa, Moon must be in a trine or the 7th from Pranapada Lagna for the birth to be human.
• If Pranapada Lagna and Moon are not in samasaptaka (1/7) or mutual trine in the navāṁśa, the chart is wrong — there is a small error in the birth time.
• Pranapada Lagna changes every few seconds, so adding about half a minute can set it right.
• Human beings are mental beings; the mind is the most important part of their existence. Hence Moon.

Other species

The strong influence in a trine from Pranapada Lagna differs by species:

• Pigs are not named on the recording; the published class notes add them.
• The class notes also say Ketu should be in a trine to Pranapada Lagna. On the recording Ketu is named only for fish.
• A horse's chart without Venus in a trine from Pranapada Lagna is a wrong chart.
• It is conceivable that horses have nakshatra daśās reckoned from Venus's nakshatra instead of the normal Chandra Vimshottari. This is a matter for research.

What follows for daśās

Because Moon is the kāraka of human beings, Moon-based nakshatra daśās get predominance over all other nakshatra daśās in human charts. Pakistan as an entity is not a human being, so its Vimshottari is not Moon-based by default. The class switches to Lagna Vimshottari.

Multiple Vimshottari Seeds from Classical Sources

The seeds

The classics mention Vimshottari daśā from several stars:

Why the teacher counts by nakshatra pada

• The 8th star from Moon's star falls, in most charts, in a quadrant from Moon when quadrants are taken by sign. Counting planets in sign-quadrants then gives the same answer for both. "There is no way you can judge the stronger of those two."
• His solution: take the nakshatra pada of the seed as the centre. That pada plus 4 padas on either side is the 1st house. The same is done 90°, 180° and 270° away. Count the planets inside those spans.
• These "houses" can spread over two signs. With this division the 8th star from Moon and Moon's own star are no longer identical.
• House division by nakshatra pada (the pada as centre, 4 padas on each side) was taught by Sanjay Rath for certain specific purposes. It is not the teacher's invention. His contribution is only to use it for comparing the strength of the Vimshottari seeds.
• This is not from the tradition and is not accepted by everybody. As far as the teacher knows, Sanjay Rath counts by the four signs.
• He tried both on a few charts, among them 2 mundane charts, and found the pada method working better.

In the software

The Vimshottari seed strength comparison sits in the nakshatra daśās tab. Two mutually exclusive options:

• "Sign containing the nakshatra pada is the 1st house" — whole signs; can be counted by hand.
• "This pada and 4 padas on either side form the 1st house" — the teacher's choice; hard to do by hand.

Surya Vimshottari — When to Use Sun as Seed

Some classics mention Surya Vimshottari: take the nakshatra occupied by Sun.

For whom

• Sun shows the ātmā.
• It suits people for whom the soul — not the mind, not the body, not their actions or reactions — is the defining part of existence: a strong sense of purpose, strong willpower, a very active soul.
• "Most of us haven't experienced our soul. We only experience our mind." These are spiritually advanced people, yogis who have experienced their soul.

Ādhāna Chakra — the conception chart

• The chart for the moment the child is conceived, when the soul enters the zygote. It is active for the nine months or so until birth.
• Classics give links between the Ādhāna Chakra and the birth chart; in theory one can be derived from the other. Some links are missing today.
• The late R. Santhanam researched this with accurate conception and birth charts. His Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra has a small section on the Ādhāna Chakra with a couple of examples.
• To see how a pregnancy will go: take Sun's nakshatra in the conception chart, compute Vimshottari, compress it to 9 months, and read the events.
• The teacher gives this as theory from the tradition. He has not experimented with it.

Dasha Applicability Check for Mundane Charts

Going through the conditional daśās for Pakistan

• Dwisaptati Sama: lagna lord in the 7th or 7th lord in lagna? No.
• Chaturaseeti Sama: 10th lord in the 10th? The 10th house is empty. No.
• Shashtihayani: Sun in lagna? Nobody is in lagna. No.
• Shatabdika: lagna vargottama? No.
• Dwadasottari: lagna in a navāṁśa of Venus (Taurus or Libra)? Yes — Pakistan's navāṁśa lagna is Libra. The daśā is applicable.

Why Dwadasottari is still not used

• The teacher uses the other conditional daśās when they apply. This is the one he has not found working consistently.
• "There are some missing links." Does Śukrāṁśa mean lagna in Venus's navāṁśa, or Venus being in the navāṁśa lagna? He is not sure and has not researched it.
• In the few charts where it applied he was not happy with it, his own chart included.
• So the class uses plain Vimshottari. "When you are not sure of what to use, Vimshottari is something that will always work." Vimshottari and Narayana daśā always work.

A student asks: can both be used?

• Yes. But when a conditional daśā applies, it gives much crisper results. Vimshottari is fuzzier.
• Example: for the time of marriage, Dwisaptati Sama shows an obvious link to the 7th house of the rāśi chart. With Vimshottari you may need indirect logic and have to "bend over backwards".
• People who use only Vimshottari still make reasonable predictions.

India

The same check on India's chart: lagna lord in the 7th, 7th lord in lagna, Sun in lagna, lagna vargottama, 10th lord in the 10th — all no. Only Vimshottari.

Reliability Hierarchy for Mundane Predictions

A student's question: 120 years for a nation?

• For human beings the paramāyus is 120 years; that is why Vimshottari runs 120 years.
• For the Vajpayee government the paramāyus was the 5-year term, and the daśā was compressed to 5 years.
• Different animals have different paramāyus (some about 20 years). Some classics speak of Vimshottari for animals compressed to their paramāyus. For this there is clear sanction. A student adds that the kāraka may then not be Moon — the teacher agrees.
• For India, Pakistan or the US, why 120 years? Why not 360 or 400? Most astrologers use 120 for India and Pakistan. The objection is valid, and there is no basis for computing the paramāyus of a nation.
• Stretch it, repeat it, tie it to a synodic cycle? The cycles may give the ratios, but nobody knows the length to stretch to.

How much the research is worth

"People do research, but it is not really genuine research… including whatever I have done, because we are talking about so few events."

With few points, any curve can be fitted.

What the teacher relies on

1. Annual Tithi Praveśa charts — "everything is on a solid technical basis". His mundane predictions that came true were based on these.
2. Swearing-in chart with the daśā compressed to the term — good predictions from Vajpayee's swearing-in chart compressed to 5 years.
3. Natal daśās of a nation at 120 years — taught because people use them and they seem to work, but events have not been timed precisely enough to be convinced. "I never really tried to make predictions based on these daśās. So I will leave that experimentation up to you."
4. Transits — should work, but need research: what is the weight of Lagna, of Arudha Lagna, of Moon for a nation?