Naisargika Karakas & Pranapada Lagna

Quick Review of Fundamentals

PVNR opens with a five-minute summary of everything taught so far, for students who joined late. Sanjay Rath had taught Charakarakas in the previous class; this class continues that in its second half.

Signs vs Planets

• Signs and houses = the inanimate part of creation — circumstances, situations, places. No life force, no consciousness.
• Planets = the animate part — consciousness, life force, intelligence.
• House = just the situation. House lord = the consciousness that runs the matter of that house.

"If you talk about a particular place like Boston or a particular circumstance in your life, all those things are shown only by signs and houses."

Arudha Lagna

• Lagna is your very existence. Chandra Lagna shows the mind; Surya Lagna the Atma. None of these can be perceived — existence and abilities are hidden.
• Arudha Lagna (AL) = what rises materially out of your lagna, so that people can perceive it. Not just the body: every attribute people hold in their minds about you.

"The image that people have of you is seen from Arudha Lagna."

Houses from AL qualify that image:

• 3rd and 6th from AL matter most:
  • Benefics in both → soft initiative, soft with obstacles; seen as a sadhu
  • Malefics in both → forceful and aggressive; takes initiative and overcomes obstacles even if it hurts others

Arudha Padas of Other Houses

The arudha of any house is what manifests materially from that house's matter.

• A4 — nobody can perceive how happy you are with your car, but everybody can see which car you have. A4 = vehicles, luxury items, things you can put on a table or on the floor.
• 5th house = actual abilities. 5th from AL = perceived abilities. A5 = the tangible results of ability — a score, a degree, an award, topping the university, failing an examination. A man may fail an exam and later win a Nobel Prize; the failure is still seen from A5.
• UL (Upapada) = arudha of the 12th house → the marriage, the kind of spouse, the spouse's background, the impact of the spouse on one's life.

Divisional Charts and D60

• D9 = spouse and dharma · D10 = career · D24 = learning · D20 = spiritual matters
• D60 = the karma in store for you from what you did in past lives. Risky to use — its lagna changes every 2 minutes.

D60 fixes what will happen; the other charts are only the medium through which that karma is discharged. If the karma is "somebody will take revenge on me", the planet carrying it shows how:

• in the 6H of the Rasi chart → through disease or an enemy
• as 7th lord in the 6H of Navamsa → through a break in marriage
• in the 8H of Dasamsa → through a long layoff

In practice there is rarely time to rectify the D60, so astrologers take a chance and read Rasi, Navamsa, Dasamsa. But Parasara said everything should be seen from the Shashtiamsa.

"Shashtiamsa gets higher strength than Rasi and Navamsa combined."

Levels of the divisional charts:

• At the supraconscious level nothing manifests physically → arudhas have no role in D60
• One exception: the Arudha Lagna of D60 shows the most recent past life (human or animal). Reading the chart from it tells what the person did then — a matter of curiosity.
• The lagna of D60 as reference shows the karma in store in this life.

Amsa Rulers

"80% of the words in that chapter were spent defining these deities… Parashara does not use even one extra word in his verses, and he spent so many words. So this definitely has a meaning."

Parasara defined not just the signs occupied in each division but the deities ruling the divisions. They are used below in the D10 and the D60 of the example chart.

Naisargika Karakas and the Project Manager Analogy

For every matter there is a natural significator.

• Every planet is karaka for something, but for career in general it is Mercury.
• Even if you are not a policeman, Mars is an important karaka in your Dasamsa: he shows the initiative you bring to your career.

"Ketu does not have a head, and Rahu has head. So Rahu shows all the top people, all the brains in a terrorist organization, and Ketu will show brainless people who just go and do it… the headless foot soldiers."

The Analogy

Treat "getting married" or "getting children" as a project.

• Graha Drishti is desire, not help. PVNR corrects himself: a planet aspecting the 7H does not "want to get you married" — it wants to play a role in your marriage. If it is the 6th lord (fights, break of marriage) or the 8th lord, maybe it does not want you married. Judge the nature of the planet.
• Whether that desire is satisfied depends on the planet's relationship with the group manager (its dispositor, the house lord), with the project manager (the karaka), and on the relationship between those two.
• Argala and Graha Drishti fructify in the dashas and antardashas of the planet (and by transits, which come later in the course). Rasi Drishti does not depend on dashas.

"That guy does not understand the whole business, but still he has a conclusive role to play. He intervenes in this project and without him the project is not over. Argala is analogous to that."

Pranapada Lagna: Human vs Animal

The question came from a student: can you tell from a chart whether it is a man or a woman? PVNR: there are principles (based on special lagnas) but he has not studied them and knows nothing that works consistently. There are even principles that tell a human from an animal — and that one he gives.

Pranapada Lagna (PP) = "the foot of prana" — the foothold on which the life force within you stands.

Rule: in the Navamsa, Moon must be in a trine or the 7th from Pranapada Lagna. Then only is it a human being.

• Other planets will always be in trines too (a student noted Rahu is there in the example). That does not matter — Moon must be there.
• It is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. If that Moon is weak it may still not be a human being.

How Sensitive PP Is

In the example chart PP is at 21°15′ Leo — Libra Navamsa, where the Moon is. So it is a human chart. PVNR then changes the birth time from 7:53 to 7:54:

"One minute I added, it changed by 5 degrees. That is almost 2 signs in Navamsa."

• PP changes every second.
• It also depends on the sunrise time. Different sunrise definitions shift sunrise by 5 or even 10 minutes — enough for PP to go a couple of rounds through the whole zodiac.
• So the rule holds only if the rectification and the sunrise setting are both right.

Three Definitions of Sunrise (options in the software)

PVNR finds the third arbitrary: the bending depends on temperature and atmospheric pressure, with clouds you see nothing, and we do not even know whether the planets' influence is through their light at all.

"The definition that will give you smooth results in my opinion is taking exact conjunction of Sun and Lagna."

Mercury's Two Fathers

A student asked why Mercury is so adaptable. PVNR: he is a student, and he had to contend with two fathers — one natural, one adoptive.

The story: Jupiter had a beautiful wife, Tara Devi. Moon had an eye on her and abducted her — and she was willing. They were together for some time and she became pregnant. Jupiter got Tara back, already carrying Moon's son. That son is Mercury. Jupiter accepted the child as his own and taught him everything he knew.

The meaning (the principle from the second class: every Puranic story also happens within you — each human being is a microcosm of the universe):

• Jupiter = the intellect within us — wisdom, discretion, judgment. It helps the gods within us grow. (Venus, our passion and spirit of enjoyment, is Shukracharya — he guides the demons within us.)
• Tara Devi = the Shakti of Jupiter — the potential of the intellect
• Moon = the mind. The mind badly needs that potential, and abducts it
• From the union of the mind with the energy of the intellect, Budha is born = buddhi, the learning ability and reactivity within us
• The intellect adopts the learning ability as its own child and teaches it

"He has to contend with having two parents, two fathers, so he is very adaptive."

Career in the Dasamsa (Same Chart)

D10 lagna: Taurus.

10th House — What He Achieved in Society

Aquarius, with Rahu in it. Aquarius has two lords, Rahu and Saturn.

• Saturn is with another planet (Ketu); Rahu is alone → Saturn is the stronger, the main 10th lord. Rahu is the secondary lord — but he sits in the house itself.

"This house has two owners, me and my wife. She always lives in that house and most of the time I am at my office… I may be considered the main owner, but my wife may be taking care of it. So she also has a role to play."

Rahu in the 10H, in Kubera amsa:

• Rahu gives research and occult activity, and shows foreign sources. Kubera amsa puts the focus on money.
• Rahu in Kubera amsa can also show money from foreign sources — the native visited the USA several times and is said to have earned from consultations there.

Saturn in the 4H with Ketu, in Brahma amsa:

• Saturn, Ketu and Venus together — or in mutual signs, or otherwise related — form Tapasvi Yoga
• Here Saturn and Ketu are together and Venus has sukha argala (4th-house argala) on them from Scorpio → not a perfect Tapasvi Yoga, an approximate one → a man who keeps working hard toward a goal
• Saturn → something traditional. Ketu → spirituality, Vedic knowledge, Jyotisha. Venus, who causes the argala, is in Scorpio, the 8th sign of the natural zodiac → hidden knowledge

"Shani gives discipline — you can cold-heartedly, without any emotion, just pursue something. Ketu gives detachment and Moksha attitude. Venus is the planet of rajas, the energy — without passionate energy you can't do any tapasya."

Brahma amsa = research. The Dasamsa rulers are the eight lords of the directions plus Ananta (upward) and Brahma (downward). Indra is power, Kubera is money. Ananta's upward direction is spiritual rise. Brahma is a rajasic deva; his downward direction is digging.

"Researchers keep digging, digging… You have a molecule, break it. Atom, break it. Electron, break it. They think that as you dig, finally you will come to the end. They don't realize that there may not be an end."

• Any planet in Brahma amsa shows digging and research. (A chart from an earlier class — a telecom researcher — had Rahu in Brahma amsa.)
• So: a great astrologer and a great researcher, who achieved something in society through research in a spiritual subject, and probably earned through foreign sources.
• PVNR's caution: in Jyotish, research that does not start from the right place does not reach the right place. "Research is a very fine-edged sword."

2nd House — Resources

Is astrology his only career? Look at the other artha trikonas.

• Mars alone in Gemini in the 2H — not strong by himself
• But Mars in Gemini and Mercury in Scorpio exchange signs (parivartana) → Mars acts as if he were Mercury. Practically, this is Mercury in his own house → the 2H is very strong
• A strong Mercury in the 2H = a Mercurian profession: communications, accounting, mathematics

6th House — Service

• Moon in the 6H → service of the Moon's nature: bureaucracy
• With the Mercurian 2H: a government bureaucracy in accounting. PVNR: "That is not the only possibility. I can think of 10 or 15 other possibilities, but definitely that is one."
• Moon is in Indra amsa → not a low-level bureaucrat, an extremely high one
• The fact: he was a Director or Director General in the central government's accounting and audit service

"If you just look at the Dasamsa 10th house, you will not always guess the career correctly. If there is a strong planet in the 2nd and 6th houses, you can use those houses also."

Three Steps of Karma

2, 6 and 10 are the Artha Trikonas. All three show career.

• One step may dominate a career. A man with Mercury and Venus in the 2H of Dasamsa may be a management trainer living by his speech, yet be known in society only for his charity — the 10H shows the charity, the 2H shows the profession.
• People are always known by the 10H, because that is what they see. This native is known by his Aquarius 10H — the occult knowledge. Very few know him as the head of an accounts department, though that was his actual job.

"The 10th house showing career is an oversimplification of what the Maharshis taught. It's not wrong, but it's an oversimplification."

6th House vs 7th House — Service vs Business

A student had heard only of the 10H for career and asked why the 7H shows business.

• 6H = overcoming obstacles. If you always have obstacles to overcome, somebody is giving them to you — there is a boss. You are a servant. That is why the 6H is the house of servants in the Rasi chart and of the service you render in the Dasamsa.
• 7H = desire. The Kama Trikonas are three steps: 3H the seed (initiative), 7H the desire born from it, 11H the gains. A man with strong desire is not happy working for somebody → business.
• It is a thumb rule, not foolproof. A businessman who slogs at the desk has a strong 6H; a man in service may have strong desires and be frustrated.

6th lord in the 7H (here Venus): such a person is first in service and then slowly branches off into his own business. Do not tell him to start a business fresh — he has to work under somebody first. (PVNR gives this as the general rule; he does not know that this native ran any business, though people around him made a business of astrology publishing.)

7th House of This Chart — Desire, Not Business

Mercury, Jupiter and Venus are in the 7H, Scorpio.

• Which amsas? Had Jupiter or Venus been in Kubera amsa, it would be business and money.
• Jupiter and Venus are both in Agni amsa. Agni transforms — vegetables into food, spoken words into concepts in the brain. Agni shows engineers, legislators, people who transform.
• A student pointed out the conflict: two gurus together, Jupiter the sattvic, godly approach, Venus the rajasic, compromising approach.
• Scorpio = occult knowledge; Jupiter and Venus = intellectual planets → an intellectual desire to design and engineer something in occult knowledge. He wanted not only to study astrology but to design. He collected the written readings of a learned astrologer he had never met — a man who used many dashas taught by Jaimini — from the people who had received them, studied those papers and designed from them. PVNR: that approach is likely to end in wrong knowledge, and in spreading it.

Parivartana and the Amsas

A student asked whether Mercury counts as a benefic here.

• Mercury is still in Scorpio, with Jupiter and Venus → he behaves as a benefic. So Mars in Gemini gives the results of a benefic Mercury.

"It is like I am living for a week in your house, you are living for a week in my house, so I will try to take care of the house the way you normally do."

• Mars is in Brahma amsa; Mercury is in Nirriti amsa. The amsa stays with the place: Mars gives results as if Mercury were in Brahma amsa; Mercury gives results as if Mars were in Nirriti amsa.
• Nirriti is a rakshasa → deviation. So in the house of desire there is also a desire to deviate from what the rishis taught (rishi-prokta).
• PVNR's example: Parasara and Jaimini say eight charakarakas are to be used for human beings; this native held to seven, on the ground that a great astrologer whose papers he studied had used seven.

Key Rules — Karakas, Pranapada, Dasamsa