Names, Letters & Planetary Rulerships — Vowels=Sun, Ka-varga=Mars, Pa-varga=Saturn; PVNR's Principle: Name the Strongest Yoga Planet

Names, Letters, and Planetary Rulerships

A Change of Name

A student asks: if someone changes his name, does it matter, and should a chart be drawn for the moment of the change?

• The chart of the moment does not matter much.
• The name itself does. What matters is which energies in the birth chart the name brings out.
• Respelling a name is nothing. Giving letters number values and adding or dropping a letter in the English spelling — PVNR calls it nonsense. People still call the person by the same sound, and in Telugu or Hindi the name is written exactly as before.
• A different name — Ramakrishna changed to Narayana — has a different energy. See the meaning of the name and which planets or signs it brings into focus. Then the sound.

"The first letter is always very important, the first letter in the name."

Planets and Letters

• The order of the five vargas is Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn.
• Within each varga the five tattvas are secondary rulers of the five letters. PVNR does not go into it.
• There is also a Vedic numerology that gives values to the letters and arrives at a sign for the name. Left for later.
• For now: take the first letter. When people call a person by a name, they strengthen the planet of its first letter in that person's chart.

Naming by Nakshatra Pada

• 108 navamsas, 108 letters: each pada of each nakshatra is mapped to a letter. In Andhra Pradesh, where PVNR comes from, children are traditionally named this way (nāma nakṣatra).
• PVNR's view: nothing sacrosanct about it. It is a coding scheme so that the nakshatra is remembered. Twenty years later the astrologer asks the name, gets the nakshatra and pada back, and can at least read transits when there is no chart.

Name by the Strong Planet

Giving the first letter to a planet that is strong in the chart is what matters.

• Hamsa yoga in the chart → a name starting with ta, tha, da, dha, na.
• Saturn giving a great yoga → pa, pha, ba, bha, ma.
• A yoga between two planets → letters of both if possible, or of one of them.
• Aries lagna with exalted Sun in it → a name starting with a vowel.
• It is not only the sign of the planet. See which houses he owns and where he sits.

Examples from the Class

• Nagarjuna: from Venkata to Nagarjuna. Va is Moon, na is Jupiter. The name moved from strengthening his Moon to bringing out his Jupiter.
• PVNR himself:
  • His Moon is the 11th lord, a functional malefic, in the 6th house with Rahu. A semi-vowel is a bad idea for him — yet his full name, Venkata Narasimha Rao, starts with va.
  • In Saturn dasha — state first rank, IIT, the Sanskrit examinations — everybody called him by his initials, "PVR". Pa is Saturn. Saturn is his 5th lord and gives Neechabhanga Raja Yoga: academic success came from Saturn, the dasha lord and the planet the name called up.
  • After his education, at work, 99% of people call him Narasimha. Na is Jupiter. Jupiter is in his 2nd house: he got more into astrology and into speaking.
• Sanjay Rath: sa is Moon, and his Moon is in the 12th house. A name with na would have brought out Jupiter instead.

The House-Sale Native's Own Name

PVNR returns to names at the end of the class, with the chart of Part 3 on the screen.

• Her name starts with va — Moon. Her Moon is exalted in the 12th house with Rahu.
• Materially the name does not help mental happiness: anxiety, ups and downs.
• Modifier: planets in the 12th give happiness when the person leaves the place of birth. After she left the motherland for the US, the same Moon and the same name can give happiness.
• The name is also good for spirituality, Moon being in the 12th. PVNR does not ask her to change it.
• What would have been better is hard to say:
  • Jupiter's letters for Jupiter in lagna — but for Gemini lagna he is the badhaka lord.
  • Mercury's letters, he being lagna lord.
  • Saturn's letters — pa, pha, ba, bha, ma — for fortune: Saturn is the 9th lord in the 9th in his moolatrikona.