Example Chart (1953, Cancer Lagna) — Elbow/Nerve Pain: Mars in Gandanta + Sarpa Drekkana, TP Mercury as Badhaka + Nakshatra Pravesh for Health & Kavachas

Lagna Vimshottari — When to Use It and How Far to Trust the Dates

This comes up while choosing the daśā for the example chart of Part 5 (Cancer lagna, Moon in Taurus).

Choosing the daśā

• First check the conditional daśās. Lagna lord in the 7th? 7th lord in lagna? 10th lord in the 10th? Sun in lagna? None applies here, so Vimshottari.
• The native himself points out that lagna is stronger than Moon. Then Vimshottari can be started from lagna instead of Moon.
• The software's seed-strength comparison: planets in kendras from Moon (Moon excluded) = 2; from lagna = 5. Moon is exalted, but lagna itself holds three planets. Lagna is stronger.
• Moon is the default and everybody uses it. Why take the trouble: for an event such as marriage there may be five candidate planets. With the correct daśā the strongest candidate gives the result; with a weaker daśā one of the weak candidates gives it.

"If you want to be clear, you better use what is likely to work better."

Sensitivity to birth time

• Moon Vimshottari thumb rule: if the birth time is off by m minutes and the first daśā is n years long, every date shifts by about m × n ÷ 4 days. Only the first daśā matters, because that is where the balance at birth is computed.
• Here the first daśā is Mercury, 17 years. One minute of error = 17 ÷ 4 ≈ 4¼ days. Five minutes ≈ 20 days.
• Moon takes about a month to go round the zodiac; lagna takes a day. Lagna moves 30 times faster, so Lagna Vimshottari is 30 times more sensitive: one minute ≈ 4 × 30 = 120 days, four months.
• With a time rectified to the minute, Moon Vimshottari is off by ten days at most. Lagna Vimshottari can be off by months.

"Be careful with Lagna Vimshottari. You may be bitten by it. Don't be too specific unless you are sure."

Checking the dates on a known event

• The software starts the native's Mars daśā on 24 July 2008, ten days after the class. Can that date be trusted? Test it on his marriage: 7 December 1989.
• Lagna Vimshottari on that day: Venus–Mercury, near the end of Moon pratyantara (which the software begins on 29 September 1989).
  • Venus: lord of the Upapada, kāraka of marriage, in the 9th of navāṁśa with Ketu.
  • Mercury: 9th lord of navāṁśa, giving Harṣa yoga there (6th lord in the 6th).
  • Moon: 7th lord of navāṁśa in the 3rd; in the 8th from the Upapada; lord of the 11th and placed in the 7th from Venus in navāṁśa. A perfect candidate. Mars and Sun, the neighbouring pratyantaras, are weak candidates.
• The teacher had expected to have to shift everything by a couple of months. No shift is needed. What the event proves: the dates may move forward by up to a couple of months, but not backward by more than a couple of weeks.
• Do the same with other events (he suggests the move abroad in the chaturthāṁśa) and the window closes.

"Lagna Vimshottari is actually a great tool in rectifying the time."

• Moon Vimshottari cannot do this; there only the divisional lagnas help. With Lagna Vimshottari the pratyantaras of several events can fix the time "very accurately up to seconds". Left to the class as an exercise.

Chart Analysis — Elbow and Nerve Pain (Cancer Lagna, 1953)

The chart and the question

• Cancer lagna (Āśleṣā). Mars, Venus and Ketu in lagna. Moon exalted in Taurus in the 11th, Kṛttikā 4th pāda. Sun and Mercury in Leo, Jupiter in Gemini, Saturn in Libra, Rāhu in Capricorn.
• The class is in mid-July 2008. Two weeks earlier pain began in the right elbow, shot up the arm to the shoulder and now reaches the spine above the middle of the back. He had spent three weeks on a computer and mouse at desks with no ergonomics. He has not seen a doctor. The teacher: "You should go to the doctor, seriously."
• His question: will it last?

The daśā that just changed

• Lagna Vimshottari (Part 4). The Moon daśā is ending. Moon is the exalted lagna lord in the 11th. The 11th is the bādhaka sthāna for Cancer, but the lagna lord wants to give good health: not bad.
• Mars daśā begins on 24 July 2008 by the software — or began two or three weeks earlier, within the error shown in Part 4. Mars is debilitated, in lagna.

Mars in the natal chart

Against him:

• Sarpa drekkāṇa. Check planets in the inauspicious drekkāṇas — sarpa (snake), pāśa (noose), āyudha (weapon), krūra — when the question is physical suffering. If the planet has other maleficence, this magnifies it. (Nobody here is in mṛtyu-bhāga.)
• Lord of the 64th navāṁśa. Gives some māraka-like maleficence.
• Gaṇḍānta. Mars is at 27° Cancer, Āśleṣā 4th pāda. Not deep gaṇḍānta, but the whole last navāṁśa is gaṇḍānta.

"Any planet in lagna in gandanta is not really auspicious."

• A malefic in lagna can give health trouble.

Not counted for much:

• Venus, the bādhaka lord, is with him but at 7° — twenty degrees away. Too far.
• Ketu, kāraka of the depletion of the body, is also too far. And Ketu, like Mars, is a 5th lord here (Scorpio), who gives learning and spiritual matters.
• A student offers that Mars is ātmakāraka. "Atmakaraka is not a bad thing."

For him:

• He is the 5th and 10th lord, the yogakāraka. His agenda is career, fame, scholarship — not cruelty.
• In ṣaṣṭhāṁśa (D-6, Aquarius lagna) he is the 3rd and 10th lord in the 2nd. No link with the 6th, 8th or 12th except that he aspects the 8th (his 7th graha dṛṣṭi on Virgo), and he is the only planet doing so. That gave tension about health as soon as his period began.

Verdict: some trouble, not a long-term one. "This is just a temporary thing." For temporary things, go to the annual chart.

Why a nerve

• Mars shows the nerve marrow, the nerve tissue.
• Mars afflicted by Ketu, in gaṇḍānta, aspecting the 8th of D-6: some nerve was pressed by the way he was gripping, and its tissue damaged. More likely a nerve than a bone.
• A student asks whether Ketu points to a pinch at the spine. "Ketu is involved, but he is too far from Mars. I will judge from Mars only."
• Correct the posture and do not exert the arm; the tissue should regenerate in a few weeks.

Tithi Pravesha 2007–08: why it started

His birthday falls on 31 August, so in July 2008 the running year is the Tithi Pravesha of 2007. The site casts it for 3 September 2007, 8:21 PM IST: Pisces lagna, year lord (hora lord) Moon.

• The pain came in the Mercury period of the Tithi Ashtottari daśā.
• Rāśi: Mercury is the bādhaka lord, in the bādhaka sthāna (Virgo, the 7th from Pisces), exalted, aspecting lagna. That alone can give a problem that is difficult to diagnose. It may also be the "Mercury kind of work" — the computer.
• Sanity checks: nobody in mṛtyu-bhāga. Mercury is in an agni drekkāṇa, not auspicious. Roga sahama (17° Aquarius) and Kali sahama (in Libra) have nothing to do with Mercury: no serious maleficence.
• The rāśi shows only a possibility. Ṣaṣṭhāṁśa is the key. In D-6 (Pisces lagna) Mercury is the 7th lord and bādhaka lord in the 8th. "7th lord in the 8th is a maraka."
• Triṁśāṁśa (D-30, Scorpio lagna): Mercury is the 8th lord in the 7th. A māraka there too.
• So a Mercury period that troubles health makes sense.

Saturn's period, starting a few days after the class:

• D-30: 3rd and 4th lord in the 4th. Not great, no suffering shown.
• D-6: 11th and 12th lord in the 3rd, in parivartana with Venus. Not as bad as Mercury.
• Rāśi: 11th and 12th lord in the 6th house of disease with Sun and Ketu. Sun 16° Leo, Ketu 12°, Saturn 6° — a reasonably close affliction. And Saturn is the kāraka of pain.
• So no full recovery in the really short term. Some pain continues past July and may even get worse for a while.

Tithi Pravesha 2008–09

The new year starts on 23 August 2008 at 5:42:44 PM. Capricorn lagna; year lord Venus.

• Venus is the yogakāraka of this chart (5th and 10th lord) and sits in the 8th, in Leo. The lagna lord Saturn is in the 8th too, at the 17th degree, with Mandi and Gulika. Venus, Saturn and other planets are in āyudha drekkāṇa. Nobody in mṛtyu-bhāga.
• Venus and Mercury, the 9th lord, are less than a degree apart at the end of Leo: a dharma-karmādhipati yoga in the 8th. With the lagna lord there, the three trinal lords are together. In the 8th this shows a sudden good development.
• Sun, the 8th lord, is the only mischief-maker there. He is in his own sign at the 7th degree, away from the others. Gulika and Mandi are away from Venus and Mercury.
• The 8th is tension, but also a windfall; it is a neutral house, not a malefic one.

"My feeling looking at this is something you did not expect, some sudden positive development may happen in the coming year."

• Probably in the Venus period; Saturn, Mercury or even Sun could give it.
• Health: Rāhu in lagna is the 2nd lord (Aquarius), neutral here. Mars, the bādhaka lord, in the 9th is not good but shows no big suffering. No combination says "he had it this year".
• D-6: Venus and Mercury show some trouble. D-30: Venus and Mercury in the 12th. Some suffering, nothing major.
• Reasoning on the length: the next year's D-6 and D-30 show some suffering, so the trouble runs for a few months. If it ran the whole year it would show as a big thing in that year's chart, and it does not.

Tithi Pravesha 2009–10 (a quick look)

• Lagna lord in the 3rd. D-6 and D-30 show no major affliction. The year "seems quite fine".
• The 9th lord Jupiter is in Guru-Chāṇḍāla yoga with Rāhu. A student raises it; the answer: everybody has that conjunction in the annual chart that year, and here it is the 9th lord with the 11th lord in the 10th house. "It's not that bad. I am not worried."
• The lagna of that year is in gaṇḍānta. The teacher notices it and leaves it: "that is a totally different issue."
• The site's chart for that year (11 September 2009, 7:52 PM IST) has Aries lagna at 0°, Mars in Gemini in the 3rd, Jupiter and Rāhu in Capricorn in the 10th, and Mercury, the 6th lord, in the 6th (Harṣa yoga). The recording at this point is heard as "the 8th lord in the 8th".

Prognosis

• Not a long-term problem by the natal chart. Short to medium term by the annual charts.

"My feeling is this is a short-term thing. There is no major problem, but you should take care of it because it may not get well in a few days or weeks."

• It may recur for a few weeks, even a couple of months. Recovery within a few months.
• Do not exert the arm. See the doctor.

Remedy: the kavachas of Moon and Mars

• For the body, the lagna lord is the key. Here that is Moon — strong, exalted, the lord of the daśā that just ended.

"You took care of the house until now. Now you left the house and the new tenant is giving trouble. He is your friend. Please tell him to not trouble."

• Pray to Moon, and to Mars as well.
• Because the matter is the physical body, recite kavachas instead of other ślokas: Chandra Kavacham and Aṅgāraka Kavacham. Both are short.
• For the kavacha to "form around you" it takes persistence — 1,000, 1,008 or several thousand recitations. Even 30–40 days of daily recitation begins to have an effect.

"In general, remember one thing, for physical troubles, always kavachas are very auspicious."

After the class: another nerve complaint, and Nakshatra Pravesha

Another student describes a pinching sensation that starts inside the leg and runs down to the foot; soaking in hot water does not help. No chart is opened.

• "If there is a nerve problem, it has to be Mars." Start with this year's Tithi Pravesha and see in the natal chart whether a bad daśā is running.
• Pinching, numbness and the like are altered perception: a nerve is pressed somewhere, usually in the spine (from leaning forward or sideways for long) or in the knee (from the āsana).
• Hot water helps only a weak muscle. Strengthen the muscles so the nerves have support. Oils such as Nārāyaṇa tailam strengthen the nerves in massage.
• The body corrects itself once the posture is corrected. If Padmāsana is too hard, do not sit in it; meditating on a sofa is fine. Keep the back straight. Do not exert parts that are not ready.
• Nakshatra Pravesha is the chart of health. A health problem shows in the Tithi Pravesha too, because it spoils the mental state, but more clearly in the Nakshatra Pravesha.
• It was not opened for the native during the class. At the very end the teacher glances at his current Nakshatra Pravesha: lagna lord in the 8th with Sun and Ketu. He leaves it there.