Purusharthas, Digbala & Shadbala — The Complete Strength Framework

Purusharthas and Planet Affinities

The class opens with a student's question: an earlier lesson linked planets to dharma, artha, kama and moksha — Saturn to kama, Moon and Venus to moksha — and it was never used again. Where does it apply?

PVNR first misstates the list ("Sun and Mars for dharma"), then corrects himself:

These are not karakas. If you want karakas, "Venus rules kama" is the accurate statement. This list is a different context.

"It's not their job to ensure this, but it is their desire to ensure this. Each of these planets, they basically have a desire to influence this particular trikona."

• Mercury + Jupiter want to control the dharma of the person — tell him what to do and how to do it.
• Sun + Mars want to make the person do things. They are the planets of action.
• Saturn is the karaka of hard work without delight. What he lacks is desire. So he wants to influence the kama trikona — give the person a strong desire so that the hard work is joined by desire. "Then there is nothing stopping him."
• Moon + Venus are the planets of comfort and happiness, the natural karakas of the 4th house. The Moon gives relaxed happiness; Venus gives pleasure and luxury. They want the person relaxed and happy, without strong desires.

"If you are relaxed and happy, you can't work hard, but Saturn wants you to work hard."

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Digbala

The main use of these four affinities is Digbala, one of the six parts of Shadbala.

What Digbala shows: each planet has a direction it wants to give the person. Digbala shows how happy or unhappy the planet is with the direction it has been told to control. PVNR reads "direction" as direction in life:

"Digbala is basically direction in life. Dharma, artha, kama, moksha — these are the four directions in life."

It is scored out of 60. The full 60 comes when the planet is exactly on the cusp of its house.

• Sun and Mars in the 10th: told to control the artha trikona — the purpose the person serves in the world — they are happy.
• Mercury and Jupiter in the 1st: they might accept the artha trikona or moksha, but what they want is to give the person a good sense of dharma.
• Saturn in the 7th: put in charge of the kama trikona and told to give desire, Saturn is happy. Caveat from the class: Saturn in the 7th may bring other problems and may not be desirable (as in most houses). The point here is only that his Digbala is good.
• Moon and Venus in the 4th: the 4th is the start of moksha. Feeling happy and relaxed is the starting point of getting moksha. Placed there, they are "very excited about it".

The houses 1, 10, 7 and 4 are the bases of the four trikonas. A student notes they are also the quadrants. PVNR: the four quadrants are the houses of Vishnu — the places where Vishnu lives.

Digbala in Divisional Charts

A student asks whether this is seen only in the rasi chart, or also in D-10 for profession, D-7 for children and so on.

• It applies in all divisional charts. A planet in the house of its maximum Digbala in a varga controls the direction of the person well in that area; that trikona is strong there.
• Example given: Sun and Mars in the 10th house of the Navamsa have strong Digbala as far as the Navamsa goes. When it comes to following dharma and implementing it in the world, the person gets a lot of energy from Sun and Mars.

"If you see any of these planets placed in the ideal house from the point of view of Digbala in any divisional chart, that is very auspicious, extremely auspicious."

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Shadbala — The Six-Fold Strength

Shadbala has not been taught in detail in the course because it is mostly computation. PVNR walks through the software's strength screen.

Shadbala = six-source strength. The six balas are added up:

Naisargika order as given: Sun is the strongest; Moon is next, "quite strong, though not as strong as Sun"; then Venus, then Jupiter, then Mercury. Saturn is the weakest.

Weighting (a student asks what the weightage is): the balas are simply summed. The importance of each is built into its scale. Sthana Bala and Kala Bala carry the big numbers, so they count the most; Sthana Bala is the most important.

Kala Bala — its parts

• Nata / Unnata Bala — whether the planet is "risen and proud" at that time or humbled and has to take it easy.
• Paksha Bala — some planets are strong in one fortnight, others in the other.
• Tribhaga Bala — the day is divided into three parts.
• Abda Bala — abda means year. Only the lord of the year gets it: 15. Every other planet gets 0. (In the chart on screen Venus was the lord of the year.)
• Masa Bala — the lord of the month gets 30. (Saturn in the chart on screen.)
• Vara Bala — the lord of the weekday; more again.
• Hora Bala — the lord of the planetary hour; the most. The hour is four times as strong as the year.
• Ayana Bala — named; PVNR skips the explanation.
• Yuddha Bala — from a war between planets.

"The moment right now is more important than the overall year."

The Correct Purpose of Shadbala

In the chart on screen Mercury has 94% Shadbala and Venus 125%. To conclude "Mercury is weak in this chart, Venus is strong" is a bad conclusion.

"This strength does not reflect upon a planet's ability to give its result. This strength is for a specific purpose. The purpose is when two or more planets are involved in a yoga … which one will dominate and give the results of the yoga? That's it."

• A planet with weak Shadbala is not a bad planet in the chart. It just "takes it easy" when a result agreed between several planets has to be delivered.
• Out of several planets in a yoga, the one with the higher Shadbala delivers.

Analogy: PVNR and a student agree to do a project together. PVNR is busy with other commitments, so the student takes control, talks to the people and writes the checks. He is the planet with the stronger Shadbala.

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