Rashi Drishti — Sign-Based Aspects

Review: Graha Drishti (Planetary Aspect)

Every planet aspects the 7th house from itself, because the 7th is the house of desire. Graha Drishti means the planet "has an eye on" something: it shows what the planet desires.

• A planet with Graha Drishti on your 10th house has a desire to play a role in your career. It may give a big break or a layoff. Good or bad depends on the planet's nature and on the houses it owns in that horoscope.
• When the desire fructifies is timed with dashas (dasha, antardasha, pratyantardasha). Timing is left for later classes.

Special aspects recap

• Jupiter: 5th, 7th, 9th — he is the dharma planet, so he aspects the dharma trikona
• Mars: 4th, 7th, 8th
• Saturn: 3rd, 7th, 10th
• Rahu: 2nd, 5th, 9th — listed in the published class notes; not stated on this recording

Only the planets outside the Earth's orbit have special aspects. Mercury and Venus do not.

Clarification on Fractional Aspects

That last statement is not strictly accurate. According to Parasara, every planet has the 5th/9th, 4th/8th and 3rd/10th aspects, but only as a quarter, half or three-quarter Drishti. On the 7th house every planet has 100% Drishti. The exceptions: Jupiter has 100% on the 5th and 9th, Mars on the 4th and 8th, Saturn on the 3rd and 10th. For other planets these aspects are partial. The fractions are left for a later class.

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Rahu & Ketu: Relationships Clarification

A student's question: the friend/neutral/enemy table does not list Rahu and Ketu. What relations do they get?

• The classics give no clear opinion. It is a controversy.
• One view rests on the dictum "Shanivad Rahu, Kujavad Ketu" — Rahu is like Saturn, Ketu is like Mars. The reason given: one of Saturn's houses is co-owned by Rahu and one of Mars's houses is co-owned by Ketu. On this view Ketu takes Mars's relations.
• The other reading: the dictum holds in a general way, not for relationships. This is the view PVR uses.

PVR's recommendation: use Saturn's table for both nodes. Whoever is Saturn's friend is Rahu's and Ketu's friend. Whoever is Saturn's enemy is their enemy. Whoever is sama to Saturn is sama to them.

• Saturn himself is a good friend of both Rahu and Ketu (the Ashtottara Shatanama Stotras of Rahu and Ketu say so). So the permanent relation of Rahu with Saturn is "friend".
• Rahu and Ketu are friends of each other — "but they are friends who can never meet."

The Spectrum Analogy

The seven colours that make up white light are represented by the seven planets. Saturn is blue, Mars is red. Rahu and Ketu are invisible, so Rahu is ultraviolet (beyond blue) and Ketu is infrared (below red). This is one way of seeing why Rahu goes with Saturn and Ketu with Mars. Some old astrologers colour-code their clothes by the day: red on Tuesday, blue on Saturday.

Planetary Colors

This list is a different classification from the spectrum one above. These are simply the colours associated with each planet.

Black and blue are split the way Capricorn and Aquarius are: one is purely Saturn's house, the other is shared by Saturn and Rahu. Black is Saturn. Blue is Saturn and Rahu.

Practical use: judging which colour is good for a person, or guessing the colour of the car someone bought in a given year (from the chart of vehicles, taught later). It does not mean a person with Lagna owned by Mercury will be green.

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Do Gods Have Horoscopes?

Yes. Sri Rama's horoscope is given in the classics. Lord Narasimha has a horoscope. In the Satyanarayana Vratam, the mantras for each planet give that planet's gotra, tithi of birth and nakshatra of birth — so the planets too have horoscopes, though the whole horoscope is not given.

Gradations of Raja Yoga (from BPHS, Rajayoga Chapter)

Raja Yoga: a quadrant lord and a trine lord together, aspecting each other, or exchanging houses. Quadrants are Vishnu sthanas and trines are Lakshmi sthanas, so this is Lakshmi and Narayana joining in the chart. It produces immense prosperity. Many people have it and not all get the same result, so Parasara graded it by the amshas the yoga planets occupy:

1. A king
2. An emperor
3. An emperor who rules the entire earth — Dharmaraja had this yoga, and Parasara predicted that a future king named Shalivahana would be born with the same
4. Vishnu's avataras (Rama, Krishna) — a higher amsha than Dharmaraja's
5. Brahma himself — higher still

So Parasara gave a consideration even for Brahma's horoscope. Every created being has a horoscope, Brahma included. Only the supreme being — Paramapurusha, Narayana, Sadashiva, Virat Purusha, Brahman, whatever name is used — may not have one.

Caveat: how such a horoscope is constructed, and where Sun and Moon are placed in it, we do not understand. The way of casting a chart that we know applies to people born on earth.

The Holistic Nature of Planets

The physical bodies in the sky are only one aspect of the planets:

• Sun = the soul of the Paramatma
• Moon = the mind of the Paramatma. Sun and Moon are his two eyes
• Mars = the aggressive spirit, initiative and boldness of Narayana
• Jupiter = the Dhi Shakti (intelligence) of Narayana
• Venus = the spirit of happiness and enjoyment of the Paramapurusha

A student objected: in a graha shanti we pray to the gods, yet the gods themselves have horoscopes. The answer: they also pray. Rama had doshas in his own horoscope — there are indications of separation from wife — and he worshipped Shiva at Rameshwaram after winning the war in Lanka.

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Bhava (House) vs. Rashi: The House Division Controversy

A student's question: in Notable Horoscopes Dr. B.V. Raman often places a planet by bhava rather than by rashi. Is that right?

"That is simply his view, and it is not supported by Parasara. It is a later view that came to Indian astrology through Greek astrology."

Two Approaches

1. Each Rashi is a Bhava (Parasara's method — recommended): If Lagna is at 28° of Aries, the entire Aries is the 1st house, all of Taurus is the 2nd, all of Gemini is the 3rd. Venus at 1° of Gemini is in the 3rd house.

2. Bhava Chakra (later method): The Lagna degree is the middle of the 1st house: 15° back and 15° forward. The 1st house then lies across two rashis, and Venus at 1° of Gemini falls in the 2nd house. Going a step further, the houses are not even 30° each — some are 29°, some 31° — by complicated formulas. Western astrology has several such methods (Porphyry, Placidus, Koch). In India the popular ones are equal 30° houses and Sripati Paddhati, which is basically Porphyry's method. These appear in books written in the last 1500–2000 years, after Greek astrology influenced Indian astrology.

PVR's Position

Parasara, in a voluminous book, never mentions that kind of house division. Whenever he speaks of houses, he says to count the rashis.

PVR's three gurus:

1. His father — taught that each rashi is a bhava
2. Dr. B.V. Raman — used the other approach in places, but said the books differ and gave no firm opinion
3. Pandit Sanjay Rath — from a traditional parampara of Orissa; taught that each rashi is a bhava

Analogy: Rashi borders are like the walls of a room. To know which room you are in, you take the whole room. You do not draw a line from the middle of this room to the middle of the next because you happen to stand near the wall.

Follow-up Questions

• Who is the lord of a house that spans two signs? In that system the lord of the sign holding the cusp (the middle point of the house) is the house lord. The approach is consistent. Its only problem: it has the sanction of later authorities, not of the Maharshis.
• Does the ayanamsa matter? A different ayanamsa can shift a planet across a sign border in border cases. That is a separate issue from house division.

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Own Sign, Exaltation and Moolatrikona — Recap

A student pointed out a slip in the previous class's table, so the Moolatrikona, own and exaltation signs were written on the board again.

How the own houses were shared

• Moon kept Cancer and Sun kept Leo.
• The signs on either side were given out in order of distance from the Sun: Mercury first, then Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the farthest.
• Rahu and Ketu have no house of their own. They share: Rahu co-owns Aquarius, Ketu co-owns Scorpio.
• For Rahu and Ketu, exaltation and Moolatrikona are controversial and views differ. Only their own houses are established by Parasara without ambiguity.

The three states

• Own house — a person relaxed at home. No pressure, no formalities. The planet is in its natural state. Delight belongs here.
• Exaltation (Uccha) — a person at his favourite party. "Excited is the right word", not delighted: an eager, hyper state, wanting to do something.
• Moolatrikona — the office. The planet is duty-minded.
• Debilitation (Neecha) — a party you hate being at. The planet is depressed.

All three good states are good, but they differ. A beginner should draw the table and look at it every few days until the dignity of a planet is seen at a glance.

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Chara, Sthira, and Dvisva Bhava Rashi (Movable, Fixed, Dual Signs)

Practical Application: Muhurta

• Sthira Lagna, Lagna lord in a sthira rashi, and many important planets of the muhurta chart in sthira rashis: the venture will be solid and stable.
• The same with chara rashis: there will be changes. What is started then will not be permanent.
• Dual signs are a mix: some stability without rigidity.
• Sthira is not always better. For some ventures a chara rashi is more apt. For joining a job, a sthira rashi is a good choice.

Warning — this is one factor only. Put Simha Lagna with Mars in it. Mars is a planet of change and does not like stability. If Mars also shows change in the person's own horoscope, there will be no stability even in a sthira Lagna. Sthira then means rigidity and stubbornness, which leads to problems.

"You can't apply thumb rules. You also have to look at the chart and look at what planets are in Lagna and what planets are influencing it."

Trimurti Rulership Over Rashi Types

The class guessed Vishnu for the fixed signs. A student added that we should stop seeing Shiva's destruction as plain destruction; the answer was: "Exactly. Like I said in the other class, he destroys the tamas." What the rulership means in practice is left for later.

A Note on Pronunciation: Simha

Each anunasika belongs to its own group of consonants: the nasal in Shashanka goes with the ka group, the one in Manjari with the cha group, na with the ta group (anta), ma with the pa group (amba). Ya, ra, la, va, sha, sa, ha have no anunasika of their own. Before them the old Vedic way uses the nasal of the ka group. So the word is not "Sim-ha": prepare to say "Singha" and, just before the "ga", say "ha". "Singhasan" is an attempt at the right sound that ends up adding a "ga". The same sound is what gets misread as "gum" in Vedic recitation, which breaks the metre and the meaning.

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Rashi Drishti (Sign-Based Aspects)

Graha Drishti is based on the nature of the planet: intellect has certain desires, mind has others, the spirit of hard work has others. Rashi Drishti is based on where the planet is.

"If I live in a particular neighborhood, people who live nearby, I will meet them every now and then. So I have a certain influence on them. Rashi Drishti is another way of influencing — not by desire, but by location, by placement."

Certain rashis aspect certain other rashis, and any planet in a rashi aspects whatever that rashi aspects. Mars in Gemini aspects Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. Whether he wants to do something for those houses is a separate question. He is in a position to.

Rules of Rashi Drishti

1. Dual signs aspect all other dual signs.

2. Movable signs aspect fixed signs.

3. Fixed signs aspect movable signs.

The exception: a rashi cannot aspect the rashi adjacent to it. "They are just too close, so you cannot see them." So each movable sign aspects three fixed signs and each fixed sign aspects three movable signs.

The Rectangle Shortcut

For a movable or fixed sign: take the adjacent sign of the other type and mark every fourth sign from it. The four signs form a rectangle. Remove the adjacent one, which is the base. The other three are aspected. For the dual signs — the four corner signs of the South Indian chart — it is simply the other three corners.

Rashi Drishti Table

Graha Drishti vs. Rashi Drishti: The Key Distinction

"Rashi Drishti is something that is there forever, throughout somebody's life. Argala is something that will happen in a particular dasha or antardasha. Similarly Graha Drishti is desire. That also happens in a particular dasha."

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