Sudarshan Chakra Dasha — Introduction, Three-Chakra Tripod & Thumb Rules

Why Sudarshana Chakra Dasha — Parāśara's Technique for Kali Yuga

Parāśara named two techniques as suited to Kali Yuga. People of Kali Yuga cannot juggle many subjective factors, so he gave methods that work by thumb rules and counting:

1. Ashtakavarga
2. Sudarshana Chakra Dasha

• He said that by combining the two one can give reasonable annual, monthly, weekly and daily readings.
• "Objective" methods are the ones even a dull person can apply; the subjective ones need intelligence. The thumb rules here are not perfect, but they are reasonable.
• The trouble is the computation. There are several views on how to compute this daśā. What follows is the teacher's own reading of Parāśara.

Where this teaching comes from

• It was not taught to the teacher by Pandit Sanjay Rath and did not come through the paramparā.
• He read Parāśara, experimented, then discussed it with Sanjay Rath, who agreed the interpretation is acceptable.

"Whatever I am teaching in this class and the next couple of classes is not really from the tradition. This is something that Parashara taught. I understood what Parashara taught, experimented, and also talked to Sanjayji and made sure that he is also happy with my understanding."

The Sudarshana Chakra — Three Wheels from Lagna, Moon and Sun

The diagram

• The Sudarshana Chakra is Vishnu's wheel. Parāśara's chart takes the same shape: three concentric circles with the same centre, cut by 12 lines into 12 houses each.
• Parāśara does not say "put Aries here". He says: place the 1st house. There are three first houses — from Lagna, from Moon, from Sun. Houses run anti-clockwise.
• One planet therefore sits in three different houses: say the 2nd from Lagna, the 7th from Moon, the 12th from Sun.
• The teacher's software does not draw the wheel. He reads the ordinary rāśi chart and rotates it mentally to each of the three references.

The tripod of life

• Lagna, Moon and Sun are the tripod of life: body, mind and soul. Together they make up the whole existence of the person, not Lagna alone.
• Maitreya asked: many sages take only Lagna, make houses and give readings — is that not right? Parāśara answered: it is not right. Take all three.
• This applies to natal reading as well, not only to the daśā.
• Old astrologers always read from Lagna and Chandra Lagna, especially for career, peace of mind, emotional stability and relations with people — matters that belong to the mind more than the body.
• Intellectual work is mind work: the body only sits in a chair. So the 10th from Moon is very important for such a career.

The teacher's father's reading. In the teacher's rāśi chart Moon is in Aquarius. The 10th from Moon is Scorpio: empty, lord Mars, and Mars (in Aries) is the only planet with graha dṛṣṭi on it. Mars owns the house and alone wants to influence it. On that Mars-in-Aries influence his father decided, when he was a small child, that he would be an engineer, probably an electrical engineer.

Finding the dominant planet for a house

For any house, list for each of the three chakras the owner, the occupants and the aspectors (graha dṛṣṭi is used here, to see who has a desire to influence the house; rāśi dṛṣṭi can also be taken). The planet that turns up in all three lists dominates that house.

2nd house in the teacher's rāśi chart (Lagna Virgo, Moon Aquarius, Sun Pisces):

• The teacher gives Rahu aspects like Jupiter's (5th and 9th) plus an aspect on the 2nd from himself. That is how Rahu in Aquarius reaches Libra and Pisces.
• Jupiter stands out in all three: occupant from Lagna, owner from Moon, aspector from Sun.
• Venus, Mars, Mercury and Saturn count twice (Lagna chakra and Surya chakra). They are significators too, but Jupiter is the strongest.
• Conclusion from the rāśi chart alone: Jupiter's daśā and antardaśā bring 2nd-house results — money, knowledge, good speech, good predictions.

7th house in the same chart:

• Sun dominates the 7th house. Expect Sun to have a strong role in 7th-house events; these planets should stand out in the daśā or antardaśā when marriage happens.

Sanjay Rath's refinement

• With daśās: use Sun as the reference when judging the mahādaśā, Moon for the antardaśā, Lagna for the pratyantardaśā. All three can be used at every level, but this is the precedence.
• The reason: the soul needs a long period to work its way through, because you are not easily accessible to your soul. The mind works over shorter periods. The body has fine control over you and works over very short periods.

The Daśā — 12-Year Cycle, Munthā, Antardaśā and the Entry Chart

Definition

• The daśā has a 12-year cycle. (Vimshottari is 120, Ashtottari 108, Shashtihayani 60; the known daśās run from 36 to 120.)
• The 1st year of life is the daśā of the 1st house, the 2nd year that of the 2nd house … the 12th year that of the 12th house; the 13th year is the 1st house again.
• Take the year the person is running, not the years completed. Remove multiples of 12. That is the house.
• "The Nth house" means three signs at once: the Nth from Lagna, the Nth from Moon, the Nth from Sun. The software lists them in that order — Lagna, Moon, Sun.
• Each daśā is 1 year. Each has 12 antardaśās of 1 month. Each antardaśā has 12 pratyantardaśās of 2½ days (about 60 hours).
• Solar years are used. Parāśara's word is varṣa, which carries the sense of the solar year.

The teacher's chart (Lagna Virgo, Moon Aquarius, Sun Pisces):

The link with Tājika and the Munthā

• Tājika astrology (Nīlakaṇṭha's Sanskrit book on it; Dr. B.V. Raman's Varshaphal) casts an annual chart for the moment the Sun returns to his exact natal degree, minute and second. It is like Tithi Praveśa, but on the solar calendar. Some call it foreign astrology. The teacher counts it as part of Hindu astrology, since Nīlakaṇṭha, the commentator on the Jaimini Sūtras, wrote it up in Sanskrit.
• For seven years this annual chart was the teacher's staple and gave him many successful predictions. After Sanjay Rath taught him Tithi Praveśa he found that more accurate — "if this is 70%, that is like 85%" — and stopped using the Tājika chart.
• The Munthā ("annual progressed ascendant" in Dr. Raman's words) is in the Lagna in the 1st year, in the 2nd house in the 2nd year, and so on. For the teacher (Virgo lagna) in 2005, the 36th year running: 36 − 24 = 12th house, Munthā in Leo.
• The Munthā is nothing but the Sudarshana Chakra daśā sign of the Lagna chakra.
• So Tājika is very likely built on Sudarshana Chakra Dasha: expanded, but also corrupted, because it finds the Munthā from Lagna only and drops Chandra and Surya.

Antardaśā

• There is a controversy. Some start the antardaśās from the daśā sign itself.
• The teacher's reading of Parāśara: start from the daśā lord. See where the lord of the daśā sign sits in the natal chart, start from that sign and go through the 12 signs.
• This has to be done separately in the Lagna, Chandra and Surya chakras.
• Example (D-20, 1993–94): the Surya-chakra daśā is Leo; its lord Sun is in Virgo in the natal D-20; so the first antardaśā is Virgo, then Libra, and so on.

Judged from the entry chart, not the natal chart

• The same daśā returns every 12 years. The same events do not.
• Parāśara did not say to judge this daśā from the natal chart. The daśā is computed from the natal chart and judged from the planetary positions at the beginning of the year, the month, the 2½-day period — varṣādau, māsādau.
• So make the daśā praveśa chakra (the entry chart) and see how the planets are placed from each of the three daśā signs.

"Twelve years back you may have had a very bad time, but now you may have an excellent time. Life doesn't have to have a repeating cycle."

Thumb Rules for Scoring

Take a daśā sign as lagna in the entry chart and see which house each planet occupies from it.

Parāśara's rules

• The 11th is good for every planet.
• The 12th: Parāśara did not say outright that it is bad. The teacher takes a benefic in the 12th as neutral — half a point each way. (In the first count, with points to spare, he let it go as bad.)
• For a malefic the 2nd and 12th can at most be passed as neutral. A malefic in the 1st is plainly bad.

Which planets are benefic

• Sun: Parāśara changed the rule for Sun in this technique. Exalted or in a friend's house he is a benefic; in an inimical house a malefic. For the other planets he changed nothing.
• What counts is whether Sun regards the sign lord as his friend — not whether the sign lord likes Sun. Sun's friends are Moon, Mars and Jupiter; his enemies Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu; Mercury is neutral to him. Mercury treats Sun as a friend, but that does not matter. Sun in a Mercury sign is in a neutral house, and is counted a malefic.

"If I come to somebody's house but I don't consider him my friend, I am unhappy there. He may be very happy that I am partying in his house, but I am not happy. Sun is in Mercury's house. Mercury is happy about it, but Sun is not that excited. When Sun is not excited, he is a malefic."

• Moon: benefic in śukla pakṣa, malefic in kṛṣṇa pakṣa.
• Ketu: for marriage and for children the teacher counts Ketu as a benefic, because these are matters of dharma. Not for other matters. Parāśara does not say this; it is the teacher's own discrimination.

What the placements mean (the teacher's extension)

More rules from the published class notes

From the published class notes; this part is not on the recording.

Benefic or malefic

• Jupiter and Venus are always benefics. Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu are malefics.
• Mercury is a benefic with a benefic and a malefic with a malefic. Alone in a house he is a benefic by nature.
• Sun: the notes list four cases in which he is not a malefic — in the 1st house, in a friendly house, exalted, or in mūlatrikoṇa.
• A possible extension: every malefic may be counted good in his own house, a friendly house or mūlatrikoṇa — Saturn and Mars following the rule given for Sun.
• Parāśara: Rahu destroys the house he is in, wherever he is.

Placements

• A benefic in the 3rd or 6th is bad for winning over enemies: the person does not try to put them down.
• A malefic in the 3rd or 6th but debilitated: the person works hard, yet is poor at putting down obstacles.
• A malefic Moon (kṛṣṇa pakṣa) in the 1st is bad.
• Mars and Rahu together are bad: the house they occupy is destroyed. Mars and Rahu in the 8th show a sudden fall.
• Sun and Moon together is Amāvāsyā yoga — not a great yoga. It puts the house down.
• The 7th and 8th lords associated, or the 8th lord in the 7th: a death-like situation.

Yogas to look for from the daśā sign

• Do not stop at the count of good and bad. See whether a good yoga, above all a Rāja Yoga, forms.
• See which houses the planets own and how crucial those houses are. That decides the agenda of the period.
• Ignore Māndi and Gulika in the entry chart the software prints.

Counting

1. Go through the nine planets from the daśā sign and mark each good or bad.
2. Compare the tallies. 4.5 against 4.5 is an average period. 5 against 4 is moderately good. A count of 6 or more from Lagna, Moon or Sun in a divisional chart says something important happens in that area of life in that year, month or 2½ days.
3. Do this three times — once from each chakra's daśā sign.

Practical use: someone fears a layoff this month. If the month's count from the Chandra and Surya chakra signs is 5 or 6, he will come out happy. There may be tension, but he will probably be all right. Combine it with Tithi Praveśa and whatever else you know before speaking with confidence.

What Each Chakra Shows — Body, Mind and Viśvātmā

All three references are needed, but they are not the same thing.

• Moon is that through which you perceive the world. Lagna is that through which you influence it. Sun is the soul within, watching.
• The body worries about the next minute, the mind about the medium term. The soul looks only at the long term, at whatever level of period you read it.
• Surya chakra shows the cooperation of other souls: a boss blocking a promotion, a promotion you did not deserve, a leader winning an election among a billion people, a saint for whom many people gather to build an ashram, a good man whose time to work has not come.
• A period can look small and still be decisive for the soul. If someone has worked on this very daśā for five lives, the hour of this class may rekindle it; the Surya chakra of that small period will show something very auspicious.

"Various things that are happening which have a relevance to the agenda of your soul for the entire life — those you see from the Surya Chakra. Whatever is happening, how you react to it, how you feel, how you perceive it, is from Chandra Lagna. And what you are proactively trying to do is from Lagna."

Sun is the Viśvātmā, not the individual soul

• The chara ātmakāraka is the jīvātmā, the individual soul. Sun is the Viśvātmā — the sum of all the souls in the universe, which is also in you. Both show ātmā, but their roles differ.
• Neither is the Supreme. Parabrahma — call him Nārāyaṇa or Sadāśiva — is beyond Sun, Moon and all the planets and deities, which are manifestations.

The three liṅgas (the teacher's intuition, not from a classic)

Yoga and Tantra speak of three liṅgas — three tokens of "this is me" — in each being. The teacher maps them:

• Kuṇḍalinī is the energy of the ego, the sense "I am different". Coiled asleep round the Svayambhū liṅga, it is identified with the body-person. It rises through union with each liṅga in turn. When it merges with Sadāśiva in the Sahasrāra, no separate self is left.
• One who has fully lost the ego incurs no new karma, whatever his acts look like. Until then even a saint keeps accumulating karma, and all of it has to be burned before mokṣa.

Even Sun is Māyā

A student objected that the soul's agenda sounded like a higher truth. The teacher's answer:

• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa distinguished avidyā māyā (ignorant illusion — drink, sense pleasure) and vidyā māyā (learned illusion — a discourse on Jyotisha, daily pūjā and meditation). Both are the Divine Mother's māyā and both must finally be overcome. Overcome avidyā māyā first; if one must live in a māyā, live in vidyā māyā.
• What the soul desires is not thereby good. A soul may be destined to kill a million people. Good and bad are in the mind, and the mind is the Mother's creation; she promotes both and keeps the balance.
• Moon is māyā at the level of the individual will: "I have 2000 followers, I did a great thing."
• Sun is māyā at the level of the divine will: "I am only an instrument; the Mother willed that this be done at this time." There is more truth in it, but it is still māyā.
• In samādhi one goes beyond even Sun.

"When I talk about Sun, I am not talking about my individual jīvātmā. I am talking about the Viśvātmā. All the souls together are represented by Sun. He is the ātmā of the entire universe at the level of this māyā functioning. From the point of view of Paramātmā, even Sun is māyā."