PVNR Surya Siddhanta Switch: Nadi Granthas Use It; Varahamihira Used It; Divisional Charts Can Shift 1-2 Signs; Higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio. Char Dasha in Divisional Charts: Treat Division as Rasi, Calculate Char Dasha from Divisional Lagna; Transit from Char Dasha Sign as Lagna; Bhoga Rashi = Arudha of Dasha Sign; Multiple Confirmation (Char+Vimshottari+Transit) = Certain Event

The Switch to Surya Siddhanta

From this class on, the teacher uses Surya Siddhanta planetary positions, as he was already doing on the Yahoo group. A software release will follow once some fine calculations have been compared.

"Surya Siddhanta is not new astrology. We are still using the same astrology that we used before, except that the planetary calculations are based on Surya Siddhanta."

The two models

• Surya Siddhanta is an analytical model — formulas for where the planets are. In Varahamihira's time this is what people used.
• Its positions are off from the physical positions by a couple of degrees today, sometimes 7–8 degrees. Three thousand years back the two are not even close.
• The theory of the last hundred years: Surya Siddhanta was curve-fitting. Old observers plotted what they saw, fitted mathematical curves and wrote down the formulas. As time passes the error of a fitted formula grows, so the formulas are no longer valid and one must use Drik Siddhanta — current observation, the NASA model. Traditional astrologers moved over to it. Jagannatha Hora and the other popular programs are built on it.

Why he takes Surya Siddhanta seriously

1. Until a century ago traditional circles worshipped the Surya Siddhanta book as a form of the Veda.
2. Most Nadi granthas are based on it. One man's Nadi reading puts his Mercury at the end of Pisces; Drik Siddhanta, with any ayanamsa, puts it in the 3rd or 4th degree of Aries. Several people's Nadi positions match Surya Siddhanta. In Tamil Nadu, where the Nadi granthas are popular, many traditional astrologers still use a variation of it.
3. Varahamihira spoke very highly of it, so presumably he calculated with it. He is reputed to have made predictions to the hour. Whether a merely curve-fitted model could give that is debatable.

"There is some evidence, there is no proof, but some circumstantial evidence."

The limits he states

• Surya Siddhanta is a Sanskrit verse text. Some details are clear and some have to be worked out, exactly as with the Nabhasa yoga names. Different traditions read it slightly differently.
• The model now in Jagannatha Hora is very close to other Surya Siddhanta panchangas available online, and considerably different from Drik. It "may or may not be perfect".
• The code came from Vinay Jha, a monk who publishes panchangas for a few mutts in North India, including the Puri Shankaracharya mutt. His condition: give people the calculations, keep the formulas and the code secret. He is under oath to his guru.
• "Even now I am not fully convinced that this is correct."

What changes in a chart

• The rāśi chart is mostly the same. Only a planet on the edge of a sign changes sign.
• The Moon moves by half a degree to a degree, so Vimshottari Dasha shifts but not badly.
• Divisional charts change. A planet may move one sign, in some cases two. All divisional longitudes change.
• In his own Vimshamsha (D-20): Jupiter was in Libra, now in Sagittarius; Saturn was in Aquarius, now in Capricorn; Venus was in Virgo, now in Libra. Mercury stays in Gemini and the Moon in Cancer. (For Saturn the recording sounds like "D1"; the signs he names are those of the D-20.)

What worked better and what did not

• Tithi Pravesha: works as well as before, no better and no worse. "I was seeing shapes in clouds. I still can see shapes in these clouds."
• Tajika Varshaphala (the solar return chart): was so-so with Drik. With Surya Siddhanta it is more consistent.
• Ideas he had tried and junked: Vimshottari and Char Dasha computed inside a divisional chart. With Drik positions they were "just nice", no signal. With Surya Siddhanta they started working.
• Noise remains: the relative strength of Mars and Ketu, and of Saturn and Rahu, in Char Dasha; which nakshatra dasha to pick; possible errors in the model; habits of interpretation formed on wrong calculations, which have to be unlearned.

"I am comfortable at this point of time, based on the work I have done in the last few months, that this gives far higher signal-to-noise ratio."

The software

• Surya Siddhanta will not be the default. He expects most people to try it, say it does not work because they are used to a certain logic, and move on; maybe in 10 or 20 years it will be used.
• There will be one menu item: use the Surya Siddhanta ayanamsa and use Surya Siddhanta for planetary calculations.
• Vimshottari from a divisional chart is already there: Vimshottari Dasha → Options → choose the starting point (Moon, Lagna, Sun) → at the bottom, change Rasi to Navamsa or another division.
• Char Dasha of a divisional chart is not yet in the released software.
• To the students: experiment with it when it is available. If you are not confident, stay with what you were doing.

Char Dasha in Divisional Charts

The fault in rāśi-only Char Dasha

• Parashara calls Char Dasha the king of the rāśi dashas.
• As it is used today — K.N. Rao's way — it is computed from the rāśi chart and read from the rāśi chart. Only the signs of lagna and the nine planets decide it.
• Two people born an hour and a half apart in the same lagna get the same Char Dasha and the same reading. Twins born two minutes apart have different careers and marriages; Navamsa and Dashamsa can tell them apart, this dasha cannot.
• One can explain why Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in a given dasha, but many were born in that lagna and did not.
• The usual justification — the 3rd house aspects it, the 3rd lord aspects it, the Dārakāraka or Mars aspects it — lets almost any sign give a brother.

The idea

Char Dasha shows when each house, starting from the 1st, gives its results. A divisional chart has a lagna, houses and planets.

"He gave a lot of rules on judging Char Dasha. He did not say this is only for Rasi chart."

So compute Char Dasha in the Navamsa for marriage, the Dashamsa for career, the Vimshamsha for spiritual life, the Chaturvimshamsha for learning.

Why a dasha from a divisional chart is not illogical

• There is one zodiac. The Navamsa is not a second zodiac with its own Gemini.
• His Moon is physically in Aquarius. The navamsa of the Moon is an abstract point, and it lies in the same physical Gemini. The dashamsa of the Moon lies in physical Scorpio.
• Parashara never said to draw separate charts. He said how to find the navamsas and dashamsas of the planets. All of them could be plotted on one master chart.
• The navamsa Moon therefore sits against a star too, and a nakshatra dasha can be started from it. Navamsa is the key for marriage, so that dasha is the one to read for marriage.

How he calculates it

• As Char Dasha of the rāśi chart, by Parashara's method, with the divisional chart treated as though it were the rāśi chart.
• Parashara's rule as he states it: start from lagna. If the 9th from lagna is odd-footed, the dashas go forward, otherwise backward, through the twelve houses. For the years, count from the dasha sign to its lord, forward or backward as the dasha sign is odd-footed or even-footed. Lord exalted: add one. Lord debilitated: subtract one. Scorpio and Aquarius have two lords: take the stronger; the one with more planets is stronger.
• Differences from K.N. Rao: he keeps the plus-one and minus-one year, which Rao drops; and he judges the strength of Mars against Ketu and Saturn against Rahu by Parashara.
• He takes Scorpio and Taurus, not Sagittarius and Gemini, as the exaltation and debilitation signs of the nodes. This was reached empirically from examples, "so that could be suspect".
• Know the divisional lagna accurately. If it is on a border, try both; a different lagna changes the whole Char Dasha.

Reading it

• Read the dasha sign in the natal divisional chart: which house it is, what it holds, where its lord is.
• Transits: take the dasha sign as lagna and look at the planets in the sky on the date of the event.
  • Good: an exalted planet transiting the dasha sign; the lord of the sign transiting it; or such a planet aspecting the sign from elsewhere.
  • Bad: the lord of the dasha sign in a bad house from it; Saturn or Rahu in the 8th from it; Jupiter in his maraṇa kāraka sthāna.
• Bhoga rāśi: Parashara says transits can be seen from the dasha sign and from the bhoga sign, which is the ārūḍha of the dasha sign. Count from the dasha sign to its lord, as for any ārūḍha; if the lord is in the dasha sign itself, take the 10th from it.
• Transits can also be seen from the sign of the Vimshottari dasha lord.
• Within one Char Dasha, different transits trigger different events.
• When the Char Dasha and the Vimshottari Dasha of the same divisional chart are both conducive, the event is triggered.

"There are multiple transits from multiple references which trigger an event. And multiple dashas, when they are conducive, events basically are triggered."

Rectification

A student asks whether this is used to rectify a chart. Yes. If the divisional lagna could be one of two signs, compute the Char Dasha for both. For a known event — say a layoff on a known day — ask which dasha could give it, and from which dasha sign the transits of that day show it better.

Where it does not work

• Some charts do not answer to Char Dasha. They need Trikona Dasha or Kendra Dasha. Choosing the right dasha — rāśi or nakshatra — is still a puzzle.
• "If you use Char Dasha, in 75% cases you will be covered."

Key Teachings on Methodology

What he was looking for

• All the astrology he had done and taught till now: principles that sometimes work and sometimes do not. He was never convinced it was replicable. "Chart is basically a tool for speculating."
• When a prediction fails, some factor can always be found to explain it. What is missing is a written procedure that says: this dasha must give this result.

"There was a small candle, and the candle is burning brighter now. But the thing is, it's not really bright like sunlight."

"The room is still dark, but the thing is, suddenly it is almost as though a window has opened and some sunlight is coming."

The work now is to open the window fully, which is not easy.

Go back to Parashara

• The old strategy: a thumb rule, and anything near the thumb rule accepted — because nothing better was known and the planetary model was wrong.
• With Surya Siddhanta, go back to what the rishi said and use simpler logic, more consistently. Some unlearning and relearning is needed.
• There will be charts where simple logic is not found. Then admit there is no explanation. Do not take the "anything goes" attitude; demand a good explanation.

"One big problem in finding truth is sticking to lies. If you stick to your lies, you will never find the truth."

Give honest readings, let them go wrong, and learn from them.

Retro-analysis is valid

Some say a technique cannot be tested on the past. He calls that nonsense.

"To know that something is working, you don't have to make predictions and wait for 20 years for those predictions to come true."

The condition is honesty with yourself: What is my principle? Is it working consistently? Am I justifying somehow, or is it straightforward? Collect data, keep it, test many examples. The basic question stays the same: how do you judge a house — what good and what bad can a placement give? His D-20 Venus, lagna lord in the 6th, gave something important and also many weaknesses.

Parashara and Jaimini

• People call it Jaimini Char Dasha. It is Parashara's too. K.N. Rao's version is also Parashara's with a couple of modifications.
• One school holds that Parashara and Jaimini taught two systems that cannot be mixed, and reads Jaimini through the old commentators. He names Rangacharya's version: a good Sanskrit scholar perhaps, but the result is too complicated and messy.
• Jaimini speaks in riddles — one word, one word, disconnected. Parashara taught the same dashas (Drig Dasha, Char Dasha, Trikona Dasha) and was far more verbose.

"Parashara and Jaimini did not teach two different Char Dashas."

Jaimini can be read so that he matches Parashara. Pay attention to Parashara; there is a better chance of understanding him.

What he recommends now

A student asks for a checklist of the new techniques.

1. Char Dasha of the divisional chart, with transits from the dasha sign.
2. The Tajika Varshaphala chart.
3. The Tithi Pravesha chart, which still works.

Ask in six months and the list may be different. For now he points only to what works simply, without twisting, in a good share of charts. Finer techniques will come over the next few years.

Tajika and Tithi Pravesha

• Both are annual charts and both point at the events. In his opinion Tajika now works even better.
• Tajika: the Sun returns to the same place. Tithi Pravesha: the Moon returns to the same angle from the Sun in the same lunar month — same month, same tithi, same fraction of the tithi.
• Tajika needs the Sun exact. The Sun covers one minute of arc in 1/60 of a day — one ghaṭī, 24 minutes. An error that size moves the moment of the annual chart by 24 minutes, and its Dashamsa lagna by two signs, sometimes three.

Solid ground

"When you have a solid foundation, it is easier to jump here and there and find out the good spots and bad spots."

On a shaky one you may land safely once and fall the next time.