Vedic Astrology Foundations — Zodiac, Grahas & Lagna

The Zodiac (Rashi Chakra)

What is the Zodiac?

All the planets go around the Sun in elliptical orbits, and all those orbits lie in nearly the same two-dimensional plane. Take Earth as the centre, fix a starting line in that plane, and go around 360° — that is the zodiac.

The zodiac is divided into 12 equal parts of 30° each, called Rasis (signs).

Learn these names before the next class.

The Starting Point and the Fixed Stars

• The divisions are tied to real stars. With the ayanamsa people currently use, the star Chitra is always on the 180° line, and another star lies close to the 0° line.
• The starting line does not move as Earth rotates or goes around the Sun.
• Western astrology uses a different zodiac whose starting point is not fixed with respect to the stars; it shifts every year. So their chart is the same chart shifted by some degrees. The two systems — sāyana and nirayana — and ayanamsa are left for a later class.

Earth as the Center

Earth is the centre of the zodiac, not the Sun, because we live on Earth; where the planets are with respect to Earth is what affects our destiny.

A student objects: how can something that itself goes around be the centre? Answer: everything is moving. The Sun and the whole solar system go around a point the scriptures call Vishnu Nabhi (the navel of Vishnu) — Surya Siddhanta said so long ago. That point goes around another, and so on without end. Nothing is stable, so there is no reason to prefer the Sun.

Sphuta (Longitude)

• Draw a line from Earth to the planet and measure the angle from the start of the zodiac. That angle is the planet's Sphuta (longitude).
• Example: Venus at 140° is in Leo (120°–150°). Jupiter, at the time of the class, was about 15° into Leo — 135° from the start.
• The Rasi chart needs only the sign. But how far a planet has advanced within the sign also matters; that comes later.
• A planet's longitude is measured from the centre of the Earth, so it is the same wherever on Earth you are born. Only Lagna depends on the place.

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The Nine Grahas (Planets)

Graha Is Not "Planet"

"Planet" is only a rough translation. In modern usage a planet is an object going around the Sun — the Moon is a satellite, not a planet. A graha is any entity close to Earth that has a significant impact on life on Earth.

Grahas act not only on persons but on organizations of persons: a country, a political party, a government. A chart can be cast for the moment India became independent, or the moment a party was founded, and its fortunes predicted from it. A student asks about inanimate things such as a house: good and bad things happen to them too, and the planets show that as well.

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto

These are not used. The common belief — held by Western astrologers and by perhaps half of the modern Indian ones — is that the rishis did not know of them. PVNR says that is a misconception: read carefully, Vyasa mentions planets beyond Saturn under other names. They were left out because they are too far from Earth and their impact on us is very minimal.

How Planets Influence Us

• No literature gives the mechanism. "We don't really know."
• Do not assume gravitation. Do not assume light — planets influence us even when they are on the other side of the Earth and cannot be seen.
• The world we perceive has four dimensions, three of space and one of time. There may be other dimensions, and forms of energy operating in them, in which the Puranic picture of Sun and Moon as persons has its meaning. The maharshis could perceive that; we cannot.
• His advice: do not worry about it. There will probably be no answer in our lifetime.

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Rahu and Ketu — The Shadow Planets

Rahu and Ketu are not physical objects. The Moon's orbit around Earth is slightly tilted to the plane in which Earth goes around the Sun. The two points where those two planes intersect are Rahu and Ketu.

• They are called Chaya Grahas — chaya means shadow.
• They are always exactly 180° apart — six houses from each other. If Rahu is 10° into a sign, Ketu is 10° into the opposite sign.
• Both therefore take the same time to go around the zodiac: about 18 years.

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Lagna (Ascendant)

What is Lagna?

Ascend means rise. Lagna is the point of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon. Because Earth rotates on itself, the eastern point sweeps the whole zodiac in a day and comes back to the same place.

• One full round takes 24 hours — roughly two hours per sign.
• Example from the class: Lagna was in Tula when the class began, having entered around 6 o'clock; around 8 it goes to Vrischika, around 10 to Dhanus, and the next day at the same time it is back in Tula.
• Chart symbol: As or La.

Significance

"Lagna is what shows you. All the planets basically show other people who are influencing you, but Lagna shows the real person, the person who was born at that time."

A chart is Lagna plus the nine grahas placed in the signs.

The Tripod of Life

Life stands on these three. The parampara mantra maps to the same three: Hari → Lagna, Rama → Sun, Krishna → Moon.

Reading a chart with the Sun as reference is accepted in Indian astrology too, but it shows matters of the atma only.

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Planetary Periods of Revolution

Time to go once around the zodiac, as given in class:

• These are averages. One round of Jupiter may take slightly more than 12 years, another slightly less.
• Saturn is far away and goes slowly. That is why one of his names is Manda, the slow one.
• A student asks if these periods relate to the dashas. They do not. What they tell you: when Saturn is stuck in a rasi that is bad for you, he stays two and a half years and troubles you for a long time.

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Sade Sati (Shani's 7½-year Period)

Asked by a student, who uses the Telugu name Elinati Shani. Some call it Sade Sati.

Take the sign holding your natal Moon, the sign before it and the sign after it. The time Saturn spends in those three signs — 2½ + 2½ + 2½ = 7½ years — is Sade Sati.

• The Moon's place matters because the Moon is the mind. In this period Saturn puts the mind under tension and pressure.

Saturn retrograding out of it. A student's case: Moon in Leo, Saturn enters Cancer — Sade Sati starts. Then Saturn retrogrades into Gemini. What happens?

• When he first enters Cancer the troubles start.
• While he is back in Gemini there is suddenly hope, and good things can happen. That stretch is not counted as Sade Sati.
• "When he comes back to Cancer again, then he will show his true colors."

At the time of the class Saturn was in Mithuna, about to enter Karkataka around the end of August, due to return to Mithuna some five months later and then go back into Karkataka after a few more months.

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Vakri (Retrograde) Motion

A planet going backwards through the zodiac is Vakri (retrograde); the motion is vakra gati, the process vakra-gamanam.

Why it happens: seen from the Sun, planets never go in two directions. Their motion is uniform and computable by Kepler's laws. But we take Earth as the centre, and from Earth a planet seems to go forward, then backward.

• A student asks whether a retrograde planet is at its farthest from Earth. Not necessarily — it comes from the difference in speed. Earth overtakes Mars; Mars is "still stuck" behind, so from Earth he appears to move backwards.
• Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (outside Earth's orbit): they do not go retrograde often, but stay retrograde a long time — a month or two, and Jupiter and Saturn sometimes four or five months.
• Mercury (inside Earth's orbit) moves so fast compared with Earth that he keeps going forward and backward — three or four times, unlike the others. The Budha Ashtottara Shatanama Stotra calls him Vakra Ativakra Gamana — retrograde and very retrograde.

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Chart Styles

All styles show the same chart. The calculations are identical; only the drawing differs.

• Savya and apasavya: the chart drawn in class runs the signs clockwise — savya. Some draw it the opposite way — apasavya — in Bengal and in some Andhra panchangas. A planet in Simha is in Simha either way.
• Fixed signs: in the South Indian chart each box is always the same rasi. Planets and Lagna are written into the box of the sign they occupy.
• Why Jupiter rules the South Indian chart (a student's question). Two reasons. One: a middle area with equal parts around it is the traditional layout of temples. Two: this is how Parasara and the other maharshis taught chart-making in BPHS, and Jupiter, teacher of the gods, stands for the learned maharshis.
• Why Venus rules the diamond chart: Shukracharya rules diamond (vajra). If Venus is strong in your chart, or you want his blessings in astrology, you are advised to use it.
• Surya Chakra: used in the land around Konark, where the Sun is worshipped. The signs run anticlockwise.
• PVNR uses the South Indian chart in these classes.

A Planet on the Border of Two Signs

A student asks about a planet at exactly 30°. In theory Aries is 0° up to but not including 30°, so exactly 30° is Taurus. But the starting point of the zodiac is itself disputed, so every computed longitude carries a small uncertainty.

"If you see that Jupiter is at 30.01 degrees, don't be sure that he is in Taurus. If there is a slight change in the calculations, he may be in Aries. Consider both and see which makes sense."

This is rare: a planet is on a boundary only for a short time.

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Western Astrology, Sun Signs and the Paradox of Twins

A student asks how the accuracy of Indian, Greek and Chinese astrology compares.

• Lagna stays about two hours in a rasi, so everyone born in that two-hour window has the same Rasi chart. The Western chart is closely analogous to the Rasi chart, only shifted by some degrees.
• Many Western astrologers do not even use Lagna, only the Sun sign. The Sun stays a month in a sign (changing around the 15th in our zodiac), so a Sun sign fixes only the month of birth. "It's very superficial."
• Serious Western astrologers use the ascendant. That brings a month down to two hours — far better, still not enough.
• The paradox of twins: twins born five minutes apart at the same place have the same Rasi chart, Rahu and Ketu included. Yet he knows twins of whom one passed with distinction and the other barely passed; one a manager and the other a peon in the same office; one with solid health and the other without.
• No other system — Chinese, Tibetan, Greek — explains this. Jyotisha does, through the divisional charts.
• Those who use only the Sun sign stay at the level of the atma and never come down to mind and body. So they cannot predict well.

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Divisional Charts (Varga Chakras)

Besides the Rasi chart there are divisional charts, computed by formula from the exact longitude of each planet and of Lagna. Parasara's Shodasavarga is 16 charts, the Rasi chart included.

• The Rasi chart is for the physical level of existence — appearance, physical health. It is not the chart for job, education or intelligence.
• Other charts cover other matters: one for career, one for learning and education, one for marriage and spouse, one for parents.
• In these charts Lagna changes sign much faster than every two hours: in one about every 14 minutes, in another 10, in another 5, in another 2.
• Navamsa: each two-hour stretch of Lagna is cut into nine parts.
• Shashtyamsa: 1/60 of a sign. Lagna changes about every 2 minutes — the finest of the sixteen.
• The cut points of the different charts do not line up. Taking all sixteen together, one chart or another changes every few seconds.
• Twins share some charts and differ in others. That matches life: twins are alike in some things and different in others.

Which Chart Needs Which Accuracy

Suppose the birth is known to lie between 10:01 and 10:02. In the chart that shows parents, that whole minute may fall inside one division — Lagna is certain there and you can speak about parents with confidence. In the chart for education a division may begin in the middle of that minute — there you cannot. For each area of life, make sure of the Lagna in the chart of that area.

Nadi Amsa

• The sixteen charts are what PVNR and his parampara use. The Nadi Granthas use a finer division, the Nadi amsa: 1/150 of a sign, and the ardha-nadi, 1/300.
• With the perfect knowledge the maharshis had, the narrowest window is not 2 minutes but 24 seconds.
• Nadi readers find your page by thumbprint or by questions on your name and your father's name. If they reach the right page, everything matches — parents' names, number of brothers.
• Some Nadi collections are fakes written for commercial exploitation. Authentic sources are very accurate.

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Accuracy and Rectification

Never Trust the Given Time

"Even if somebody says, 'It was exactly 9:30, my grandfather was there, he noted down the time' — do not believe it."

• The watch may have been off.
• There may have been a lapse in noting it down.
• The wrong definition of birth may have been used.

What Counts as the Moment of Birth

Scholars disagree. The candidates: the head appearing (śīrṣodaya), the whole body coming out and touching the ground (bhūpatana), the first cry. The view of PVNR and his gurus is that the definition changes with the yuga, following the dharma of that yuga:

• Krita Yuga — the head appearing.
• Treta Yuga — bhūpatana.
• Kali Yuga — the first breath and first cry. Dharma is low; a baby can be taken out by cutting the stomach, so the appearance of the head can be controlled. The first breath cannot.

There is no agreement on this.

Birth Time Rectification

• Take what is known of the person's past — when they married, when they went abroad, when they joined a job — and work back to the time. Predict only when confident of it.
• When the given time sits on a border in the chart you want to read, ask about past events to decide which side is right.
• The scientific part of astrology, which is what this course teaches, needs very accurate time. The other route is vāk bala: one who keeps vāk śuddhi and never abuses speech finds that what he says happens, without a chart.

The One Chart That Needed No Correction

His father's father was born in 1902. An elder relative present at the birth was an astrologer; there was no watch. When he heard the cry he measured the length of the shadow of a stick, worked out the time in ghatis and vighatis, and cast the chart by formula. Every event PVNR later checked — jobs, children, the wife's death, his own death — lined up with no adjustment. It is the only chart he has not had to rectify.

The lesson he draws: the more you depend on software, the more skills the brain loses. Learn some of the calculation and do it mentally now and then. The formulas are in Surya Siddhanta — trigonometry, laborious but doable. An ephemeris or panchanga gives the positions once a day, to be interpolated. Software is the easiest.

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Lagna Through the Day and From Place to Place

By Place

A student asks whether a time correction is needed for a child born outside India. Planetary longitudes need none. Lagna does depend on the place: the eastern horizon in Boston and the eastern horizon in India point almost opposite ways, so the two Lagnas are nearly 180° apart at the same instant. A Lagna table from an Indian panchanga cannot be used for Boston with a time correction.

By the Sun

• At sunrise Lagna is exactly where the Sun is. Sun at 21° Aries → Lagna at 21° Aries.
• Around midday Lagna is about three signs ahead of the Sun.
• At sunset Lagna is opposite the Sun.
• At midnight it is a further quarter round; at the next sunrise it is back on the Sun.

This gives the Lagna roughly without any software. (Very near the poles, where the Sun may not rise, there is no agreed answer.)

Lagna Does Not Spend Equal Time in Each Sign

• At the equator it is more or less constant.
• Away from the equator it varies. In Boston, at the height of summer or winter, Lagna can be in one sign for one hour and in another for three.
• In India it stays close to two hours — from about 1 h 45 m to 2 h 15 m.

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Abhijit Muhurta

An aside in the class. If there is no good muhurta for something, the shastras say do it in Abhijit Muhurta, the midday muhurta — regardless of Rahu kala and the rest.

• Abhijit roughly means great victory.
• Houses are counted from Lagna, one rasi per house. The 10th house is the Karmasthana — what you end up doing, and success.
• At midday Lagna is three signs from the Sun, which puts the Sun exactly in the 10th house.
• The Sun is the giver of success and the giver of life. Sun in the Karmasthana is good irrespective of other factors.

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