The Study of Jyotisha · Chapter 9 of 54 · Part Two · The building blocks

#The twelve houses

#What a house is

The signs belong to the sky; the houses belong to the person. A house (bhava, "state of being", or sthana, "place") is one of twelve areas of life — the body, wealth, siblings, home, children and so on — and the chart shows which part of the zodiac, and which grahas, fell in each area at birth.

In the classical method used in this course, the houses are counted from the sign of the lagna: the lagna's sign is the 1st house, the next sign the 2nd, and so on (Chapter 6). So the houses are the same twelve signs, but numbered starting from the rising sign. This is why the lagna matters so much. The signs and planets of two people born on the same day may be almost the same; but if their lagnas differ, every planet falls in a different house, and the same planets speak of different parts of life.

Varahamihira gives the meanings of the twelve houses in one verse, and their technical names in the next four (Brihat Jataka I.15–19). This chapter starts there and then adds the fuller meanings of the later books.

#Varahamihira's twelve houses

Here is Varahamihira's list, with the technical name of each house (Brihat Jataka I.15–16) and the fuller meanings his translator gives in his note to I.15:

Other names you will meet in old texts (Brihat Jataka I.16, I.18, I.19):

• the 4th: Hibuka, Ambu, Sukha ("happiness"), Vesma ("dwelling"), Patala ("underworld");
• the 7th: Dyuna and Jamitra — both Greek words, from dysis (setting) and diametron (diameter);
• the 10th: Ajna ("command"), Meshurana (Greek mesouranema, midheaven) and Karma ("action");
• the 3rd: Dushchikya;
• the 9th: Tapas ("austerity") and Tritrikona.

As with the sign names, the Greek words are a record of the early contact between Indian and Greek astrologers (Chapter 48).

#The fuller meanings of the later books

Later authors, especially Parashara (in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra's chapters on the judgement of each house) and Mantreswara (Phaladeepika, chapter 1), list many more meanings for each house. The lists differ in detail, but the main items are steady. Learn the first two or three items for each house well; the rest you can look up.

1. 1st house — the self. The body and its appearance, health and vitality, character, the head, fame, the start of life, general fortune.
2. 2nd house — what is one's own. Wealth and possessions, family, speech, the face, the eyes (especially the right), food, early education, truthfulness.
3. 3rd house — effort. Younger brothers and sisters, courage, initiative, short journeys, communication and writing, the hands and arms, neighbours, skill with the hands.
4. 4th house — home. The mother, home and land, vehicles, comfort and happiness, the heart, school education, the native place, cattle, peace of mind.
5. 5th house — creation. Children, intelligence, learning, creativity, devotion and mantra, merit from past lives (purva punya), speculation, romance, advice and counsel.
6. 6th house — struggle. Enemies and rivals, illness, debts, disputes and lawsuits, service and servants, maternal relatives, obstacles, the daily work that overcomes them.
7. 7th house — the other. The spouse and marriage, partners in business, open opponents, travel abroad, dealings with the public, desire.
8. 8th house — what is hidden. The length of life, sudden events, inheritance and others' money, secrets, research and the occult, chronic illness, the means of death (treated in this course as history only).
9. 9th house — fortune and dharma. The father, teachers and gurus, religion, righteousness, higher learning, long journeys and pilgrimage, good fortune, grandchildren.
10. 10th house — action. Career and occupation, status and honour, authority and government, one's deeds in the world, fame.
11. 11th house — gains. Income and gains, the fulfilment of wishes, elder brothers and sisters, friends and supporters, the left ear.
12. 12th house — release. Expenditure and loss, foreign lands and living far from home, sleep and the bed, retreat, hospitals and prisons, charity, the left eye, liberation (moksha).

Notice that the houses form a cycle. The 1st is birth and the self; the 12th is letting go and release. Each house leads to the next: the self (1) gathers resources (2), uses effort (3) to make a home (4), creates (5), struggles (6), meets the other (7), faces what is hidden (8), finds meaning (9), acts in the world (10), gains (11) and lets go (12).

#Groups of houses

The houses are grouped in several ways. Each grouping is a quick guide to strength and nature.

#Angles, succedents and cadents

Varahamihira groups the houses by their relation to the four angles (Brihat Jataka I.17–18):

Panaphara and apoklima are Greek words (epanaphora and apoklima), as Aiyar notes. Varahamihira says the angles are naturally strong (Brihat Jataka I.19), and his translator draws the conclusion: the panaphara houses are weaker than the angles, and the apoklima houses weakest of all (note to I.19). A planet in an angle is in a strong, visible position; it acts in the world.

#Trines

The trikona houses — the triangle houses — are the 5th and 9th, together with the 1st itself. Varahamihira calls the 5th trikona and the 9th tritrikona (Brihat Jataka I.18–19). The trines form a triangle with the lagna: the 1st, 5th and 9th houses are 120° apart. They are the houses of dharma — the self, its intelligence and merit, and its fortune and righteousness — and later books treat them as the most auspicious houses. A planet ruling or occupying a trine is generally helpful.

#Houses of growth: upachaya

The upachaya houses, "houses of increase", are the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th (Brihat Jataka I.15). They are the houses of effort, struggle, work and gain — matters that grow with time and effort. The tradition says that malefic planets do well in them, because their harshness becomes energy for competition and hard work, and that their results improve as life goes on.

Varahamihira notes a disagreement here. Garga and his followers held that these houses stop being upachayas if malefics or planets unfriendly to the house lords occupy or aspect them; Varahamihira does not agree, and he cites Satyacharya and Yavaneshvara on his side (Brihat Jataka I.15, with Aiyar's note). Small disagreements like this run all through the classical texts, and it is good to see them stated openly.

The opposite group, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th, are sometimes called anupachaya.

#Houses of difficulty: dusthana

Later books call the 6th, 8th and 12th houses the dusthanas, "bad places", or trik houses: the houses of illness and enemies (6), of hidden troubles and the length of life (8), and of loss (12). Their lords are generally treated as troublesome, and planets in them as weakened in their own significations.

But Varahamihira gives an important twist, which he attributes to Satyacharya: benefic planets promote the house they occupy and malefic planets reduce it — except in the 6th, 8th and 12th houses, where the reverse is true (Brihat Jataka XX.10, with Aiyar's note). His translator explains: a malefic in the 6th reduces one's enemies; a benefic in the 12th reduces one's losses. In other words, a malefic in a house of trouble reduces the trouble. Keep this in mind whenever you hear that a planet in the 6th, 8th or 12th is simply "bad".

#Chaturasra

The 4th and 8th houses are called chaturasra, "four-cornered" (Brihat Jataka I.16). (Aiyar's printed text says "4th and 5th"; the standard reading, followed by later books, is the 4th and the 8th, the two houses square to the lagna's axis.)

#A note on maraka houses

Later books single out the 2nd and 7th houses as maraka houses, connected with the timing of death. This course explains such rules only as history (Chapter 33), never as predictions about anyone.

#House lords

Every house has a lord: the lord of the sign that falls in it. If the lagna is Libra, the 1st house is Libra and its lord is Venus; the 2nd house is Scorpio and its lord is Mars; and so on.

House lords are one of the most important tools in the whole subject. A house is judged by three things together:

1. the house itself — which grahas occupy it and which aspect it;
2. its lord — where the lord is placed, how strong it is, and what it is joined with;
3. its karaka — the graha that naturally signifies the matter (Chapter 8).

The lord of a house carries the matters of that house to wherever it sits. If the lord of the 10th house (work) sits in the 7th house (partnership), work and partnership are linked. If the lord of the 9th (fortune) sits in the 2nd (wealth), fortune comes through wealth and family. Much of Part Six of this course is the art of reading house lords.

Example. For the example chart of Chapter 6 (Libra lagna):

Even before you know any detailed rules, a pattern stands out: the lords of five houses — the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 11th, carried by Venus, Jupiter and the Sun — all gather in the 10th house. The 10th is the house of work and public life. This chart keeps pointing at it.

#Planets in the houses: the old rules

Varahamihira gives a short chapter on the effects of each planet in each house (Brihat Jataka XX). Here, as an example, is his complete list for Jupiter in the twelve houses, in paraphrase (Brihat Jataka XX.7):

Two rules in the same chapter tell you how to use such lists:

1. Look at the sign as well as the house. The effects depend on whether the planet is in its own sign, exalted, debilitated, or in a friendly or unfriendly sign (Brihat Jataka XX.10).
2. Scale the result by dignity. Good results come in full when the planet is exalted, three-quarters in its moolatrikona sign, half in its own sign, a quarter in a friend's sign, less in an enemy's sign, and not at all if the planet is debilitated or combust (Brihat Jataka XX.11).

So no line in such a table is ever a prediction by itself. It is a starting tendency, which the rest of the chart strengthens, weakens or changes. Varahamihira's own translator records that different authorities disagree about several of these lines (for example, about the Sun in the 6th and 9th houses; Aiyar's notes to XX.2–3). You will learn to weigh them as one voice among several.

The other planets' lists in the same chapter are harsher in places, and some of their lines reflect the medical and social ideas of the sixth century. This course quotes them where they help understanding, never as statements about a real person.

#Reading a house from another house

Later astrologers use a simple and powerful habit: treat any house as the first house of its own matter, and count from there. This is sometimes called bhavat bhavam, "the house from the house".

For example:

• The 4th house is the mother. Her siblings are then the 3rd house from the 4th — that is, the 6th house of the chart.
• The 9th house is the father. His wealth is the 2nd house from the 9th — the 10th house of the chart.
• The 5th house is the first child. The second child is the 3rd from the 5th (a younger sibling of the first child) — the 7th house.

This habit lets twelve houses describe a whole network of people and matters. Use it carefully: the further you count from the lagna, the weaker and vaguer the result.

#Other starting points

The lagna is the main starting point for counting houses, but not the only one. Varahamihira often reads a chart from the Moon as well: many of his yogas count houses from the Moon's sign (for example in his chapter on lunar yogas, Brihat Jataka XIII), and many later astrologers draw a second chart with the Moon's sign as the 1st house, called the chandra lagna. Some also read from the Sun (surya lagna). When the lagna and the Moon both show the same thing, the result is said to be more certain. Later chapters show how this works.

#Summary

• Houses are counted from the lagna's sign; each is an area of life (Brihat Jataka I.15).
• Varahamihira's twelve: body, family, brothers, relations, children, enemies, spouse, death, virtue, work, gain, loss; later books add many more meanings for each.
• Angles (kendra): 1, 4, 7, 10 — strongest. Panaphara: 2, 5, 8, 11. Apoklima: 3, 6, 9, 12 — weakest (Brihat Jataka I.17–19).
• Trines: 1, 5, 9 — the houses of dharma and good fortune (Brihat Jataka I.18–19).
• Upachaya: 3, 6, 10, 11 — houses of growth, where malefics do well (Brihat Jataka I.15).
• Dusthana: 6, 8, 12 — houses of difficulty; but a malefic there reduces the difficulty and a benefic increases it (Brihat Jataka XX.10).
• Every house has a lord, the lord of its sign. A house is judged by itself, its lord and its karaka.
• Planet-in-house effects depend on the planet's dignity and scale with it (Brihat Jataka XX.10–11).
• Any house can be treated as a new first house (bhavat bhavam), and charts are also read from the Moon.

#Exercises

1. Give the main meaning of each house from 1 to 12 from memory.
2. Which houses are both angles and trines? Which are both upachaya and dusthana?
3. For a Gemini lagna, write out the sign and lord of each house.
4. In the example chart, Mars is the lord of the 2nd and 7th houses and sits in the 7th. In your own words, what does that link?
5. Using bhavat bhavam, which house of the chart describes the spouse's family wealth? (Hint: the spouse is the 7th.)
6. A malefic planet sits in the 6th house. According to Satyacharya's rule (Brihat Jataka XX.10), does it increase or reduce enemies?

Answers: 2. The 1st is both an angle and a trine. The 6th is both upachaya and dusthana. 3. Gemini–Mercury, Cancer–Moon, Leo–Sun, Virgo–Mercury, Libra–Venus, Scorpio–Mars, Sagittarius–Jupiter, Capricorn–Saturn, Aquarius–Saturn, Pisces–Jupiter, Aries–Mars, Taurus–Venus. 4. The person's own resources and family (2nd) with partnership and the spouse (7th); its lord is strong in its own sign. 5. The 2nd from the 7th, which is the 8th house. 6. It reduces them.