The Study of Jyotisha · Chapter 24 of 54 · Part Five · Timing

#Transits

#Gochara

The planets keep moving after a person is born. Their movement through the signs is called gochara ("going through the sky"), usually translated transits. The idea of transits is that when a moving planet passes through certain places counted from the birth chart, it brings that planet's results to the person.

Transits are the most visible part of astrology — newspaper horoscopes are transits — and also among the oldest parts of Jyotisha. Varahamihira wrote a whole chapter on them in the Brihat Samhita, in an unusual way: each verse is in a different poetic metre, and contains the name of the metre (Brihat Samhita 104.2, with Iyer's note). He even jokes that a reader who knows Mandavya's earlier work will not like his (104.3).

#Counted from the Moon

In the classical system, transits are counted from the birth Moon: the sign the Moon occupied at birth is the 1st, the next sign the 2nd, and so on (Brihat Samhita 104.4). This is one of the reasons the Moon sign (janma rashi) is so important in Indian practice. Later astrologers also look at transits from the ascendant and over the birth positions of the planets, but the Moon is the classical reference.

#Varahamihira's table

The core rule is one verse long (Brihat Samhita 104.4). A planet passing through the following signs, counted from the birth Moon, gives good results:

And "all the planets produce good effects when they pass through the 11th house from the Moon".

Patterns are easy to see. The malefics (Sun, Mars, Saturn) are good only in the upachaya houses, the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th, where struggle produces growth (Chapter 9). The benefics are good in many more places. Jupiter is good in the trikonas (5th, 9th) and in the 2nd, 7th and 11th.

The following verses describe the effect of each planet in each of the twelve signs from the Moon (104.5–45). For example: the Sun in the 10th from the Moon brings "great success" (104.7); Saturn in the 3rd brings wealth, influence and health (104.41); Jupiter in the 9th, Mars in the 6th, Venus in most places bring good things; and the other places bring illness, loss, quarrels and fatigue in various forms.

#The rules that limit the table

Varahamihira does not leave the table to stand alone. He adds rules that limit it — rules that are often forgotten.

1. A transit gives no more than the dasha and the person's life allow.

Though a planet might be benefic to a person, he produces benefic effects only according to the nature of the dasa periods and the rank of the person in life, just in the same way as the quantity of rain falling into a small cup cannot but be small though the rain be excessive (Brihat Samhita 104.46, Iyer).

This is perhaps the most important rule about transits. A good transit in a difficult dasha gives little; a difficult transit in a good dasha does little harm. And the "size of the cup" — the person's actual circumstances — sets the scale (compare Chapter 17).

2. A transiting planet's own condition matters. The good effects of a transit fail if the planet is in its debilitation or an enemy's sign, combust, or aspected by an enemy (104.53). A combust Saturn "will not produce miseries to the righteous" (104.55).

3. Mixtures neutralise. A benefic aspected by a malefic, a malefic aspected by a benefic, or a benefic and a malefic together, give mixed effects (104.52). The transiting Moon takes on the character of the planet it is with (104.56).

4. When in the sign the effect is felt. The Sun and Mars give their effects in the first half of a sign, the Moon and Saturn in the second half; Mercury throughout (104.49–50).

5. Difficulties can be met. Varahamihira ends with remedies: worship and gifts, and also "the subjugation of one's passions", "moving in the company of sadhus and conversing with them" (104.47–48). None of these involves buying anything. (Chapter 44 discusses remedies in full.)

#The later refinements

#Obstruction (vedha)

The later books add a rule of obstruction: a good transit is blocked if, at the same time, another planet is passing through a corresponding "obstructing" place. For example, in the usual table, the Sun's good transit through the 11th from the Moon is obstructed by a planet in the 5th; its good transit through the 3rd, by a planet in the 9th; through the 6th, by a planet in the 12th; through the 10th, by a planet in the 4th. (The Phaladeepika gives the full table, chapter 26.) Some pairs of planets are said not to obstruct each other: the Sun and Saturn, and the Moon and Mercury.

#Ashtakavarga

The most useful refinement is the ashtakavarga (Chapter 16). Varahamihira himself says a planet's transit through a sign is good or bad according as the sign has more good or bad points in that planet's own table (Brihat Jataka IX.8). Since each chart's tables are different, this personalises the transit table: the same transit can be good for one person and difficult for another.

When the Moon-based table and the ashtakavarga disagree, many astrologers give more weight to the ashtakavarga, because it takes the whole chart into account.

#Slow and fast planets

The planets move at very different speeds (Chapter 3), and that decides how much a transit matters:

For the big picture, astrologers look at the slow planets — Jupiter and Saturn above all, and Rahu and Ketu. Retrograde motion means a slow planet often passes back and forth over a sign boundary, so "entering a sign" can happen two or three times.

#Saturn's seven and a half years (sade sati)

The best-known transit of all is sade sati, "seven and a half": Saturn's passage through the 12th, 1st and 2nd signs from the birth Moon, about 2½ years in each. It is widely feared. Look at what the sources and the arithmetic say.

What the texts say. Varahamihira describes Saturn's transit of the 12th from the Moon ("much grief", 104.45), of the Moon's own sign (a long list of hardships, 104.39) and of the 2nd (loss of comfort, wealth that does not last, 104.40). But he does not name the period "sade sati", and he describes Saturn's transits of the 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th as difficult too (104.42–45). Saturn is good, by his table, only in the 3rd, 6th and 11th. The special fame of the "seven and a half years" is a later popular development.

What the arithmetic says. Saturn takes about 29½ years to go round the zodiac. It spends 7½ of those years in the 12th, 1st and 2nd from any given Moon. So every person spends about a quarter of their whole life in sade sati — two or three times in a long life. Add the transits of the 4th and 8th (often also feared), and nearly four lives in ten are in a "feared" Saturn transit at any moment. Something that happens to everyone, a quarter of the time, cannot be a special misfortune.

What a careful reader does. Look at Saturn's ashtakavarga points in each of the three signs; look at the dasha running; look at the person's age and circumstances (Saturn's transits are often associated with responsibility, hard work and maturing, which are not misfortunes). Never frighten anyone with sade sati.

#The example chart

The birth Moon is in Taurus. In October 2026:

• Saturn is in Pisces, the 11th from the Moon: good by Varahamihira's table ("will get women and wealth", 104.45), and neutral in its own ashtakavarga (4 points in Pisces, Chapter 16). A favourable background.
• Jupiter is at the end of Cancer, the 3rd from the Moon: not one of Jupiter's good places. It moves into Leo, the 4th, on 2 November 2026 — also not a good place by the table. But Jupiter's own ashtakavarga gives Leo 5 points: favourable. The two methods disagree; the ashtakavarga, which reflects this chart in particular, suggests the year is better than the plain table would say.
• Rahu is in Aquarius, the 10th from the Moon, and Ketu in Leo, the 4th.

Combine this with the dasha (Chapter 22): from 17 October 2026 the person is in Jupiter–Venus, a good sub-period. By Varahamihira's rule of the cup, a good dasha with mixed transits gives a mostly good time.

The coming sade sati. Saturn enters Aries (the 12th from the Taurus Moon) in June 2027, moves back into Pisces for a few months, re-enters Aries in early 2028, then passes through Taurus (2029–2032) and Gemini (2032–2034), leaving for Cancer in July 2034. So the example person's sade sati runs from about mid-2027 to mid-2034, ages 37 to 44. Note:

• Saturn's ashtakavarga points are Aries 3, Taurus 5, Gemini 4 (Chapter 16): the middle 2½ years, Saturn over the Moon itself, are actually favourable by this chart's own table.
• The whole period falls in Jupiter's dasha, which is strong (Chapter 22).
• Saturn is the yogakaraka for this chart's Libra ascendant (Chapter 19), and its own dasha begins in December 2034, just as the sade sati ends.

A reader who told this person "your sade sati will be seven bad years" would be ignoring nearly everything in their chart.

#Summary

• Transits (gochara) are counted classically from the birth Moon (Brihat Samhita 104.4).
• Varahamihira's table: Sun 3, 6, 10, 11; Moon 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11; Mars 3, 6, 11; Mercury 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11; Jupiter 2, 5, 7, 9, 11; Venus all but 6, 7, 10; Saturn 3, 6, 11; all planets good in the 11th.
• A transit gives only as much as the dasha and the person's life allow — the rain and the cup (104.46); the transiting planet's own condition matters (104.53).
• Later refinements: obstruction (vedha) and, above all, each planet's own ashtakavarga (Brihat Jataka IX.8).
• Sade sati is Saturn's 7½ years over the 12th, 1st and 2nd from the Moon; everyone spends about a quarter of their life in it. Judge it by ashtakavarga, dasha and life, and never use it to frighten.

#Exercises

1. A person's Moon is in Virgo. Through which signs is Jupiter's transit good for them, by Varahamihira's table?
2. Saturn moves into the 6th sign from someone's Moon. Is this good or bad by the table? What else would you check?
3. Explain the "rain and cup" rule in your own words.
4. Roughly what fraction of a long life does a person spend with Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd from their Moon? What does this imply?
5. In the example chart, why is the middle part of the sade sati (Saturn in Taurus) not necessarily the hardest?

Answers: 1. The 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th from Virgo: Libra, Capricorn, Pisces, Taurus and Cancer. 2. Good (Saturn is good in the 3rd, 6th and 11th). Check Saturn's own ashtakavarga points in that sign, Saturn's condition (combust? retrograde? aspected?), possible obstruction, and the dasha running. 3. A good transit can only give as much as the person's period and circumstances can hold; the planets "pour", but the size of the vessel is set by the dasha and the life. 4. About a quarter (7½ of every 29½ years). So it cannot be a special misfortune; it is a common phase of every life. 5. Because Saturn's own ashtakavarga gives Taurus 5 points out of 8 in this chart, a favourable score; and the period falls in a strong Jupiter dasha.