Parashara: the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra · Chapter 9 of 9

#Women, curses, births and remedies

The last chapters of the BPHS are the most problematic: they judge women by the standards of their age, explain misfortune as the curse of past lives, call some births inauspicious, and prescribe rites. This chapter describes them as history, with care.

#Women's charts (BPHS 80)

The chapter on women's horoscopes (stri-jataka) judges a woman's chart largely by her marriage and husband. Two passages became influential:

• The widowhood yoga (80.47–49): Mars in the 1st, 12th, 4th, 7th or 8th, without benefic aspect or association, is said to bring widowhood; the same in a man's chart, the loss of the wife; and if both partners have it, it is cancelled. This is one root of the modern "Mangala dosha", which dropped the benefic-aspect condition and broadened the houses (The Study of Jyotisha, chapter 41).
• Vishakanya (80.43–46): combinations of weekday, tithi and nakshatra said to make a woman unlucky to her husband — cancelled if the 7th lord is a benefic or a benefic is in the 7th from the ascendant or Moon.

These rules reflect the social world of their time; this book does not use them.

#Curses from past lives (BPHS 83)

Parvati asks Shiva why people are childless, and the chapter answers with curses (shapa) from past lives — of a serpent, of the father, mother, brother, maternal uncle, a Brahmin, the wife, or a ghost — each shown by particular combinations, especially of the 5th house, and each with its rite: for the serpent's curse, worship of a golden serpent image and gifts; for the father's, offerings to the ancestors; and so on (83.9 onward).

This is the classical source of the modern "Pitru dosha" and "Sarpa dosha" — in a much narrower form, as explanations of childlessness. It frames a painful matter as karmic punishment; it is history, not diagnosis.

#Inauspicious births (BPHS 85–96)

The BPHS lists births it calls inauspicious even in a good chart: at new moon or the 14th of the dark fortnight, in the Vishti karana, in the nakshatra of a parent or sibling, at a solar ingress, in the Vyatipata yoga, during an eclipse, at the three gandantas, and others (85.1–4). It defines the gandantas narrowly — two ghatikas (48 minutes) either side of the junctions of Revati–Ashvini, Ashlesha–Magha and Jyeshtha–Mula (92.1–5) — about 0.7% of births, far narrower than the modern "gand mool".

For each, it prescribes a rite: gifts, fire offerings, Mrityunjaya mantra, worship of the nakshatra's deity (86–96). One verse (93.1–2) says a child born at the junction of Jyeshtha and Mula should be abandoned, or that the father should not see its face for eight years — and then gives a rite instead. It is recorded here as history, with the plain statement that no such instruction should ever be followed.

#The remedy chapter (BPHS 84)

The BPHS's general remedy for troublesome planets:

• whoever seeks peace, wealth, health or long life should worship the planets (84.2);
• make images of them — copper for the Sun, crystal for the Moon, red sandalwood for Mars, gold for Mercury and Jupiter, silver for Venus, iron for Saturn, lead for Rahu, bell-metal for Ketu — or draw them on cloth in their colours (84.3–14);
• recite each planet's mantra a set number of times (84.17–20);
• make fire offerings with each planet's wood — arka, palasha, khadira, apamarga, ashvattha, udumbara, shami, durva, kusha (84.21–25);
• feed Brahmins and give gifts — a cow with calf, a conch, a bull, gold, cloth, a horse, a black cow, an iron weapon, a goat (84.21–25).

The stated reason is religious: Brahma granted the planets that they would favour those who worship them (84.26–27).

The BPHS prescribes no gemstones as remedies: a search of the whole transcribed text found gems only as planetary associations and as wealth, never as something to wear. Many period descriptions in chapters 52–60 end with a rite of the same kind — mantra, worship, a gift.

#Summary

• Women's charts (80) contain the narrow, conditional root of Mangala dosha (80.47–49) and the vishakanya combinations with their cancellations (80.43–46).
• Curses of past lives explain childlessness, with rites (83).
• Inauspicious births, including narrowly defined gandantas, with rites (85–96); one verse's harsh instruction is recorded only as history (93.1–2).
• The remedy chapter prescribes worship, images, mantra, fire offerings and gifts — no gemstones (84).

#Exercises

1. What condition does BPHS 80.47 attach to the Mars widowhood yoga, and how is it cancelled?
2. How wide is a gandanta in the BPHS?
3. What does the BPHS remedy chapter prescribe, and what does it not?

Answers: 1. That Mars has no benefic aspect or association; it is cancelled if both partners have it (80.48–49). 2. Two ghatikas (48 minutes) either side of each junction (92.1–5). 3. Worship, images, mantra, fire offerings and gifts; it does not prescribe wearing gemstones.