You guys are doing great. Hoping more join us. I would like to move on to the next lesson later today or tomorrow.
why don't you post on the main tread again. So much Adam it can slip through the cracks!
Thanks Duchess. Q3 and I already planned for something on tomorrow's first page. We didn't want to do it while ProBoards was so wonky but now that most people seem to be getting on all right, we are going to "promote" this thread.
I am working on the next piece and will most likely post it on Wednesday.
why don't you post on the main tread again. So much Adam it can slip through the cracks!
Thanks Duchess. Q3 and I already planned for something on tomorrow's first page. We didn't want to do it while ProBoards was so wonky but now that most people seem to be getting on all right, we are going to "promote" this thread.
I am working on the next piece and will most likely post it on Wednesday.
Excellent. Can't wait for this....
'His nebulous body swayed above, His tongue swollen with devil's love..'
Thanks Duchess. Q3 and I already planned for something on tomorrow's first page. We didn't want to do it while ProBoards was so wonky but now that most people seem to be getting on all right, we are going to "promote" this thread.
I am working on the next piece and will most likely post it on Wednesday.
Excellent. Can't wait for this....
Q3 seems to have forgotten about posting it today in all the excitement. I feel to not be pushy about this by posting again. If anyone else wants to post over there, feel free. I really think people don't know about this as it was easy for my little post to get lost in the shuffle of the promo and the glitches on the site
How to navigate a Vedic chart astrological chart in the North Indian format
Here is how I explain this to my clients. Any chart is a representation of how the cosmos looked at a moment in time from our vantage point on earth. it is a geocentric point of view. Everything revolves around us. Imagine that!
Pretend you are lying in bed and looking up at your ceiling which has magically transformed into a huge window with twelve distinct window panes that look like this:
Note that there are four large window panes that form a big diamond and eight triangular window panes all around them. Effectively, these window panes are sectioning off all 12 directions - the four cardinal directions (east, west, north and south) and the eight intermediate directions. They are providing a grid by which we can map the cosmos at any moment in time. In this way, we can get oriented the way a street map used to orient us. However, instead of north being where you might think at the top of the diagram, it is rotated 90° so that east is where you would think north would be.
Once we get the hang of this diagram we can say “I don’t need no GPS” and orient ourselves to this sky map.
Now take a deep breath for the next step. If we wanted to figure out how to communicate where the planets (called grahas in the Indian tradition) are at a particular time, we would have no trouble if Venus, for example, was in the East or Saturn was in the North. We would just say Venus is in the East and we would all understand that and where it would be located in the diagram. However, describing the directions symbolized by all the little triangles can get awkward. You would have to say something like Sun is in the in the South South West or Jupiter is in the East North East and that can be clumsy.
To take care of that, a convention arose of numbering the directions staring with the East as the first direction. Another convention came along to call each of the 12 directions “houses” (bhavas in the Indian tradition). When you actually encounter a “real” Vedic chart, the numbers you will see do NOT refer to the 12 directions or houses. It is a given that people who know this system already know that. I will explain later what the numbers you will see when we look at an actual chart refer to but for now, here is a diagram of the twelve houses or directions:
Your job now is to be able to point to any of the 12 directions and say what house number it is. This needs to become automatic before I introduce the next layer which will involve another set of numbers that will confuse you to no end if you don’t already have the orientation of the 12 houses fixed in your heads.
Here is a sample chart . To test yourself, write down what house each planet is occupying. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the names of all the planets. PM me your answers so I know you are participating and can address any misunderstandings.
Now that you know your 12 directions and the numbers that correspond to them, we can address another set of numbers that do actually appear in the chart.
To understand what comes next, let’s pose a question. How do we know that Saturn, for example, winds up in someone’s first house (East direction)? What if I told you that later that day, someone else will have Saturn in their 11th house or 10th house? This is due to the diurnal (daily motion) of the heavens and all the planets and constellations. We see the Sun rise and move up towards the South and then set in the West, go under the horizon so we can’t see it anymore and then the next morning it is back in the East rising again. It is a clockwise direction.
Actually, the rotation of the constellations, planets etc. is really due to the earth rotating on its axis from West to East making it look like the heavenly bodies are rotating around us. Astrology is a geocentric point of view. We are on planet Earth and we see ourselves as the center of everything (what a surprise!).
There is another important motion to consider which is called proper motion. The planets are all located in one of the twelve solar zodiacal constellations (Aries, Taurus etc.). The wheel of the zodiac is 360 degrees (a circle). There are 12 signs of the zodiac so each one is 30 degrees (for the math challenged 30x12=360). Each planet moves at its own speed and will go from 0° to 30° of a sign and then move into the next sign and so on until it completes its trip around the entire circle of the zodiac. For the Sun, that takes a year. For a planet like Saturn it takes almost 30 years! Luckily, we have computers to tell us at any moment in time where each planet is located - in which sign.
Let’s return to the idea that we are looking up at the sky through a huge window divided into those window panes that we now know map the 4 cardinal directions and the intermediary directions - a total of 12 directions. We also know that there are 12 signs in the zodiac. Hmmmmm. Could that be significant?
What are the 12 signs of the zodiac? Here is a list of them. Each sign of the zodiac is abbreviated by being assigned a number. That number ALWAYS refers to that particular sign. The planet in parenthesis is the owner or ruler of that sign:
If we were super good astronomers looking through each of those window panes, we would be able to see the stars of each of the solar signs in its own direction for the time of the birth or event we were interested in charting. Which sign is in which house (direction) depends on what time of day it is. Remember, diurnal motion means the signs etc. are in constant motion rotating around us from East to West. That means if a sign like Taurus is on the Eastern horizon at a person’s birth (first house) and someone else is born that same day a few hours later, the stars of Taurus would no longer on the eastern horizon. Depending on how much time had elapsed, it could be the second person had the sign of Leo on the eastern horizon. We would say person 1 is a Taurus rising - the stars of Taurus were coming up over the eastern horizon (= first house) at the time he/she was born. Person 2 would be a Leo rising. Later that same day close to noon, the stars of Leo would be visible on the eastern horizon and therefore that person is a Leo rising.
Once we know what solar sign is on the eastern horizon, the other signs can be filled in easily. The convention is if Leo is on the eastern horizon (first house), then the next sign which is Virgo will be where we have learned the second house is. Then the sign of Libra will be on the 3rd house and the sign of Scorpio on the 4th house. The sign of Sagittarius would be the 5th house, the sign of Capricorn the 6th house, the sign of Aquarius the 7th, the sign of Pisces the 8th, Aries the 9th, Taurus the 10th, Gemini the 11th and Cancer the 12th. That completes the zodiac when we start from Leo.
How would we see that in a chart? The first house (where Saturn is in the sample chart I gave) would have a little number 5 visible which tells us that the stars of Leo were visible on the eastern horizon at the time of the birth. The second house would have the number 6 corresponding to Virgo. The 3rd house would have the number 7 corresponding to Libra etc. etc.
Then it is a matter of looking up what sign each planet was moving through that day and putting them in the appropriate house.
In the sample chart I gave, that would mean Saturn was transiting through the constellation of Leo on the day this person was born and is therefore in the first house if Leo was the rising sign. There is no planet in the constellation of Virgo (second house). Rahu is in the third house in Libra. No planet in Scorpio which is the 4th house. The fifth house would be Sagittarius and would hold Sun and Venus. The 6th house is Capricorn and Mercury would have been moving through Capricorn that day. No planet in Aquarius (7th house) or Pisces (8th) house. Ketu is in the 9th and would be in Aries. Nothing in the 10th in Taurus. Jupiter would be in the 11th in Gemini and Mars and the Moon would be in the 12th in Cancer.
What tends to confuse people more than anything else is mixing up the signs and the houses. Remember what we started with - the 12 directions. Those are the houses and the house numbers are NOT going to appear in the chart. They are a given that people who work with this system simply learn. You all did that right off the bat.
Once that is out of the way and we realize that the numbers we see are NOT the house numbers but the ones representing the signs of the zodiac, we can avoid confusion. Every sign is going to be in one of the 12 directions.
The chart gets completed when the planets are slotted into the house that holds the sign they were transiting through that day.
Now here is your assignment to see if you really understood this. What if the rising sign was not Leo but was Sagittarius. What houses would each planet be in then? What if it was Gemini rising?