There's something wrong with Ashtakavarga...

[Dev]

Hi dhass:
I dont think the rule is so straightforward. In fact I feel you have to consider so many other factors.
I had a dasa with 34 points which was not good mostly.
Dev

[Atishdipankar]

I feel the approach towards predicting a chart should me holistic, one need to see the KP Chart as well and the influence of the Nakshatra Lord and Sub Lord ...we need to check how the chart fares there. If lot of planets are influenced by their 11th house they will have gain in their lives, if 10th is influencing then they will come also come into limelight. I also feel Shadbala, Ishtaphala, and Vaisheshikamsa should be checked along with the main chart and Navamsa to come to any conclusion. If in any chart Atmakaraka sits in a dushthana in Navamsa inspite of great Ashtakvarga, the person will have a miserable life. AK is the King of the chart.

[Dev]

I dont agree with you.
All 9 planets are connected with 9th house for me, since one is sitting there, one is lord of 9th(also aspected by the planet sitting there) and rest 7 are aspecting 9th. So I should have been very lucky.
Atmakaraka is exalted in 1st house in navamsa. So again it should be very lucky as per you.

[Dev]

GNE,
Your arguments regarding astavarga and shadbala makes lot of sense.
In my own case, the worst period had the following combinations:

9th lord dasa
Planet in lagna with neechabhanga
Planet with astavarga 7 highest
Planet with shadbala highest
First house where the planet is placed with highest astavarga 46 pts
Planet in star of mercury which is exalted in navamsa lagna and is atmakaraka

On the negative side Badhaka

This dasa was the worst and some issues due to others harmed me in that dasa are still remaining which I am unable to rectify now in this dasa. I dont even want to recall that dasa and that period or the most part of it.

So astrology is more complex and is not simple arithmetic to say 1+1=2
Your debilitated jupiter is the best example.

Again my own jupiter is an example

Ju debilitated in 3rd
Ju lost to planetary war with ketu
Combust
with saturn, venus, sun, mars and ketu and mercury(natural malefics or enemies mostly with jupiter)
least shadbala 64% with 4% IP and 55%KP

But the best period till now was venus - jupiter.
venus again is deep combust

Atish:

If in any chart Atmakaraka sits in a dushthana in Navamsa inspite of great Ashtakvarga, the person will have a miserable life. AK is the King of the chart.

Not true for all.
My atmakaraka mercury is exalted in navamsa lagna and I have had lots of problems in several fronts.

[GNE]

Dev thanks for sharing that , and it helps my belief that anyone who uses ashtakavarga the simple way like: "a planet with a score of 5+ will deliver good results" or "any house with 30+ will give benefic results, and a house with much less will always be weak" are flat wrong.

I know the learned astrologers on this forum would agree , and likely none use ashtakavarga this way either.

But when I see many websites / blogs posting ashtakavarga "rules" like this , I felt I needed to go research and test on many many charts to see if it was correct - and I feel I can say, it absolutely is not.

Yes I've seen people struggle during the dasha periods of planets receiving high ashtakavarga scores, and also people gain the most success and have a great time in the dasha of a planet with only 1-2 points, and the house has around only 23 points.
And your example too , Dev, regarding your moon Dasha. (I know you did not say which planet, but It must have been Moon, since you said 9th lord is badhak and debilitated in lagna...which only happens for scorpio ascendant)

yet we each had wonderful "terribly placed" jupiter periods

Also the idea that "if raj yogas are in houses with low ashtakavarga scores, the yoga is canceled" is incorrect too. (example: Bill Gates 5th house holding several yoga's, and yet only 19 points )
Again I know many learned members here would react feeling like : " of course! we must look at more factors than just the ashtakavarga", and that is correct.
I'm only saying this about ashtakavarga since I've had some new learners to astrologer come to me in past months with fears that their life is ruined because some important house in their chart has 20 or less points. So this is to any one early in their learning of astrology who is reading this thread : Don't let the ashtakavarga scores worry you. Similarly, don't think some house is "perfect" if it has high points either. 35 points in 7th house doesn't promise marriage, for example.

[Dev]

GNE,

thank you. As per basic astrology, your Jupiter is debilitated and as per advanced astrology, it is strong.
So those with only basic knowledge would try to say you gave wrong birth data and so on. Even Astroboy has debilitated Jupiter and mercury by he does good calculations and is believer of God.

The more we share, the more complex it becomes, I feel even predicting becomes so difficult.
The problem is sometimes it works, sometimes not, it becomes like results of tossing a coin and getting head or tail. If that is the case, how will everyone trust that it is scientific?

Sun with 5 was quite good so was its buktis but venus with 3 itself was very good in first half but moon with 7 has almost ruined even the present period. Atleast other periods did not interfere with each other.
In my case only 3 houses are involved, so 47, 27 and 21 are the scores for lagna, 3rd and 9th. During moon dasa, as 9th lord in lagna, even if we take average of 47 and 21, it is 34 which is high. All 7 planets have in their house 27. Mars in exalted but will he really give exalted results as lagna lord? If so when, now he is strong.
If all the rules work only some times, it is either that astrology is not scientific or that there are only a handful of experts and others are only having some theoretical knowledge on this.

For example many predicted that during mars dasa I would get fame professionally and would be in a leadership position. I just listen to gochar transit phal for each rasi by several TV astrologers. They invariably say an excellent time for vrishchika but we can just say it is gochar phal. But then even as per my horoscope, it should be very good since lagna lord is mars and he is exalted and it is his dasa. May be again his real strength needs to be seen. Anyway 3rd house is good for mars, he is aspecting 10th house of surya and he is in surya's star.

Combust venus I heard is very bad for marriage, but I see so many successes. Today one person at work came, he had combust venus close to one degree. Also apart from venus, he had rahu and mercury. His lagna was kanya, 2nd house had moon, saturn and mars and 3rd ketu and 4th jupiter. Ju, mars, and sat were retrograde. He has 2 sons. So combust venus has not spoilt his marriage but some say it will.

So I think doing post mortem is easier than predicting in astrology. What do you say? Do you have answers to my horoscope, how the period will be?

Tks in advance,
Dev

[GNE]

Dev,
Yes, I - and I'm sure many others, even yourself - have encountered many "astrologers" with only basic knowledge who would proclaim that the debilitated planets must be weak and giving terrible results. I would just say thank you, then move on and ignore the reading, knowing how wrong they are. But their problem isn't being wrong, it was in thinking they were qualified enough to give a reading making such broad statements as if the results are 100% the way they say they are.
(I must say, I've also met good astrologers who were still only learning basics, but when they try to give a reading they admit what they say could be wrong and that they don't know everything.).

I find when it comes to learning jyotish, it's almost like " the more you know: the less you know".
Meaning, the more research and study is done, the more we realize how little we truly do know and how far we are from "mastering" (almost impossible) the science.
But when first learning, many people learn the basics and think that is enough to know exactly how planets will work. ( Like reading that debilitate = "bad", and exalted = "good". ) But it is not the case.....

...though now this is getting off topic of this thread, and seems more fit for another thread to talk about things like afflicted planets giving good results. (combust, debilitated, conjunct malefics while in a negative sign/house too...)

I think almost every member on the forum has had those types of readings where some astrologer predicted a great time (like fame / job ,etc..) and yet nothing happened , or it was actually a bad time. Or vice versa (bad time predicted, but things turned out fine).

But it's not the fault of astrology, just the astrologer.
Also, we should remember no astrologer these days will predict 100% all the time.

I think the rules do work 100% of the time - but just very few (I want to say like 99.9%) astrologers know or even remember to apply every rule(since there's so many).
What I mean is the rules that cancel other rules. So if a rule was : " a planet with 7 ashtakavarga points is strong and gives positive results" , there's likely some other rule that cancels the effect (like " but if the sign 6/8 from the planet has more points then = no good result. OR but if more of those 7 points were given from malefic planets, then = poor results. )
* Note: I just made those rules up, as an example of the kind of rules that are probably out there. Those are not real rules !

My point is, it seems most of astrology is not just remembering a rule, but also remembering all the rules which cancel that first rule, and the rules which cancel the one's that are cancelling the first one.
(confusing, eh? Lol)

its difficult, and we must try and remember to judge a planet's benefic or malefic results by looking at all sides - not just sign/house / aspect (basic) strengths. But other things like varga's it's in, rasi tulya navamsa type (which house in D1 is the navamsa sign it's in placed), and more...one can refer to some classic texts to see how Sages determine a planet powerful or not (I'm not talking shadbala. ... I'm in a bit of a rush to reply right now and not in the mood to go to research and remember which text exactly.
The member Rathore is very good at this and knows what I'm trying to talk about here. )

too many astrologers just look at 1 factor.

Also, we must try and see if planets are involved in some complex yoga (which most are...since there's so many yoga's, pretty much everyone's chart has a bunch that they've never even heard of). Perhaps a positive looking planet is taking part in some negative yoga for health, or income, etc...

And then there's the question of ayanamsa...and who's to say which antar/pratyantar dasha we were really in...
and plus, different dashas too. Vimshottari may have looked like a great planet, but who's to say if other dasha's that were operating weren't terrible. (chara / yogini / narayan / etc... or any conditional dasha, like if ashtottari applied to the chart,etc..)
I know most astrologers say stick to vimshottari...but these are the people who often would have said your moon dasha will give you fame+money and be amazing. Lol
So who knows what's what.
Everyone's still learning.

and yeah, post mortem is always easier. Even I can make 100% predictions post mortem, since no one can be wrong really. Lol

Anyway, sorry for the rant - I will try and refrain from saying much more on here, since it's really not helping and is not on the topic of this thread anymore. But I was replying to what you wrote.

I don't have your horoscope details, so can't say how the period will be.
Also I don't really do chart readings, and especially after everything I said here, I feel it'd be contradictory of me to then try and make a prediction on someone's chart now.

[SweetV]

Very WELL SAID dear GNE!
1st of all one should suppose to know what exactly the Bindu in Ashtakavarga signify, if that is clear one will actually know where exactly we're suppose to use this Ashtakavarga. May be I shall create a topic in transit, Ashtakavarga & then wait for experts opinion on it!
Namah Shivaaya!

[Orange-Man]

A person in the major period of 11th lord, Sun in 9th house is having health issues and feeling romantic and has discovered his talent in sketching portraits (at the age of 38!), having never drawn ever before in his life, though he got the 20 years period of Venus in own sign before that! … a person with Moon-Ketu in 7th house, and 7th lord Saturn in ascendant with Rahu is enjoying happy married life! … a person with Ketu in 6th house aspected by Mars and running its major period is enjoying a very good life, partying all the time, going on foreign trips, and in bliss always, everything going right … a person with Mars-Rahu in ascendant (Aries) is very soft spoken, non-aggressive, calm, quiet, and soft natured ... a person with 90% of the planets in 6-8-12 houses in birth chart is leading a happy life … I can just go on and on and on.

Now, when you ask an astrologer, how all these things can make sense? They will say you can’t take just one factor in making predictions—that hundreds of factors are involved. It’s the easiest escape route. Because the more factors you take into consideration, the more easier it gets to make sense of something as someway, or other, you can end up proving by using one of the many factors why something is happening. Tell an astrologer to take those hundreds of factors into consideration, and make a prediction, they will invariably go wrong, and that’s natural because taking so many factors into consideration, and then, trying to come to a conclusion about the net effect of them all, needs a superhuman ability, which not everyone possesses—it basically needs intuition, and intuition is not intelligence that every second person possesses.

I remember reading in one book of B.V. Raman in the chapter on Nadi, how difference of a fraction of a degree when it comes to a planet's position in a birth chart, can change the life of a person from a beggar to a king, and vice versa. If a planet is placed in one fraction of a particular degree in a zodiac sign, it makes the person a king, and if it is placed in another fraction, which comes right next to it, then the person is a beggar, and that means the birth charts, and the divisional charts remain the same for both the persons, and one is a king, and the other a beggar, and I remember thinking that time that if that is so, what are we doing predicting on the basis of planetary placements in the birth charts, and the divisional charts. It is much much much deeper than that… as they are breaking the planetary degree to 1/100th part or something like that, and each of those fractions of the degree is indicating a different destiny.

I may also like to say that I had the Brighu reading of my grandmother done in Benares, and some person in our family had copied the thing in a notebook, and I had got hold of that notebook and had read it. I was not sure how the calculations were made for making the predictions that were made because it just did not make sense. I can’t tell now exactly what was written there as I have lost the notebook—I had it quite a few years back—but there were predictions there like this that 3rd lord is in the 8th house, so the person’s younger brother dies early. Is it that simple? Hundreds of people have 3rd lord in 8th house, and their younger siblings doesn’t die early. But in this case what was written was true as my grandmother’s younger brother did die at a young age!! It told the profession of my grandfather, his appearance, about her children, and their professions, her father’s profession--and they all were perfectly right. But how was it analyzed!! There is no detailed explanation given, and I am sure you can’t predict all that by checking birth charts the way do. Her death age was predicted as 58, and she died when she was 58! Some past life explanations were given for many of her present life events. How can that be seen in a birth chart? It’s intuition, it’s not normal astrology! All the hundreds of factors we talk about considering, we only talk about—it’s a nice escape route to justify why a birth chart is not making sense, but if those hundreds of factors are asked to be taken into consideration to make a prediction, most of the times the predictions will go wrong because it is near impossible to take all those factors showing different kinds of results, to analyze them and come to a conclusion about the net effect.

[Dev]

GNE,
True, many had proclaimed that the debilitated planets are weak and would give terrible results.
Their assumption, based on the emphatic statements they make, that they know everything is the real problem. If you say thank you, they will continue to assume they 100% right.
You say you met good astrologers who were still only learning basics, but when they try to give a reading they admit what they say could be wrong and that they don't know everything.
But if they feel they could go wrong they are not good enough. Do you mean they are good natured?

The more research and study is done, the more we realize how little we truly do know and how far we are from "mastering" the science. This applies to every field be it music, science, medicine and so on apart from astrology.

Even with the basics some in the forum still say, oh jupiter debilitated, so you cannot sing and so on. I have to only laugh at them. In fact they are unable to sing with jupiter in swashetra. It is because my jupiter is stronger than theirs.

Everyone knows no astrologer will predict 100% all the time. But it can be mostly correct if he is really good like whether one would get married, get promotion, get fame, get to top position, go abroad and so on. The time may go wrong but if one says one would get married and if he doesn't he is no good.

Yoga in my case is difficult to make out like su-me, sun-ju, ve-me, ve-ju, su-ve, su-mars and several other combinations indicate a yoga but how many will get cancelled when they are all together, and whether the collective one itself constitutes a yoga? It is like in integration solving triple integrals is more advanced, like that, too many variables, so two two interations need to be studied and how the third will affect these, and then how the fourth and so on, it becomes very complex.

yes, many look at vimshottari and say, moon infact would make me world famous few of them said but it was horrible- middle part only.

True, post mortem is the easiest but that is not science, science should predict in advance, I mean I blame them not astrology.

Ok you need not read, since you dont claim you know everything .
Dev

[vpandya]

Ashtakavarga scores is essentially a static score so it is based on the rashi chart and the houses and placement of planets as soon a child is born. So are dashas. How do we then combine them with transits which are dynamic? The key is to see the transit of the dasha lord in a particular house and what is the score of the house. If transit through a house with good score and there is a confluence of other benefic factors like a strong rajagyoga, good placements and aspects, then good effects can be predicted for that dasha.

[joyd]

@krish-you can refer the nodes placed star lord , house lords and conjucted planets combined points as final output of those not mentioned nodes.

joyd.

[Shardulk]

Hi, your enlightened ideas on the accuracy and validity of astakvarga post consulting various charts of your known ones is highly appreciated as very few minds of caliber exist today that possess the zeal and capacity to aptly investigate and challenge the very fundamentals of a highly renowned and widely applied tool - astakvarga. Even I hold the similar view however upon investigation I found that the tool definitely holds validity and reliability provided the data obtained is reliable. There are various software available online
today the provide instant astakvarga table however each one gives peculiar numbers n tables making it quite confusing for amateur researchers. I have checked my chart using 3 different programs and got varying stats n inferences. Therefore I would like to suggest that in order to arrive at a meaningful and realistic interpretation ensure that the birth details are exact , the astakvarga tool you implement is accurate and reliable and ensure that the rules that you are applying on your chart for interpretations are origaniting from an authentic source. It is also very important to remember that a rule may be applicable only for a certain period of time in a person's life as Dasha's, transits, and other rules too interfere with the primary which is subjected to change once its time elapses. Thus, you need a comprehensive , complex, and patient mindset to understand these astrological marvel and I think one life span is inadequate to incorporate so much of knowledge and information.

[Capricgurl1987]

i agree with person who wrote that astakavarga system works for mahadasha lord transits.

astakavarga finally worked with my chart.

I am currently running rahu MD, and when rahu was tranisiting sign of leo, i had tons of health issues, my SAV score for my leo sign is 24, and i am pisces ascendent , so leo is my 6th house, and sun is conjunct jupiter and rahu in my ascendent in my natal chart.

when rahu was transiting cancer (my 5th house) i felt much better. SAV for my cancer sign is 28.

now rahu is in the sign of gemini. my SAV score for gemini sign is 32, and my mercury is conjunct venus in 12th house. this year been even better (though not the best), i dont get as many migraines, i am actually able to fall asleep without sleeping pills, my depression is much lower and i go out of my room atleast one day a week, and i talk to people now.

my current dasha is rahu-moon (3 july 2018-2 jan 2020). I still feel depressed a lot, but its not like how it was in 2017 and half of 2018

[Capricgurl1987]

for rahu refer to jupiter BAV (binnastakavarga), for ketu refer to mars BAV i guess.

for my rahu MD its matching my jupiter BAV

[Dev]

Astavarga alone cannot be used for entire prediction, even when used, astavarga of mahadasa lord, bukti lord, their transits, those of slow moving saturn and jupiter and the aspects and conjunction of planets become important.
An exalted lord may have low astavarga, so whether it is weak or strong or medium is to be interpreted by an astrologer, he should be shrewd enough to do that.
If 9th lord is also badhaka apart from bhagyadhipati, which effects would dominate only a shrewed astrologer can predict. Many may do post mortem, but predicting in advance is difficult.
In my own case, the advance predictions outside were not right but later, they come out with some explanation or the other.
So a combination of so many factors in the appropriate proportion need to be considered for which he needs to be extremely devoted, shrewd and intelligent in the astrological aspects.
General things many can predict of course.

[v-rachen]

I agree with OP. The very fact that Mr PV Narasimha Rao has included 3 options in JHora like "Consolidate houses from references when finding SAV(instead of signs)" indicates there are various ways to calculate the points? Can any learned members say what does BPHS say with respect to this? Should we choose this option or leave it unchecked?

[Dev]

There are combinations of this type:

Exalted planet but with least astavarga points, shadbala
Debilitated planet with least astavarga points, shadbala
Combust planet with most astavarga points, shadbala

So in the first case, whether the planet would be strong or weak? Similarly in other cases.

Astavarga, shadbala calculations do not take exaltation, debilitation and combustion into account.
Astavarga and shadbala themselves are totally different parameters which may contradict ie value high in one and low in the other.

All these issues need to be addressed by the best astrologer in the world.