Why is the Ishta devata determined like this?

[olivetree]

To find out one's ishta devata, one must count 12 houses from the atmakarka in the navamsa chart. Then if there are any graha in that house, one must take the strongest graha and from that determines one's ishta devata. Which it is said one must pray to in order for any remedies to work.

My question is- why is such importance placed on the 12th from the atmakaraka of the Navamsa chart? What is so special about this house that it would be chosen to determine one's guardian deity?

[hari766]

I am not an astrologer͵ just a student but I too used to wonder about this.

If you study the methods to determine the Ishta͵ Dharma and Palana devatas in a chart - you see a pattern emerging.

Dharma Devata -- 9th (Dharma) sthana from AK
Palana Devata --- 6th (efforts) sthana from AMK (who determines career)
Ishta Devata --- 12th (moksha) sthana from AK
--- signifies the end of 11th (desires) sthana from AK.

So one can hazard a guess that the devata associated with the 12th from AK in Navamsa (some astrologers consider Vimsamsa) is ideally suited to help the Atma release itself from attachment to desires in the temporal world and thus guides one towards emancipation.

[olivetree]

Thank you. Very interesting.

[vyvasvatha manu]

The point in choosing ishta devatha is to choose that dheva whose life, whose deeds, whose intentions are close/similar/parallel to our dharma(abilities->duty),,, so that wen v meditate and pray to them, v draw inspiration and guidance from their lives and deeds and abilities, so as to attain both material & spiritual progress.
This is why choice of ishta devatha is left to the individual. Ishta means to like OR liking something.
But wen the individual is confused, jyothishya can guide.

and so now u can clearly see the 12th house connection.
12th bhaava is the bhaava for moksha. moksha requires out de body-out of de world experiences. so de 12th bhaava shows these expressly. but the only requirement for us to experience those things is to concentrate our minds which are essentially part of our souls,, hence 12th from aatham kaaraka is reckoned for this.
and 4-8-12 form moksha thrikona because, 4th shows peace of mind without which it cant b concentrated, 8th shows knowledge tht comes from concentrating the mind to very high degrees-knowledge(of samaadhi moksha etc) which will then get classified as occult because not every one is doing that, and de 12th finally shows pursuit and achievemnt of such out of de body-out of de world states --> samaadhi and moksha.