Seven Vs. Eight Chara Kaaraka

Namaste Sri Dakshinamoorthi,

> Even Rahu cannot become a karaka unless there is a tie
> up between two planets for a karakatwa thereby leaving
> some karakatwa vacant by Jaimini Muni Pramana.
>
> I will quote Adhyaya 1 Pada 1 Sutra 11 for your
> reference:

This is consistent with the way I understand Parasara's teachings in BPHS on chara karakas.

My guru Pt Sanjay Rath maintains that one should always take 8 chara karakas including Rahu in human charts and that 7 karakas are applicable in some non-human charts. While I have great respect for him, my reading of Parasara suggests to me that Sanjay ji is not correct. In fact, my sincere belief is that neither Pt Sanjay Rath nor Sri KN Rao got this one correctly.

Jaimini is cryptic and can be interpreted in multiple ways. Parasara is more verbose. If you carefully read Parasara's words on chara karakas, he talked about when to use 8 karakatwas vs 7 karakatwas and when to take Rahu and when not to. Have you studied Parasara's verses carefully? If you have, can you share your understanding with the list?

May Jupiter's light shine on us,
Narasimha

Dear Shri. P.V.R.Narasimha Rao, Shri.Mohan Ram - one of the members of this forum hasforwarded a mail that he seems to have written to youon your post to me. As this is consistent with myviews, I am posting it in the vedic-astrology groupsforum for the benefit of all members. One thing I wish to add is that, apart from Rahu,other natural sthira karakas will also attainkarakatwas if more than 2 planets share the samekarakatwa and there arises a deficiency of karakaplanets. May Divine Light show us the right way. Blessed be.
--- mohan ram <mohanraaam@yahoo.co.in wrote:

Respected Guruji, I have answered Shri. P.V.R.Narasimha Rao's post based on my thoughts though he had addressed the post to you. I am sending the same message to you by pasting it because I forgot to CC to you when I posted it. Kindly go through the reply and correct me wherever I am wrong. Humble pranams. copy of the message text is as follows:

Dear Shri. Narasimha Rao,
When to take 7 karakatwas and when to 8 karakatwas are mentioned in the karakatwa adhyaya of BHPS Chapter 32. There is no ambiguity regarding what the Maha muni Parashara thinks about the matter. I will translate the opening verses of the chapter on karakatwas for the benefit of members of this list:

Verses 1 and 2: " I now detail below Atma Karak etc., obtainable from among the 7 Planets, viz. Sun to Saturn. Some say, that Rahu will become a Karak, when there is a state of similarity in terms of longitude between (two) Planets. Yet some say, that the 8 Planets, including Rahu, will have to be considered irrespective of such a state."

It is clear that the rishi is of the view that the 7 planets from Sun to Saturn are to be considered for assigning chara karakatwas. He also mentions about Rahu becoming a karaka based on two different views (which is hotly debated by learned astrologers of this day!) which seem to have existed even in his days!

Some verses later (17th verse in Chapter 32 to be precise).... he says " If two Planets have the same longitude, both become the same Karak, in which case there will be a deficit of one Karak. In that circumstance consider constant significator in the context of benefic/malefic influence for the concerned relative."

While assigning the karakas of 12 houses, Rishi Parashara has clearly left out Rahu and has distributed the karakatwas only among the 7 planets.

Muni Parashara's works are verbose as Shri.Narasimha Rao has said and need no complicated logic to work out. Jaimini Maharishi on the other hand, is very cryptic and his verses are open to different interpretations! As Jaimini Maharishi is the disciple of Sage Veda Vyasa who himself was a direct descendant of Sage Parasara, we can safely assume that when he has cryptically indicated something in his sutras, we may get benefitted by referring to sage Parashara's works for a better clarity.

By the way, with all respect to Pt. Sanjay Rath, I do not know, how he says that 7 karakas are to be taken for non-human (or does he mean superhuman souls and avatars?) horoscopes and 8 karakas for all other horoscopes!

To put it in a nutshell, my understanding is that the karakatwas are distributed ONLY among the seven planets from Sun to Saturn as per my reading of both classics viz. BHPS and Jaimini Sutras. Rahu comes in ONLY when two planets are in exactly the same degrees and hence acquiring the same karakatwa and then, Rahu fills up the deficient karakatwa."

Blessed be.