Brihajjataka 1

Chapter 1: The Classification of Signs

Conceived as the body of the Moon-bearer, the path of those who are not reborn, the Self of knowers of the Self, the sacrifice of those who sacrifice, the master of celestial lights, / the lord of dissolution, origin, and maintenance of the worlds, and spoken of variously in the Veda—may the Sun of manifold rays, the lamp of the three worlds, grant us speech!

Although treatises endowed with sound reasoning have been studied many times by many people of sharp intellect to know the fruits of horā, / for those whose efforts have foundered in crossing the vast ocean of the lore of horā, I begin a compact ship of a treatise, diverse in metres and rich in meaning.

Some desire the word "horā" to be an alteration of "ahorātra" ("day-and-night"), through the dropping of the first and last syllables. / It reveals the ripening of the deeds good and bad acquired in a previous existence.

The limbs of the Time-person are the head, face, chest, heart, belly, waist, bladder, genitals, thighs, pair of knees, calves, and then the pair of feet. / Beginning with Aries and Aśvinī, consisting of nine quarters of lunar mansions, stationed upon the circle, are the zodiacal signs; "rāśi", "kṣetra", "gṛha", "ṛkṣa", "bha", and "bhavana" are understood as having identical meaning.

Two fish; a man holding a water-jar; a human pair with a mace and a lute; a man holding a bow whose lower body is a horse; Capricorn has the head of a deer; / a man holding a balance; and a maiden in a boat, holding corn and fire; the rest resemble their own names; and all move in their own habitats.

Mars, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, / Jupiter, Saturn, Saturn, and Jupiter are the lords of the signs and the degrees. / The rule for the ninefold division (navāṃśa) begins with Aries, Capricorn, Libra, and Cancer; the rulers of the equal divisions (dvādaśāṃśa) of a sign are from its own sign in order.

The portions of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus are five, five, eight, seven, and five in an odd sign; in an even sign, however, they stand in reverse. / The end of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces is a juncture of lunar mansions.

Kriya, Tāvuri, Jituma, Kulīra, Leya, Pāthona, Jūka, Kaurpya, / Taukṣika, Ākokera, Hṛdroga, and the last sign [Mīna] are named in this manner.

The terms are decan, horā, navāṃśa, / triṃśāṃśa, and dvādaśāṃśa. / And when a sign belongs to someone, that is his varga; horā is the ascendant and half of a sign.

Taurus, Aries, Cancer, Gemini, with Capricorn are named nocturnal; these very ones, except Gemini, are said to rise by the back. / The rest rise by the head and are strong by day; the two fish, coming together, rise from both ends as the ascendant.

Malefic and benefic; male and female; these are movable, fixed, and common; rulers of the east and other directions are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer together with their trines. / The two halves of a sign in odd signs belong to the Sun and Moon, and in even signs to the Moon and Sun; the decans belong to the lords of their own sign and the fifth and ninth signs from it.

Some, however, desire the first horā to belong to the lord of the sign, and the second to the lord of the eleventh house; / they also describe the decans as belonging to the lords of their own sign, the twelfth, and the eleventh signs.

Aries, Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, Pisces, and Libra are the exaltations of the Sun and the other [planets], / at degrees ten, three, twenty-eight, fifteen, five, twenty-seven, and twenty; and opposite to them are their debilitations.

The navāṃśas are vargottama in movable and the other signs at the beginning, middle, and end, bearing auspicious fruits. / Leo, Taurus, Aries, Virgo, Libra, Aquarius, and Sagittarius are the trinal signs from the Sun onwards.

The ascendant and the others are: body, wealth, brothers, relatives, son, enemy, wife, death, / good fortune, status, gain, and that called riḥpha; the houses named enemy, work, gain, and duścikya are upacaya houses, but according to some, not always so.

Body, wealth, valour, home, intellect, wounds, / desire, aperture, guru, honour, origin, and expenditure. / The fourth and eighth from the ascendant are named quadrate houses, the seventh house is dyūna, and the tenth mansion is command.

The names kaṇṭaka, cardinal house, and catuṣṭaya belong to the seventh, ascendant, fourth, and tenth signs; / in these, as stated respectively, insects, men, water-dwellers, and beasts are endowed with strength.

Next to a cardinal house is a succedent house; next to that, every sign is a cadent house. Hibuka is water, happiness, and home; / jāmitra is the seventh house; the tenth is meṣūraṇa, and here one should know it as action; and the ninth is a trine.

The horā aspected by or conjoined with its own lord, Jupiter, or Mercury, and not by others, is powerful; stationed in cardinal houses, bipeds and the others are strong by day, at night, and when the two twilights arrive. / In the first half, five and the rest multiplied by four are the measure, and that in reverse; duścikya is brother, the ninth is austerity, and it is a trine with the first three.

Red, white, parrot-colored, pale red, smoky, pale, variegated, black, gold-like, reddish-brown, speckled, / tawny, and clear: these are the colors of the signs beginning with the first; the slope is towards the quarter of the ruler; and the second sign from the one conjoined with the Sun is veśi.