post deleted

Sunny Dawn wrote:To understand this line of thought, it is essential to understand the underlying nakshatras, and not just the Western sun signs. Aquarius is primarily make up of the ascetic Uttara Bhadrapada, and the darkly powerful, materialistic, demon-loving Purva Bhadrapada. Both of these nakshatras speak to a side of Rahu's essential nature - Rahu the witch is seen with PB, while Rahu the monk is seen with UB.

Hi Sunny Dawn, and thanks for your comments.

The above is something I missed. Sidereal Aquarius consists of the latter part of Dhanista, whole of Satabisha and the three quarters of Purva Bhadrapada. Satabisha is ruled by Rahu that brings proneness to addictions and extremes (this is based on a study that I've made with AstroDatabank, where I studied 60 charts that had three of four planets in Satabisha). Both Satabisha and Purva Bhadrapada seem to bring certain 'toughness' to a person (think about Gordon Brown, who has five planets in Satabisha and Purva Bhadrapada). In this regard tropical Pisces doesn't seem to work at all.

I don't see any monk in Rahu, though of course I'm open to proofs to contrary. I think Rahu is mostly a worldly and sensation-oriented, extrovert planet.

Rahu's associations - high technology, witchcraft, air travel, materialism

Dhanista - also known as "the Wealthy One" (Rahu)

Satabisha - manifesting on a highly spiritual level, this could be the monk. It is also UB, but this wouldn't explain why Rahu is considered exalted in Aquarius.

PB- the most Rahu of nakshatras

Sidereal Aquarius consists of the latter part of Dhanista, whole of Satabisha and the three quarters of Purva Bhadrapada. Satabisha is ruled by Rahu that brings proneness to addictions and extremes (this is based on a study that I've made with AstroDatabank, where I studied 60 charts that had three of four planets in Satabisha).

Papretis,
what you say above seems to fit a description of a rather juicy and over-ripe Jupiter and argues both for Rahu's association with Jupiter and for Aquarius as the exaltation sign of Rahu. I like the way it fits but not just that, your research seems to bear out these associations. Aquarius is a sanguine sign (hot and moist) and Jupiter is the generic ruler of the sanguine temperament.
Of course both Rahu and Jupiter are associated with the four other nakshatras that occupy the major part of the other two sanguine signs, Gemini and Libra: Ardra, Purnavasu, Swati and Vishakha. However, these nakshatras don't seem to display the darker, more passionate and insatiable ambition of Shatabhishak and Purva Bhradapada.

Of course if we accept that Rahu is exalted in Aquarius then logically we should conclude that Ketu is exalted in Leo. While the first nakshatra of Leo - Magha - has associations with Ketu, the other two - Purva Phalguni and Uttara Phalguni seem far too pleasant and worldly for this "headless serpent".
I have a strong feeling Ketu is ruled by ascetic Saturn and not Mars. It destroys the fruits of material ambition and pulls one towards moksha, kicking and screaming if necessary! There is no straight path with Ketu and whatever planet is touched by it functions in a very strange and unusual way. Quite how this gives us clues to it's exaltation sign I'm still thinking about.

I don't see any monk in Rahu, though of course I'm open to proofs to contrary. I think Rahu is mostly a worldly and sensation-oriented, extrovert planet.

I agree. For me, if there's a monk in jyotish it is Ketu, or more likely, Saturn.

Cheers,
Pete

((Not want to intrude , only wish to know , what Vedics call to satellitium of planets ?))

Pete wrote:I have a strong feeling Ketu is ruled by ascetic Saturn and not Mars. It destroys the fruits of material ambition and pulls one towards moksha, kicking and screaming if necessary! There is no straight path with Ketu and whatever planet is touched by it functions in a very strange and unusual way.

Hi Pete,

I agree about Ketu and Saturn. Here's pictures about people with Ketu on their Ascendants and they do have a "spare" and often a bit unusual look http://koti.welho.com/jmetsovu/Kuvat/ketu.htm .

Arihant, I don't quite understand what you're asking. What do you mean by "Vedics"?

Hey Papretis ,
I am feeling ashamed to disturb your such a informative & deep discussion , but I was unable to get the help ...the other day I was discussing stellium (Satellitium of 3 or more planets in a sign or house), its effects etc.., Then got too curious to know what this term is called in Jyotish or in Sanskrit...I have asked one or two of my friends , but no body could tell me ..but since you are so passionately knowing Jyotish & some of Vedic Astrology terms , I thought you or Pete might be knowing ...

please dont chide me , for not asking this question in separate thread..
hope you ( or Pete)shall not mind my asking this way very much!
kind regards

Here's pictures about people with Ketu on their Ascendants and they do have a "spare" and often a bit unusual look http://koti.welho.com/jmetsovu/Kuvat/ketu.htm .

Thanks Papretis, that's quite a collection you have there and yes, they do seem to have a "different" look to them. Many of them look lean and somewhat gaunt.
I'm interested in the psychological effect of Ketu. No doubt when in a kendra, and particularly the ascendant, the qualities of Ketu would be most pronounced. All things being equal I would expect such a person to be highly unconventional, non-conformist and "strange". I'd be looking for an interest in off-beat, metaphysical or occult subjects and a disregard for accepted norms. One can see this in the life of Baudelaire, who had Ketu rising in Leo and the Sun part of a stellium in Pisces in the 8th, but were are such qualities in Queen Elizabeth II, who has Ketu rising in Sagittarius? Granted, her chart ruler Jupiter forms Rajayoga with Mars in Cap in 2nd, focusing her life around wealth, but this is mere circumstance, nothing to do with character.
Any thoughts on this?

Cheers,
Pete

Pete wrote:[I'd be looking for an interest in off-beat, metaphysical or occult subjects and a disregard for accepted norms. One can see this in the life of Baudelaire, who had Ketu rising in Leo and the Sun part of a stellium in Pisces in the 8th, but were are such qualities in Queen Elizabeth II, who has Ketu rising in Sagittarius?

I don't know. The first thing that comes to my mind is that could that be an example of an exalted Ketu (I still hold the opinion that Rahu is exalted in Gemini and Ketu in Sagittarius)? Certain dignified ascetism, how you hold yourself together and have immerse self-discipline no matter what. Of course I'm thinking here the time when Princess Diana died, when the Queen tried first to keep it all dignified and to follow the traditional procedures. And okay, here we have again Hitler and his Ketu in Sagittarius...

We could think that Rahu could be the opposite of that, representing the yellow press and certain cheap blonde mentality, when you try to get fame in one way or another. But yes that's true, you cannot call Queen Elizabeth II an eccentric.

Arihant, I'm not an expert in Indian astrology and less in Sanskrit! I don't know how you could call stelliums, in Kalyan Varma's Saravali they write about multiple conjunctions, but what's the Sanskrit term, I don't know.

Pete, not to jump on you, or anything, but your "strong feeling" is no substitute for a system that was carefully observed and validated by roughly 3200 BCE, around the time of The Mahabarata. Western classical astrologers had not yet crawled out of the cradle and figured out how to point at the sky by this date.

Ketu was associated with Mars, not Saturn. Magha is said to have a fiery quality, similar to Krittika, known for its association with cutting and knives. The association is with Mars, or some earlier blacksmith-like god. Uttara Phalguni is associated with courage, stamina, and masculine physical strength, clearly Martian qualities. This shows up often with males who have an UP Moon or Ascendent. I agree that this may prove Ketu's strength in Leo. I also agree that Purva Phalguni is too Venus dominated to make use of Ketu's possible strength in Leo.

I waffled on Rahu as monk, and I shouldn't have. We're trying to translate modern associations of a word back six thousand years, so we run into difficulties. Rahu does have "monk" like qualities, but not in Aquarius (this is where I needed my notes, I simply don't have all of this memorized yet). It shows up in Ardra, the central nakshatra of Gemini. Ardra is research oriented with a probing intellect. It spends a lot of time making careful, penetrating observations. Albert Einstein had an Ardra Moon. The association with "air travel" or anything to do with the heavens is how Rahu manifests here.

It isn't that the Vedic sages didn't know their system. Its just that we don't have the documents available in English. Translations from very ancient Sanskrit are only slowly becoming available. Many of these documents are stored in poorly-funded temples in Southern India, whose caretakers struggle to recopy and preserve this very ancient knowledge in their own languages, let alone ours.

Braha cautions over and over in his books, "don't mix and match the systems", because it doesn't work. This is wise advice.

If no body of knowledge regarding strength or exaltation of Ketu was widely disseminated in India, there are two possibilities, as I see it. Either the tradition was lost, and may still yet resurface. Or there was no tradition of strength or exaltation for Ketu because the sages looked carefully for it and did not see it.

That said, I don't disagree with your trying to figure things out on Ketu. But you need a little more of a foundation for your "strong feelings". And I'm not saying mine is better - I'm still teaching myself jyotish the way you are.

And for those of you who thought the above response was a little too sharp, remember that I have fiery, cutting, Mars-like Ketu in Purva Phalguni within a 1 degree orb of my Ascendent.

Sunny Dawn wrote:Pete, not to jump on you, or anything, but your "strong feeling" is no substitute for a system that was carefully observed and validated by roughly 3200 BCE, around the time of The Mahabarata. Western classical astrologers had not yet crawled out of the cradle and figured out how to point at the sky by this date.

Yes, this is probably what they teach in jyotish courses, but it?s not true. For example Martin Gansten, a Swedish astrologer who has made his PhD dissertation about Nadi astrology and who knows both Sanskrit and the historic origins of astrology in East and West, writes on his netsite http://www.martingansten.se/astrologi/a ... toria.html

?B?de indiska och v?sterl?ndska ut?vare av indisk astrologi vill kanske just av denna anledning tro att den horoskopiska astrologin har sitt ursprung i Indien, men det faktum att samtliga astrologiska sanskrittexter inneh?ller stora m?ngder tekniska grekiska l?nord visar tydligt att s? inte ?r fallet. Det ?r heller inte korrekt att kalla indisk astrologi ?vedisk?, som ofta g?rs i dag, och det b?r p?pekas att detta spr?kbruk ?r en amerikansk nyskapelse fr?n 1980-talet: det finns ingen horoskopisk astrologi i Veda, och indiska astrologer har sj?lva aldrig tidigare beskrivit sin praktik som vedisk.

To translate this in English:

?Both Indian and Western practitioners of Indian astrology will probably solely on this ground think that horoscopic astrology has its origins in India, but the fact, that all astrological texts written in Sanskrit contain a lot of technical vocabulary taken straight from Greek, shows that this is not true. Neither it?s correct to call Indian astrology ?Vedic?, like it?s often done today, and it must be pointed out that this usage is an American invention from the 1980?s: there is no horoscopic astrology in Vedas, neither have Indian astrologers ever themselves called their astrology Vedic until now.

Gansten is not a Western astrologer who would be hostile or dismissive to astrology of India, or who would have cultural biases ? he is a jyotishi himself who has simply studied this subject in depth, also in India.

Sunny Dawn wrote:Ardra is research oriented with a probing intellect. It spends a lot of time making careful, penetrating observations. Albert Einstein had an Ardra Moon. The association with "air travel" or anything to do with the heavens is how Rahu manifests here.

Yes, at least Prash Trivedi presents Ardra this way in his book about nakshatras. But this interpretation doesn?t work very well in real charts. Again, I studied 67 charts that have three or more planets in Ardra and as in general with the Air signs, the preponderance is on warmth and moistness (and yes, I?m mixing traditional astrology from East and West here, because it works) ? that is, on sanguine sociability, extraversion, worldliness etc. Some modern jyotishis see Gemini as an intellectual or aloof sign, but that interpretation comes solely from modern tropical Western astrology, and that?s real mixing of two systems. Sidereal Gemini is not like its tropical counterpart.

Here?s some descriptive examples of people with prominent Ardra. All the quotes are from AstroDatabank:

- Loni Anderson, and actor with Venus, Rahu and the Moon in Ardra ??Anderson also did movies, including Born Yesterday, 1970, in which she discovered that she could play a bimbo well??

- Anne Murray, a pop and country singer with Mercury, Rahu and Saturn in Ardra, ??In concerts, she has tried to transform and update her image by sporting short, spiky blonde hair, wearing hems above the knees with sexy tights and telling risqu? jokes??

- Luisa Tetrazzini, the greatest coloratura soprano of pre-WW I history with the Ascendant, Rahu, the Sun and Jupiter in Ardra, ??Every six or seven weeks she would declare 'Ah no singa tonight.' The impresario, at his wit's end, would ask why and she would say, 'Ah wants a man.' When a man was found who would give his all for the cause of opera, after one look at the great diva, he often needed a bit of pecuniary incentive to conclude his part of the bargain. The result was a superb performance by the prima donna. Tetrazzini exemplified the life force as much as she did bel canto, and the sheer exuberance of her singing can still set a room on fire??

- Starlady, an astrologer with Ketu, Mercury and Mars in Ardra, ??known as a character who floats her ample size through a conference in a flowing dress and a huge, magnificent hat. When asked where she got her hat, she quips, ?I made it. Darling you can't buy trash like this.???

- Milton Berle, a TV comedian with Rahu, Mercury and Venus in Ardra, ??Enormously funny, with great energy and versatility, he laid out rapid gags and broad clowning, and was named ?the television star of the year???

- Empress Soraya Pahlavi, first wife of the Shah of Iran with the Sun, Venus and Mercury in Ardra, ??Stylish and cosmopolitan, [after the divorce] she joined the jet-set life style??

Of course there was diversity in the biographies, but the group as a whole didn't show any specific emphasis on intellectualism or analytic study.