Skyscript Astrology Forum

James wrote (can't get the quote widget to work):
"your initial comments about death having more an association with the 7th, then 8th house were interesting and not the first time i have read that. it seems the older astrologers viewed the descendant as a place associated with death which makes a certain amount of sense.. however, one could say that from the moment a planet passes the midheaven it is in a movement of de-scension towards the low point of the chart - 4th house - another place with an association for death, given this downward momentum.. i suppose this is my simplistic view on the idea of planets rising in the east and setting in the west. just how that ties in with the theme of death symbolically could be construed a few different ways.. it appears this is what has happened over the course of time in astrology. how one applies the symbolic idea of death is flexible as i see it, although perhaps others wouldn't agree with my assessment.."

Hello James - I thought best to start a new thread.

In Indian astrology, the 8th house is called the Ayu bhava ("age/longevity house", and is related to the life span, as well of a wide variety of miseries during that life span, including chronic diseases and the suffering associated with dying, rather than death itself. Also sudden unexpected events like winning money.

Found this on http://www.soothsayers-india.com/Eighth ... ology.html :
"In Indian astrology just as 7th house is house of death, the 8th is the house of life and longevity. Saturn along with 8th lord are ayush karakas or life givers in a horoscope and the longevity depends on the strength of 8th house its lord and the Karaka Saturn.
? amongst other things ruled by the 8th Bhava is sexual relation between the couple, sexual diseases, and problems in sexual organs obstructing progeny? also the hidden enemy, court cases and inheritance matters."

The 7th house and it's ruler indicate death mainly because it's the 12th from the 8th (the end of longevity), also probably because it opposes the ascendant.

The 2nd, the other "death" house, opposes the 8th, and is the 12th from the 3rd, which is itself the 8th from the 8th and thus "life of longevity". Things get a bit confusing here, as all the houses have so many meanings, but in Indian astrology, the 3rd is a somewhat martial house, and can indicate bravery (or lack of it), stamina, vitality, i.e. can represent the life force.

The 4th house can be associated with endings, but more with origins, and I think is more linked specifically to death in traditional Western than in Indian astrology, though probably that's there somewhere in India too. Deborah Houlding (here on Skyscript) writes (amongst many other indications) : "It is said to indicate the beginning and end of all things, [?], the process of death, and funerals. Death by drowning is particularly relevant." (...Hey, there's Martin's "Saturn main signifier of death by drowning" again ? in the Krushna system, Saturn is signifier of H3 and H4, and in the SR of William Gustafson, Saturn is in natal 4th with the SR ascendant!)

In the quote given above, Saturn is said to be the karaka (natural signifier) of the 8th and longevity. Richard Houck agrees, and interestingly suggests looking closely at what Jupiter is doing when considering death charts. His examples are worth checking out; I've also noticed that Venus seems to be involved more than you'd expect. This is not so surprising when you consider that in Indian astrology, death in itself is not a "bad event", so wy shouldn't the benefic be involved? One very interesting astrologer whose work can be tracked down on the web is Krushna (google "Krushna's ashtakavarga system KAS"). He has developed techniques for predicting when good events are going to happen in one's life, and death is one of them (bad events require different techniques). Krushna also has what I've found to be the most coherent, simple and effective system of house-signifiers that I've come across: although he presents it (unfortunately) as "the ruler of the equivalent sign in the natural zodiac minus 6" (why should Aries be the natural 1st in a sidereal system?), in fact it amounts to taking Scorpio as if it were the "natural" first house and treating the successive rulers as the natural signifiers of the successive houses. So the signifier of H2 is Jupiter, of H7 Venus, and of H8 Mercury. The signifier of the 3rd, as I said, is Saturn ? longevity, and of the 1st, Mars.

If you're interested in this subject, I suggest you read Houck's "The Astrology of Death". It's perhaps a little dated, in that he's writing mainly for tropical astrologers and so doesn't presume any knowledge of sidereal or Indian principles, but it's a good read, witty and filled with insights. Nothing about primaries in it. I don't know what to think about his attachment to tertiary (lunar) progressions, and his references to degree symbolism are surprising and rather disappointing: he takes this from a little Indian book "The Stars and Your Future" by M.C. Jain, which I once bought and found to be plagiarised rubbish. But on the whole I'd recommend Houck.

Graham

hi graham,

thanks for sharing!

those derivative houses are fun. i think the first time i was exposed to this idea was back in the late 70's thru a book on houses by robert pelletier.. maybe it was in his book on aspects too, i can't remember as it was so long ago.. you can pretty well come up with anything using the derivative houses!

both my parents died while saturn was transiting close to their natal sun.. i learned something from that. maybe it was a coincidence and maybe saturn is the planet about longevity, but from my pov based on this experience and others, i mostly see saturn as having a connection to death.. now life and death they are connected, no doubt.. i suppose i could have concluded the sun is the planet connected to death and saturn life, but i tend to view these 2 as a pair of sorts - representing life and death.. that is - sun- life and saturn - death..

i am always curious about what others think about the origins of ideas in astrology.. some of it must come directly from one's experience.. some of it might come from a book, but hopefully that is grounded in some type of experience too.

i read the link you shared here. it seems there is a connection in vedic with the 8th and sexual type issues.. for me there is a direct connection with sex and death too.. inheritance is another 8th house theme that seems to cross over regardless of whether it is vedic or western.. used to be called indian or western.. now everyone says vedic.. things change, but hopefully that is just the words, and the meanings remain more static.. i think it is up to us to be flexible and fluid in our views on astrology. i suppose i am veering into a more philosophical response here..

generally i am not looking for death, although it is not a bad idea as it could happen at any time.. a regular awareness of how death is stalking us - to borrow some lingo from the castaneda literature-, is a good idea as i see it.. it makes us live every moment more fully..

i have an ex brother in law diagnosed with terminal cancer only 2 weeks ago.. although they haven't said how much time he has to live, it sounds like it is less then a year.. he is 1/2 year younger then me, and i am 56.. all last year when saturn was transiting close to his sun he was having some health issues that he never aggressively addressed.. now his sun is in the end of libra, and his natal moon is about 9 taurus.. it is a full moon chart essentially and saturn is going over these sensitive points in his chart.. maybe he will live thru all this.. from my pov, saturn is implicated in his case too..

i find working with the planets the most reliable part of astrology.. working with signs brings up the sid/trop thing and working with houses brings up the house quagmire that is a regular feature of astrology.. for me the planets are where the energy is. i think signs and houses are very central and important to astrology, but i note how astrologers can hit a home run using different techniques.. it makes one wonder how much of it is based off the techniques and how much of it is a good intuition..

i think we need to keep an open mind on much of astrology.. it is a symbolic language and needs to retain its fluidity as i see it.. rules are all fine and good, but don't suit my personality as well as feeling like i have the freedom to come up with my own insights into how it all works..

hopefully the personal note is of some value for someone out their, including you. thanks again for sharing. i appreciate your wanting to bring me up to speed on the vedic system of seeing death and am keeping an open mind on just what house it might pop out of!

Hello James
I agree that if we could just use planets without getting tangled up in zodiacs, rulerships and house systems it would be great, but often natural significations don't seem to suffice (I think it was Morin who first strongly affirmed the primacy of house rulers over natural signifiers, in Western astro, and many of his principles tally well with things in the indian approach).
I haven't got very far in astrology, but have done enough work, reading and experimentation to have decided that for me, sidereal and whole signs work best, so I'm sticking with that for now. But I find some of the research and synthesis of the best Western tropical astrologers to be really precious and useful, even if I quietly convert their examples to sidereal. And we can still consider solstice and equinox points, antiscia etc as sensitive points, even if working sidereally.
You might find ashtakavarga worth investigating: you do have to choose a zodiac (nothing to stop you trying it out in tropical) and it gets messy if you try to use other than whole sign houses, but otherwise you can apply it without worrying about rulerships (or even aspects, in theory). Each planet becomes more or less beneficial in each individual chart, and in each sign/house, both natally and in transit, and "distributes" its good or bad effects from wherever it is to the rest of the chart. Houck's book "Digital Astrology" is an easy introduction, "Dots of Destiny" by Vinay Aditya is more detailed.
And yes, nearly everyone seems to say Vedic these days, but I try not to, because it really isn't!
Graham

i find the idea of the 2nd house as connected to death interesting.. i didn't mention that in my first response to you graham.. morin also likes to associate houses in opposition as having something in common...

one of the beautiful consequences of being exposed to different systems and ways of looking at astrology, is it can keep your mind open and receptive as i see it. i don't know that it matters which zodiac a person uses, so long as they develop some affinity for it and find what they are seeking.. so much of astrology is a reflection on the person and not so much on the type of astrology they are doing..

i did take a look at a few links off the suggestion of yours to "google "Krushna's ashtakavarga system KAS".. first thing i had to do was understand what was meant by ashtakavarga system.. one could do it in either format.. i imagine some software is available to make it easier to know!

i like whole sign houses as well, although i take a fluid approach to them that is not completely black and white. they are similar in many ways to the way i had understood equal houses used mainly in indian astrology which is what i had been using before..

i am always reading astrology books.. i have a few on the go right now and am not inclined to want to read these suggestions at this time, but that might change after i finish with what i have!

thanks for sharing your take on the abigail and william gustafsons charts on the other thread..

whole sign houses[...]are similar in many ways to the way i had understood equal houses used mainly in indian astrology

Indian astrology uses wholes sign houses, not equal houses - sometimes (as in Choudry's Systems Approach), they consider the ascendant degree as the cusp degree of each whole sign house - which puts the "cusp" is somewhere inside the house, not at the frontier of it as in "equal houses". An equal house would cross over 2 signs, and this is not the case here.
Some Indian astrologers (like Krishnamurti) use Western type quadrant houses, using Placidus or modified Porphyry ("Hindu Bhava" houses, but this seems to be less widespread today.
Graham

Traditionally (by which I here mean prior to the 20th century, or perhaps the late 19th), Indian astrologers seem to have worked mainly with whole-sign and/or so-called Sripati houses. The latter system is identical to Porphyry, but with the house cusps being regarded as the centres rather than the starting points of the houses. It is quite widespread and has been in use for well over a millennium (perhaps much longer).

B V Raman favoured equal houses with the cusps treated as in the Sripati system. I'm not sure whether he initiated that trend. And as Graham says, V K Choudry uses equal cusps as sensitive points within whole-sign houses.

Around the turn of the last century, the emerging modern western astrology reached India along with Theosophy, and some Indian astrologers adopted parts of it, including Placidus houses. Again as pointed out by Graham, K S Krishnamurti (several decades later) used these houses as part of his hybrid system of astrology, considering the cusps as starting points of the houses.

Martin
Thanks for the clarification. I dind't know Raman used equal houses: in the books by him that I've read, I think he always used whole sign. I think he sometimes referred to a "bhava chart" as a sort of extra, but I assumed he meant Sripati. In the only one I have now, on ashtakavarga, he definitely uses whole signs.
Graham

thanks for both of your perspective on the question of equal houses..

perhaps my bastardized version was a result of picking it all up 2nd hand.. but generally what i got from it back when i first started using equal houses was that if the planet was in the same sign as the ascendant for example, it generally had more of a connection with the 1st house then the 12th, even if it was above the horizon.. i tended to run into conflict if it was quite a distance above the ascendant degree, if a late degree of the sign, with the planet in an early degree.. overall though, the 2 house systems( equal and whole sign) as they were presented to me, or as i understood them had a lot of similarities.. to know be told they are one in the same makes sense!

i think this is where i might differ from others on the use of this type of house system.. i still tend to think a planet below the ascendant - later degrees and in the same sign as the ascendant, is different from one above the ascendant or earlier in the sign.. this type of distinction is typically ignored as i see it.. why is that, or do i have that wrong?

No 7th house is for Relation or partner in Indian astrology.
Death house is 6 and 12th from my point of view.

rohitkumar wrote:No 7th house is for Relation or partner in Indian astrology.
Death house is 6 and 12th from my point of view.

The 7th is called the place of wives (kalatrasth?na) in Sanskrit, and the 2nd is called the place of wealth (dhanasth?na), but both of these are also called killing places (m?rakasth?na). In addition, the 8th is called the place of death (m?tyusth?na). The 6th and 12th, while called evil places (du?sth?na), are not typically related to death: the 6th is considered the place of illness (rogasth?na) and the 12th, the place of loss (vyayasth?na).

Martin wrote:

the 2nd is called the place of wealth (dhanasth?na), but both of these are also called killing places (m?rakasth?na). In addition, the 8th is called the place of death (m?tyusth?na).

Martin - what's your view on these 3 houses with regard to death? The 8th is also known as Ayurbhava, which means House of longevity (or of life, I think). Some say the 8th indicates longevity but almost manner of death, while 2nd and 7th and their rulers should be considered for timing of death. But indicators of longevity could also tell us something about timing, perhaps. I remember hearing it summed up as 2 and 7 were about death, 8 was about the process of dying (i.e. life!).
Also, surely the 12th does have something of death in its theme of loss. I've seen an explanation of the death-bringing qualities of 2 and 7 as being due to their being 12th to the 8th (longevity) and the 3rd (life force, energy) respectively.

Many thanks for any help.
Graham

Graham F wrote:Martin wrote:

the 2nd is called the place of wealth (dhanasth?na), but both of these are also called killing places (m?rakasth?na). In addition, the 8th is called the place of death (m?tyusth?na).

Martin - what's your view on these 3 houses with regard to death?

As in my own practice when reading a chart? I don't really use the Indian concept of m?raka houses. I would look to the 8th for indications of death; but I would also include other considerations such as the anaereta or 'destroyer' by primary direction, which is not directly related to the houses.