Section 1: Bhavat-Bhavam as applied to bhavas
The concept of bhavat-bhavam means that from the bhava in question, it is the future bhava. Bhavat means future. So it is as if the bhava is born again in the future. Translated to English it can mean as “from house to house”. This is a great little technique when making predictions about a particular bhava in astrology. The results are as follows:
1st bhava gives the result of the 1st bhava. This is because 1st from the 1st is still the first bhava.
2nd bhava gives the result of the 3rd bhava (since 2nd from the 2nd is the 3rd bhava).
3rd bhava gives the result of the 5th bhava (since 3rd from the 3rd is the 5th bhava).
4th bhava gives the result of the 7th bhava (since 4th from the 4th is the 7th bhava).
5th bhava gives the result of the 9th bhava (since 5th from the 5th is the 9th bhava).
6th bhava gives the result of the 11th bhava (since 6th from the 6th is the 11th bhava).
7th bhava gives the result of the 1st bhava (since 7th from the 7th is the 1st bhava).
8th bhava gives the result of the 3rd bhava (since 8th from the 8th is the 3rd bhava).
9th bhava gives the result of the 5th bhava (since 9th from the 9th is the 5th bhava).
10th bhava gives the result of the 7th bhava (since 10th from the 10th is the 7th bhava).
11th bhava gives the result of the 9th bhava (since 11th from the 11th is the 9th bhava).
12th bhava gives the result of the 11th bhava (since 12th from the 12th is the 11th bhava).
| Bhava | Bhavam | Relationship |
| 1 | 1 | 1-1 |
| 2 | 3 | 2-3 |
| 3 | 5 | 3-5 |
| 4 | 7 | 4-7 |
| 5 | 9 | 5-9 |
| 6 | 11 | 6-11 |
| 7 | 1 | 7-1 |
| 8 | 3 | 8-3 |
| 9 | 5 | 9-5 |
| 10 | 7 | 10-7 |
| 11 | 9 | 11-9 |
| 12 | 11 | 12-11 |
Table 1: Bhavat-bhavam as applied to bhavas
Note: In the above paragraph instead of using the word “results”, the right word maybe is “impression”. But for simplicity purposes I have used the word results.
To illustrate the usage of the above concept, let us consider a few examples.
Say a person is in the 9th lord’s dasa or bhukti and the lord is not connected to any child factors. This 9th lord’s dasa and bhukti can still give children as 9th from the 9th house is the 5th house of children.
Likewise, say a person is in the dasa or bhukti of the 6th lord and the 6th lord is not connected in any manner to the titles, promotions and powerful position indicators. He can still give rise in career and yield the person a title because 6th from the 6th is the 11th house of titles and income. Of course 6th bhava here is the daily work a person does and it is an artha sthana. Whenever the 6th bhava gets activated the amount of work a person has to do just increases at least two fold. That increase of workload is what gets them more income, money and titles.
The purpose of this article was not to explain this simple yet powerful concept of bhavat-bhavam. The main intention was to extend and stretch its limit a little further.
Section 2: Bhavat-Bhavam applied to lagnas and dasas
Before we jump into further exploration of the bhavat-bhavam concept, I want to bring the readers attention to another concept as described below:
Recently, my teacher Ernst Wilhelm revealed in one of his video lectures, a simple little technique to use in dasas:
1) For an Aries lagna person, Mars who rules Aries, the 1st bhava will help them find their life path.
2) For a Taurus lagna person, Mercury who rules their 2nd bhava will help them find their life path.
3) For a Gemini lagna person, Sun who rules their 3rd bhava will help them find their life path.
4) For a Cancer lagna person, Venus who rules their 4th bhava will help them find their life path.
5) For a Leo lagna person, Jupiter who rules their 5th bhava will help them find their life path.
6) For a Virgo lagna person, Saturn who rules their 6th bhava will help them find their life path.
7) For a Libra lagna person, Mars who rules their 7th bhava will help them find their life path.
8) For a Scorpio lagna person, Mercury who rules their 8th bhava will help them find their life path.
9) For a Sagittarius lagna person, Sun who rules their 9th bhava will help them find their life path.
10) For a Capricorn lagna person, Venus who rules their 10th bhava will help them find their life path.
11) For an Aquarius lagna person, Jupiter who rules their 11th bhava will help them find their life path.
12) For a Pisces lagna person, Saturn who rules their 12th bhava will help them find their life path.
While Ernst did not explain what thought gave rise to this idea, I was pretty taken aback by the sheer simplicity of this technique. When I quickly scanned my chart database, I found this technique to work like pure magic! Then after working on it for a few weeks, I later realized that it is nothing but bhavat-bhavam applied to the dasas and lagna.
The below table elaborates this concept a little further. The table uses the explanations provided in section 2.
| Rasi | Planet that re-enforces their life path | Relationship between rasi and planet |
| Aries | Mars | 1-1 |
| Taurus | Mercury | 2-3 |
| Gemini | Sun | 3-5 |
| Cancer | Venus | 4-7 |
| Leo | Jupiter | 5-9 |
| Virgo | Saturn | 6-11 |
| Libra | Mars | 7-1 |
| Scorpio | Mercury | 8-3 |
| Sagittarius | Sun | 9-5 |
| Capricorn | Venus | 10-7 |
| Aquarius | Jupiter | 11-9 |
| Pisces | Saturn | 12-11 |
Table 2: Bhavat-bhavam as applied to rasis and lagnas.
In the table you will find Rasis in the first column while the planet that helps them find their life path in the second column. The third column is the most interesting one, which is the relationship of the rasi and the planet. Since the reader is already familiar with columns 1 and 2, I will elaborate a bit further on column 3. Take for instance Aries, Mars is the planet that re-enforces their life path. The relationship is nothing but 1-1. Mars also happens to rule the first house of the natural zodiac and Aries is the first sign. But consider Taurus lagna, it is Mercury who re-enforces their life path. Taurus is the second rasi while Mercury rules the natural 3rd house. This works out the same way for all other rasis too as shown in the table.
Section 3: Interesting patterns and discussion
If you look at table 2, you will see a lot of interesting things emerge apart from the concept of bhavat-bhavam. They are listed below:
- From table 1 of section 1, the 7th bhava gives the results of the 1st bhava. The first bhava gives the results of the 1st bhava. Even the first house appears once from any given house, in this case the 7th. However, if you follow this train of thought, you will see in column 3 of table 1 that there is no recurrence of bhavas 2,4,6 and 8 using the bhavat-bhavam concept. In simple words there is no future occurrence of bhavas 2, 4, 6 and 8 from any house in question!
- In the column 2 of table 2, you will find planets Mars, Mercury, Sun, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn recur twice.
- From table 2 of section 2, you will see that the same planet helps the opposite axis of rasis find their life path.
Mars helps Aries-Libra lagnas
Mercury helps Taurus-Scorpio lagnas
Sun helps Gemini-Sagittarius lagnas
Venus helps Cancer-Capricorn lagnas
Jupiter helps Leo-Aquarius lagnas
Saturn helps Virgo-Pisces lagnas
Further, Mars and Venus who happen to rule one set of Kendra (1,7 houses) and one set of panapara houses (2,8) solely help the Kendra lagnas (1,4,7,10) of the natural zodiac.
Mercury and Jupiter who rule the natural Apoklimas (3,6,9 and 12) help the natural panapara (2,5,8 and 11) lagnas of the natural zodiac.
Sun who rules a panapara (5th house) and Saturn who rules a Kendra (10th house) and panapara (11th house) of the natural zodiac solely help the Apoklima lagnas (3,6,9 and 12) of the natural zodiac.
There is a lot to contemplate here for an astrologer.
As a consequence, Mars-Venus, Mercury-Jupiter and Sun-Saturn emerge as pairs.
In many systems of astrology these planets are very closely related:
Mars and Venus are natural neutrals to each other. In the Jaimini system when influencing each other are said to give rise to great passion to get things done on a worldly level. Even in the naisargika bala calculation, Mars and Venus form a pair. (reference to secrets of naisargika bala)
Jupiter and Mercury are very closely related to knowledge and understanding. They rule the natural apoklimas, opposite houses from each other while help the natural panapara lagnas. In the Jaimini system these two planets are a pair again who are said to provide manifesting potential to the bhava in question. Jupiter and Mercury are a pair in shad bala too. Along with the sun, they form the natural trio who are necessary to manage and lead worldly affairs. In the naisargika bala calculation, Jupiter and Mercury form a pair as well ! (reference to secrets of naisargika bala)
Then we have the last pair which is Sun-Saturn. These two planets have a special relationship as Saturn is the child of the Sun. Sun and Saturn have special relationship in 1-7 axis of the natural zodiac too. Sun is exalted in Aries while Saturn is debilitated in Aries. Saturn is exalted in Libra while Sun is debilitated in Libra.
- The odd one out in table 2 from section 2 is the Moon. Isn’t that interesting that Moon doesn’t help forge the life path of any zodiac sign? Yet, Moon is a big player in the nakshatra dasa’s like Vimshottari and Kalachakra. In the case of Vimshottari, the dasa begins with the Moon’s nakshatra lord!
- This gets even more interesting if you look at point number 1 of section 3 and examine the representation of these houses in the natural zodiac. The 2nd bhava is the natural sign of Taurus, the exaltation and Moolatrikona sign of the Moon. The 4th bhava, the natural sign of Cancer is the own house of the moon, exaltation sign of Jupiter and debilitation point of Mars. The 8th bhava, the natural sign of Scorpio is the debilitation point of the moon. The 6th is the very interesting one of these patterns. The 6th is the natural sign of Virgo where Mercury (the intellect), the child of the Moon (Manas) gets exalted and has his Moolatrikona position too. Interesting enough, Venus who rules the exaltation sign of the Moon goes into debilitation in the 6th house of Virgo. Yet these bhavas don’t recur in the table 1 of section 1 from any bhavas in question.
- The 4th is third from the 2nd house. The 6th is third from the 4th house. Finally, the 8th is third from the 6th house. There is a sextile relationship between these houses that don’t fit into table 1 of section 1.
It gets even more interesting if you examine some of the indications of these bhavas. I will encourage the reader to contemplate on that.
- Let us look at it from only the natural relationship of planets point of view as given in table 3.
Mars helps his own lagna Aries and Libra. Venus rules Libra. Mars is a neutral to Venus.
Mercury helps Taurus, which is ruled by Venus. Mercury is a natural friend of Venus. Mercury also helps Scorpio, which is ruled by Mars. Mars’s only natural enemy is Mercury.
Sun helps Gemini, which is ruled by Mercury. Sun is a natural friend to Mercury. Sun helps Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter. Sun and Jupiter are natural mutual friends.
Venus helps cancer, which is ruled by the moon. Venus is a natural neutral to the Moon. Venus also helps Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn. Venus and Saturn are natural mutual friends.
Jupiter helps Leo, which is ruled by the sun. Sun and Jupiter are natural mutual friends. Jupiter also helps Aquarius, which is ruled by Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn are natural neutrals to each other.
Saturn helps Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. Saturn is a natural neutral to Mercury. Saturn also helps Pisces, which is ruled by Jupiter.
Jupiter and Saturn are natural neutrals to each other.
| Rasi | Key planet that re-enforces their life path | Natural relationship between key planet and rasi lord |
| Aries | Mars | Friend |
| Taurus | Mercury | Friend |
| Gemini | Sun | Friend |
| Cancer | Venus | Neutral |
| Leo | Jupiter | Friend |
| Virgo | Saturn | Neutral |
| Libra | Mars | Neutral |
| Scorpio | Mercury | Enemy |
| Sagittarius | Sun | Friend |
| Capricorn | Venus | Friend |
| Aquarius | Jupiter | Neutral |
| Pisces | Saturn | Neutral |
Table 3: Natural relationship of the planet helping the lagna with respect to the lagna lord.
- For more advanced astrologers and readers who are aware of Brihat Parashara Hora shastra (BPHS) principles, you will find that more interesting patterns emerge from table 2 of section 2. In table 4, I have listed the relationship of the key planet that re-enforces the life path for a particular lagna in question as given by BPHS. For example, according to BPHS, Sun is an evil planet for gemini lagna even though he helps them find their life path.
Except for Aries, Capricorn, Sagittarius and Leo lagnas, the planets that help re-enforce the life path of the remainder 8 lagnas are all either evil or maraka house lords. I have treated Mars as auspicious planet for Aries, even though he rules the 8th house for simplicity purposes.
Aries is Mars’s Moolatrikona, Sun’s exaltation point and Saturn’s debilitation point. Capricorn is Saturn’s own house, Mars’s exaltation and Jupiter’s debilitation. Sagittarius is Jupiter’s Moolatrikona while Leo is Sun’s Moolatrikona.
| Rasi | Key planet that re-enforces their life path | BPHS relationship between key planet and rasi lord |
| Aries | Mars | Auspicious |
| Taurus | Mercury | “Less auspicious” or Evil |
| Gemini | Sun | Evil |
| Cancer | Venus | Evil |
| Leo | Jupiter | Auspicious |
| Virgo | Saturn | Neutral |
| Libra | Mars | Maraka (killer) or Evil |
| Scorpio | Mercury | Evil |
| Sagittarius | Sun | Auspicious |
| Capricorn | Venus | Auspicious |
| Aquarius | Jupiter | Evil |
| Pisces | Saturn | Evil |
Table 4: Relationship of the planet helping the lagna with respect to the rasi lord according to BPHS bhava lordship concept.
There is a trend here. We know that for Leo and Cancer lagnas, Mars is the yogakaraka planet. Similarly, for Capricorn and Aquarius lagnas, Venus is the yogakaraka planet. Yogakaraka is the planet that gives king-like status for these lagnas when he is placed in an angle or trine. But observe the table 2, you will see how important Venus is for the Capricorn ascendant. Not only is he the yoga-karaka but also the graha that bolsters their life path. So Venus gets double point of focus for Capricorn ascendant.
Similarly, this finding adds Jupiter and Sun to this pattern for Leo and Sagittarius ascendants respectively.
Another important revelation is that the two natural angular (Aries, 1st house and Capricorn, 10th house) and trinal (Leo, 5th house and Sagittarius, 9th house) houses appear in this pattern. This just goes to show the importance of these houses cannot be overstated. The first is the natural dharma house while 10th is the natural karma house. The 1st and 10th are angular Vishnu bhavas which are very important activity houses. The 5th and 9th are dharma and trinal Lakshmi houses of great fortune, power and knowledge. Interestingly, 3 of these houses are ruled by fire element.
- Furthermore, only four lagnas (Aries, Capricorn, Leo and Sagittarius) are being helped by natural friends and auspicious planets for those lagnas. This makes me wonder if the other lagnas will struggle (or go through difficult circumstances) during the dasas of the planets that re-enforce their life path, yet finding their destiny along the way?
Of course as all astrology techniques, there are multi-levels to analyze a chart from Parashari yogas, bhava yogas, vipareet yogas to Jaimini Raj yogas. A planet may not be a natural friend or an auspicious planet for that lagna (or lagna lord), yet if he is forming some formidable yogas in the chart and has good ista, shubha, points, shad bala, vimshopaka and dig bala then he can still deliver great results.
Mind you, I am considering an ideal scenario where all factors are equal. This means that a planet that is not a natural friend or auspicious planet for that lagna may not readily help find the destiny for that particular lagna. In other words, the grahas helping lagnas Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Aquarius and Pisces are not “pole-sitters” for that lagna (table 3 and 4). They can be treated as running a deficit, all factors equal.
- From table 3 and table 4, you will find that Scorpio is the only lagna that suffers the most. The lagna lord Mars is helped by a natural enemy Mercury (table 3) to help find their life path who also happens to be an evil planet for the lagna (table 4).
Section 4: Application
As in all astrology techniques, it is no fun if it is not revealed where and when to use it. So I will indicate some pointers for readers to test and use this technique. For more advanced classes, I recommend Ernst Wilhelm’s Vimshottari dasa courses where he teaches how to use these techniques elaborately.
- Consider a case when you have a client who is a Capricorn ascendant and they are at your office and want to know when they will find their life’s path. Some common techniques that will come to the mind of the astrologer is that he will first have to look for the dasa that rules the lagna, the lagna lord or Aatmakaraka or its dispositor (There are other strong techniques of course but for sake of simplicity I am using a simple one). But say you have checked that and exhausted your techniques, yet can’t find a simple answer. At that point look for Venus in the chart and see when his dasa or bhukti is getting activated for that person. This is because Venus will help the Capricorn ascendant find their life path. He can direct the person towards their destiny. In other words, the Capricorn lagna person doesn’t need to wait for the Saturn dasa, or dispositor of Saturn’s dasa or Aatmakaraka or dispositor of aatmakaraka’s dasa to find their destiny in the world. Venus will do that for them.
- I not only find the above principle working for D1 or rasi chart but also it works splendidly for the varga charts. To illustrate – Consider a case when a client is at your office and wants you to predict a time frame when they will meet their spouse. You as an astrologer have worked out all the transits, Varshaphala, Vimshottari periods, Jaimini rasi dasas but somehow are confused between two strong periods that can give the relationship. For the sake of an example, say the periods that you have worked out in Vimshottari dasas are that of Jupiter/Mercury and Jupiter/Ketu, then this technique will help you filter out one of the periods.
If the person has a Scorpio lagna in the D7 or Saptamsa chart of relationships, then you can see from table 2 of section 2 that Mercury helps them find their path. So in this case you can be pretty sure that Mercury will help them find their life path in the area of relationships and give an extra emphasis on Jupiter/Mercury period.
- I find that this not only applies to Maha dasa lords but also to bhukti lords in Vimshottari dasa periods. The time frame when a person runs the bhukti’s of the planets that help find the life path of the person , they will get an extra boost in that dasa.
For example in the case of Sagittarius lagna person, Sun helps them find their life path. So under Jupiter/Sun for example you can be sure to predict that life will get a new boost. Please observe, I was careful in choosing the example. In this case, Jupiter rules the lagna and Sun re-enforces that lagna . So it is double emphasis.
Like in all vedic Jyothish techniques make sure to check with several systems before you make any predictions. This technique is just another way to confirm your predictions using other systems. Never rely on just one system to deliver you the complete results.
Section 5: More than Vimshottari dasas
If the concept of table 2 of section 2 holds true for the Vimshottari dasa periods, does it mean it can be applied to Maharisi Jaimini’s rasi dasa’s too? For example if a person has Aquarius lagna and is running the rasi caranavamsa dasa of Gemini holding Venus, does it mean they will find their life path during that time?
I am always impressed by the details vedic astrology can churn out. One of the areas that I really want to dive into much deeper is understanding the baggage or debris past life issues have imprinted on a person. I like to study this area and research. I want to understand what gave rise to the present chart of the person, what tendencies of the past life are still persistent in the native and is seen in the present chart make-up. In today’s day and age there are not many techniques that reveal that more readily. However, there might be some clues. If bhavat-bhavam works for predicting future bhavas, does that mean a bhoota-bhavam exists to study the past life of a person from a given bhava in question?
More research needs to be done in this area to stretch this technique even further.
HARI OM!
OM TAT SAT!