The 12 houses (bhavas) of Vedic astrology

Whole-sign houses

In classical Jyotish the sign of the ascendant is the 1st house, the next sign the 2nd, and so on around the zodiac. Each house is a whole sign. That makes the houses simple to read and stable: a planet in a sign is in that sign's house, whatever its degree. JyotiSoft draws the main chart in whole signs, as the classical texts do, and uses the exact ascendant degree for finer tools such as the divisional charts.

Kendras, trikonas and dusthanas

Houses fall into groups. The kendras (1, 4, 7, 10) are the pillars of a chart: planets there are visible and strong. The trikonas (1, 5, 9) are the houses of fortune and merit. The dusthanas (6, 8, 12) are the difficult houses of illness, obstacles and loss. The upachayas (3, 6, 10, 11) are houses of growth, where even malefics improve with time. A planet that rules both a kendra and a trikona is a yoga karaka, the best friend of that ascendant.

House lords

Every house has a lord: the ruler of the sign on its cusp. Where that lord goes, the matters of the house go with it — the 10th lord in the 7th, for example, ties career to partnership or trade. Reading a chart is largely reading these links between houses, lords and the planets placed in them.

Karakas of the houses

Each house also has natural significators (karakas) that are read alongside it: the Sun for the 1st and 10th, Jupiter for the 2nd, 5th, 9th and 11th, Mars for the 3rd and 6th, the Moon for the 4th, Venus for the 7th, Saturn for the 8th and 12th. When a house, its lord and its karaka agree, the result is strong and clear.

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