Script (Earlier Draft)

Hi, I'm Vic DiCara.

Welcome to the second episode of my astrology podcast, which I've titled "God's Horoscope."

It's the first of a 3 part series in which we will learn many essential principles of how to use the ancient system of Vedic Astrology to decode astrological charts. And we will do so using the chart of Sri Krishna as our example, so in the process of learning how astrology works we will also learn about how godhead works!

Before you can interpret or decode anything, you need an accurate chart to read. If this is an issue even with contemporary charts, you can imagine the severity of this problem when you are dealing with the chart of someone born over 5,000 years ago!

As expected, there is some debate about what the action horoscope chart of Sri Krishna. I have personally spent many dozens of hours to researching this. The details of that research belong in an academic type of paper which I will publish in the future. But for the purposes of this show we'll have to skip right into describing the "whats" and not the "whys" of Krishna's birth chart.

We are going to use a very ancient and authoritative chart for Sri Krishna, the same horoscope described by great scholars of Krishna-lore: including Soor dasa and Srila Vishvanatha Chakravarthi.

In Krishna's chart the Moon occupies Taurus' lunar mansion of Rohini, which was rising in the East when he was born.

Also in the 1st House of Taurus is the southern eclipse point: Ketu. Which means that the northern eclipse point, Rahu was across the sky, in the 7th House: Scorpio.

The owner of Taurus, Venus was the extremely bright evening star, in her own home, Libra - the 6th House; in the company of exalted Saturn.

Mercury was also at his brightest as an evening star in the 5th House, created by own sign of exaltation: Virgo. So Krishna has the planet of intelligence bright and exalted in the house of intelligence.

The Sun, planet of the soul, was in the deepest internal part of the sky, the 4th House, in his own royal sign: Leo.

Jupiter, the planet of expansion and blessings was in the 11th House, the house of felicity and gains, which was built by his own emotionally deep sign: Pisces.

Mars, the planet of passion and energy was in the 9th house - the house of religion and morality, exalted in Capricorn.

What we are looking at is the chart of Sri Krishna - an exalted historical personality, purported to be a direct manifestation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So let's take that at face value and see what Krishna himself is thought to have said about the reason for his birth, as recorded in the Bhagavad-Gita.

paritranaaya saadhuunaam. vinashaaya ca dushkritam.
dharma samsthapan-aarthaayam. sambhavami yuge yuge.

In English this means that Godhead incarnates in this world to make society better and more stable for humanity. He (or She) accomplishes this mainly by doing two things:

Befriending and benefitting those who are good and helpful in society.
And opposing and overthrowing those who are bad and harmful in society.

Now let's see what Krishna's horoscope has to say on these topics.

One can stereotypically and simplistically cast Jupiter as the good guy and Saturn as the Bad Guy. From this angle we find the good guy in Krishna's house of friends and the bad guy in his house of enemies. This reflects the fact that the purpose of his birth was to befriend and benefit the good people, while making enemies with and opposing the bad.

Let's get less stereotypical and simplistic though, and focus more closely now on that 6th House of Krishna's chart, the house of opposition and enemies. It is a crucially important house in this chart because it is also the home of Krishna's lagnesh or "Chart Ruler", Venus.

Krishna's 6th House hosts a union of Venus and Saturn. A combination of Venus and Saturn is of extreme importance whenever the rising sign belongs to either of these planets. Such is the case in Krishna's chart since he was born under Venus' Taurus. The reason why this combination is so important in this case is because it forms a raja-yoga.

I would like to dedicate perhaps an entire episode to explaining exactly what a raja-yoga is, and why it is such an important fundamental principle of Vedic Astrology. But for now let me just explain that planets form various combinations as they align with one another in the sky. "Yoga" means combination or union. "Raja" means king. A raja-yoga then has a royal place among all the possible alignments of planets. It has the potential to create royal personages of kingly stature because it creates a unity between a person's desires and opportunities, between what they want and what they can easily get, between their purpose and their actions.

Raja-Yogas are reasonably common, but they are not created equal by any means! The condition of the planets involved, and the number of times the yoga repeats itself from various points of view will determine how powerful and effective the yoga will be.

Krishna's chart shows an example of an extremely powerful Raja-Yoga.

Firstly, on the surface you can see that both of the planets involved in this yoga are very positive in the atmosphere of Libra: Venus is in her own sign, and Saturn is exalted here. This alone shows you that the yoga is extremely powerful.

But Ancient Vedic Astrology drills far deeper than this surface assessment, by splitting each zodiac sign into a group of ten facets, called the dash-varga. Each division of each facet represents the harmonic resonance of a specific zodiac sign. I've described this in finer detail in my blogs and on my site, but the end result is that Vedic Astrology allows extreme differentiation on a degree-by-degree basis even within a single sign!

As a result of this differentiation, each planet will be affected by a total of 9 zodiac sign facets, in addition to the main one you see on the surface of the main chart. The more a planet's position in a sign places it in facets of harmonic signs that are positive for the planet, the more positive will be the mood of that planet will be, and the better results it will bestow in a horoscope. (And the opposite is also true).

Krishna was born with Venus and Saturn each in highly exalted facets of Libra.

This makes the effects of his raja-yoga extremely powerful, and actually satisfies a very interesting astrological rule regarding incarnations of Godhead.

Parashara Muni, the ancient grandfather of Vedic Astrology, wrote in the 41st Chapter of his Hora Shastra that a Vishnu Tattva, or incarnation of Godhead, would be known by the following astrological trademark: He or She would posses a raja-yoga in which the planets forming the yoga would be in positive signs in at least 7 of the 10 divisional facets of their sign.

To illustrate this important principle, this is a depiction of Krishna's chart, showing the most likely exact locations of Venus and Saturn in Krishna's chart.

You can see that Venus is in her own sign, Libra, in 6 of the 8 facets you can see. This illustration doesn't depict the two smallest facets, but at this location she is in her other sign, Taurus as a result of the 60th fractional facet of Libra - for a total of 7 positive facets.

Regarding Saturn, we find him in a position in Libra which grants him 7 positive facets, not even referring to the 2 we can't see depicted here.

So now you know about one of the most powerful and accurate tools of Vedic interpretation - referencing the 10 facets within a sign to determine the positivity or negativity of a planet's position. And you know how this principle acted in the horoscope of Sri Krishna to elevate his raja-yoga to an extraordinary and even godlike status.

Rotation of the chart houses relative to various points of focus or lagna is another important technique for Vedic interpretation. This may be a topic for a future episode, but for now let me just mention that this godlike raja-yoga of Krishna's manifests not just from the point of view of the ascendant, but also from the point of view of the Moon, the Ascendant's ruler, and the ruler of the Moon. Thus you could say it becomes magnified fourfold beyond it's already divine empowerment.

A Raja-Yoga manifests it's power in the context of the house it occupies. Krishna's Raja Yoga occupies his 6th House - which is the House of enemies.

This all clearly defines Krishna to be the same person that "mythology" or "history" claims he is: an undefeatable personality who silenced professional assassins dispatched to kill him from just a few weeks after his birth, and continuing on a very regular basis throughout his youth and adulthood.

At just around 15 years old, he overthrew the government of the nepotist king Kamsa by killing him with his bare hands in a public wrestling match!

This is what we would expect from a fantastically positive 6th House. It made him impervious and able to rather effortlessly dismantle everyone and anyone who unwisely made themselves his enemy.

As his Raja Yoga attests Krishna was Vishnu-Tattva, an incarnation of Godhead - the most powerful and kingly personality possible.

Well, that's about all we can fit into this episode. But I will continue this topic in the next two episodes, because there are so many fascinating things to discuss.

In the next episode I will discuss how to read the Body, Mind and Soul in a horoscope, and what Krishna's horoscope says about him in this regard.

And I will also describe the hidden side of Krishna, the less stereotypically "godlike" side of his personality, as revealed by his birth chart.

You can look for my next episodes on my website, www.vicdicara.com - or by subscribing to my YouTube channel.

Thanks for watching. Bye for now.