Learn Astrology: Planets

In previous article of this series, we learnt about zodiac signs, planets and their ownership. Those were very important concepts and, if possible, try to memorize those concepts. Now, we are going to know about categorization of planets and signs, which is crucial for learning predictive astrology. If you have not read that article, it is recommended to read Part-1, before proceeding to this part.

Firstly, planets are classified into two groups namely benefic and malefic as follows:

Natural Benefic Planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are considered benefic by nature

Natural Malefic Planets: Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu are considered malefic by nature

Generally, Moon and Mercury are not always benefic. Full Moon i.e. the Moon near Purnima is considered benefic, while ‘No Moon’ i.e. Moon near Amavasya is believed not to be benefic. Similarly, if Mercury is placed with benefic planet, it is considered benefic and if placed with malefic, it is considered malefic. In other words, nature of Mercury depends upon the nature of planet influencing it.

It should be remembered that all natural malefic planets do not always produce negative results. Similarly, all natural benefic planets do not always give positive results. Good or bad effect depends up on several other factors like ownership, placement and aspects etc. We will discuss these factors later.

Let us start with first factor i.e. sign placement. Generally, any planet gives positive results in exalted sign (uchcha rashi), own sign (swa-rashi), and friendly sign (mitra-rashi) in this order. In other words, exalted planets give best results, planets in own sign give second best results and planets in friendly sign gives third best result, if we want to quantify. On the other hand, if a planet is positioned in debilitated sign (neecha-rashi) or enemy’s sign (shatru-rashi), it is not capable of giving good results

Some points to be noted from above table:

1. Exalted and debilitated signs of a planet are always seventh from each other, e.g. Sun is exalted in Aries, the first sign of zodiac, and debilitated in Libra, the seventh sign of zodiac.
2. Sun and Moon are lord of just one sign. While Rahu and Ketu are not lord of any of the signs. Other planets are lord of two signs each.
3. Rahu and Ketu don’t have their own signs. Even exalted and debilitated signs of Rahu and Ketu are not well-accepted by all the astrologers.

This is very important table and should be memorized. If you find it difficult to memorize initially, there is no need to get frightened. Eventually with the time and practice, you would learn it automatically.

I am sharing a simple but rough formula to memorize above table. Roughly we can classify planets into two groups that are inimical to each other:

Group 1: Sun, Moon, Mars and Jupiter

Group 2: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu

As I said earlier, this is just a rough formula and there are some exceptions to it which you can note down from above table.

How to use above table? Those planets, which are placed in the signs of friendly planets or located with friendly planets, produce positive results. Similarly, if a planet is situated in sign of enemy planet or positioned with an enemy planet tends to produce diminished positive results.

Let me take an example. You can see from above table that Saturn and Sun are inimical to each other. So if Sun is posited in sign of Saturn i.e. Capricorn or Aquarius or Sun is situated with Saturn, it will not be able to give its good results. In other words, Sun will be weak in giving its results. On the other side, if Sun is with Moon, Mars or Jupiter who are friendly to Sun or in their signs, it should generally give good results.

That is all for this week. In next article, we will discuss about birth-chart, signification of planet/ house/ sign and their use in astrology.

Exercise:

Find out what all planets are posited in exalted sign, own sign, friendly sign, debilitated sign and enemy sign in your own chart and your family member’s chart.