Bhavas (Houses)

I would like to discuss about the following four charts that are used in Vedic Astrology:

1. Lagna Chart/Rasi Chart (D1)
2. Bhava Chakra/ Chalit Chakra
3. Sripati Bhava Chart
4. Niryan Bhava Chalit

1. Lagna Chart/Rasi Chart (D1):

It is an easily understandable chart. It takes Lagna as the first house & rest of the houses are taken sign-wise.
So it is a type of "Whole Sign House Division" according to Western astrology.

Planets on Rasi Sandhi means those planets which are very close to Rasi Sandhi. eg. A planet on 1 degree or
a planet on 29 degrees may be considered to be situated on Rasi Sandhi. Such planets are said to give bad results according to few classics. But I haven't found this concept to be exactly true. So though I respect the classicsI don't really use this concept & I don't really discard it as I don't want to oppose what sages have written but consider it less useful. Analyse the chart on the whole for true predictions.

E.g if you look at chart of our PM Mr. Narendra Modi you will find
his Lagna degree (1:06), Sun (0:35), Mer(00:46:51), Mars (00:56) & Sat (29:39:32) to be quite close to the
Rasi Sandhi. But yet he is designated the 15th most influential person of the world by Forbes Magazine.
People like Modi don't really need astrology. In fact astrologers need him ! I remember the shayari
" Himmat-e-Marda Madad-e-Kudaya". Amen. I was among the very few astrologers who had announced the victory of Mr. Modi in elections way back in Sep 2013. I am credited for many successful predictions among my relatives & people who know me personally. Call it Lord Brishapati's grace & my scientific approach towards astrology.  


Refer to Mr. Modi's chart here:  
http://astrologershukla.blogspot.in/2013/09/elections-2014-modi-vs-rahul_23.html


2. Bhava Chakra/Chalit Chakra:

"Bhava" is known as house in English.
This is the chart that can be found in the popular software J.Hora. I have seen this type of Bhava mentioned
in Phaldeepika & I was using it way back before I found it in J. Hora, but I was manually constructing this
 Chakra through calculations. It is similar to Equal House division in Western astrology, but there is a
little bit of difference.

I am telling you simple way, how to construct this chart manually. Take Lagna point as "Bhava-Madhya" (Mid point of Bhava) of 1st house. Deduct 15 degrees from this degree & you will get the starting point of the 1st Bhava. Add 15 degrees to the Bhava-Madhya to get the end point of 1st Bhava. Both these starting & end points are known as "Bhava Sandhi". Similarly the mid point of 2nd house would be 30 degree ahead of Lagna degree. We can find the starting & end of this Bhava too. Similarly we would get all the 12 Bhavas.

3. Bhava Sripati Chart:

This was invented by astronomer & astrologer Sripati centuries before. This house system is used by astrogyan.com.

In this method the "Bhava madhya" of 1st house or the mid point of 1st house is same as the Lagna degree.
The "Bhava madhya" of 10th house or the mid point of 10th house is same as the degree of MC/midheaven.
Trisect this distance between 1st house mid & 10th house mid in order to get the mid-points of 11th & 12th house too.

Trisect the mid point of 1st house & the mid point to 4th house (IC) in order to get the mid points of 2nd &
3rd house too. Similarly get the mid points of all the 12 houses.

The Bhava Sandhi between 1st & 2nd house is the mid-point between Bhava-madhya of the 1st house & mid-point of the 2nd house. Find out all Bhava-Sandhis this way.

4. Niryan Bhava Chalit:

This is same as Placidus house division method used in western astrology. I have seen this method mentioned
in the books of BV Raman, Shakuntala devi & Krishnamurty too. Probably BV Raman introduced it into Indian astrology first. Popular western web sites like astro.com, astrotheme.com, cafeastrology.com etc. use this method.

It is a complicated method & it trisects the distance between 1st house cusp & 10th house cusp (MC) in a
complicated way. It trisects the distance between 1st house & 4th house(IC) in a complicated way.
Thus 12 houses are obtained in this method. Now starting of 1st house is same as 1st house cusp here. Same
applies to all the 12 houses. 

I have seen Gayatri Devi , the daughter of BV Raman & BV Raman both using Lagna as well as Sripati Bhava Chart.
KP followers use Niryan Bhava Chalit chart.

Although I respect all these methods but personally I find Lagana Chart(D1) & Bhava Chakra as mentioned in no. 2 very useful. These are simple charts requiring not much of botheration to the head. I have seen that they work wonderfully in Dasas. Bhava Sripati Chart, I would rate it number 3rd.   

In Phaldeepika, Jataka Parijat etc. its written that planets on Bhava Sandhi & Rasi Sandhi, give bad results.
But I don't see the practical use of this concept. In fact many good charts have planets on Bhava Sandhi &
Rasi Sandhi. So one may simply ignore these concepts or make less use of it.

Planets on Bhava Sandhi may effect the Bhava less than planets on Bhava-Mid. This is an unfailing observation. But I refuse to consider the planets on Bhava Sandhi bad. In fact they have many times
important role in the chart. e,g in Modi's chart Venus is at the end of Bhava of 10th. But it is in almost
middle of Leo (15:41:56.61). So it might have good effect. It is 7th lord in 10th house & vargottam.
Hence it is very good for his career.