Bhava

Definition

A bhava is a house — one of the twelve divisions of the horoscope, each governing a distinct area of life. You reckon the bhavas from the lagna (the ascendant): the rising sign becomes the first house, and each house follows in order around the zodiac. In Sanskrit, bhava also means a state of being or existence. Where the signs are fixed, the houses are the changing, chart-dependent division of the sky you read them against — each house stays put while the signs move through it as the earth turns.

In Tradition

Across the classical and modern Jyotish literature, the bhava is the primary life-area frame through which a planet's placement is read and judged: each of the twelve houses marks out one department of life, and a graha (planet) is interpreted by the bhava it sits in. The Brihat Jataka holds that a planet promotes or reduces the bhava it occupies according to whether it is benefic or malefic — with the 6th, 8th and 12th houses reversing that rule.

In Practice

A jyotishi (Vedic astrologer) reads each bhava as the seat of a defined set of life results, and judges it through the planets sitting in it or influencing it — weighing each graha's benefic or malefic strength to read the favourable or unfavourable outcome for that house (Rayudu; Bhatia; Bhagat). Taken from the lagna, the twelve bhavas signify in turn the body, family, brothers, sons, enemies, wife, death, virtue, avocation, and gain and loss (Brihat Jataka). Because the bhava sectors start from the lagna rather than from the zodiac's start, a planet posted in a given rasi (sign) can fall into a neighbouring bhava on the bhava chart, so Murthy cautions that house interpretation needs care. Prasna Marga gives every bhava a paired external (concrete) and internal (abstract) signification, a house tied to its own lord yielding its internal attribute.

Historical Origin

The concept is attested in the classical Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira (Ch.XX), which gives the results of each planet in each of the twelve bhavas, and in Prasna Marga (Part I Ch.XIV, trans. Raman). It is elaborated across the modern Jyotish literature by writers such as Frawley, Levacy, Kannan, Behari, Raman, Rayudu, Bhatia, deFouw and Svoboda, Murthy, Cole, Bhagat and Narasimha Rao.

Further Reading

• Varahamihira, Brihat Jataka
• Raman, Prasna Marga
• Raman, Bhavartha Ratnakara
• Frawley, Astrology of the Seers
• Levacy, Beneath a Vedic Sky
• Kannan, Fundamentals of Hindu Astrology
• Behari, Fundamentals of Vedic Astrology
• Raman, Hindu Predictive Astrology
• Rayudu, How to Read a Horoscope
• Bhatia, Microscopy of Astrology
• Raman, Notable Horoscopes
• Murthy, Phala Jyoutisha (Interpretative Astrology)
• deFouw and Svoboda, Light on Life
• Cole, Science of Light, Volume I
• Bhagat, Sure Shot of Vedic Astrology
• Behari, Vedic Astrologer's Handbook Vol II
• Narasimha Rao, Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach