Bhava Karaka

Definition

A bhava karaka is the natural significator of a house — a planet that has a deep natural affinity for many of the matters that house governs, working alongside the house's ruler rather than being it. Children belong to both Jupiter and the fifth house, so Jupiter is the bhava karaka of the fifth. The father belongs to both the ninth house and the Sun, so the Sun is the ninth house's significator. One house can have a primary karaka and secondary ones as well.

In Tradition

These modern writers agree that what a house delivers is shaped by two things at once — the house (or its ruler) and its karaka — so how strongly a matter shows up depends on both. deFouw and Svoboda say each house's meanings are principally influenced by its ruler and its karaka. Cole holds that the strength of a signification rests on both the house and its karaka, so a weak karaka leaves the house unable to reach full strength.

In Practice

A jyotishi (Vedic astrologer) reads a house's affairs by weighing the house, its lord, its occupants and its karaka together. Raman puts the karaka among the first things to check before judging the tenth bhava — alongside the relevant yogas and the Navamsa (the ninth-harmonic divisional chart) — as the planetary indicator that rounds out the lord and occupants when reading career. Cole assigns several karakas to a single house: the fourth carries the Moon for mother, Mars for property, Ketu for houses and Venus for vehicles; the tenth carries Mercury for skills, Saturn for hard work, Jupiter for the fruits of work and the Sun for the respect of one's position; the seventh carries Jupiter for husband and Venus for wife. In Cole's handling of the vargas (divisional charts), each chart is also read from a karaka-bhava — the significator house from which that varga's other houses are counted.

Historical Origin

These statements come from modern English textbooks of Vedic astrology: Frawley's The Astrology of the Seers, Raman and Vasudev's How to Judge a Horoscope, deFouw and Svoboda's Light on Life, and Cole's Science of Light, which cites the Kāraka-Adhyāya of the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. The bundle supplies no verbatim classical quotations.

Further Reading

• Frawley, The Astrology of the Seers
• B.V. Raman & Gayatri Devi Vasudev, How to Judge a Horoscope, Volume Two
• deFouw & Svoboda, Light on Life: An Introduction to the Astrology of India
• Cole, Science of Light, Vol. I
• cited by Cole, Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, Kāraka-Adhyāya v.34