Jarbakht (Distributor)

jar-BAKHT

persian: جاربخت (Jarbakht)

Definition

The jarbakhtar is the time-lord — the planet in charge of a stretch of life — that rules the bound a directed point is currently passing through. A bound (or term) is a small subdivision of a sign. The directed point is usually the hīlāj, the releaser, moved forward by primary direction (tasyīr). While it stays in that bound, the jarbakhtar colors those years with its own nature, dignity, and aspects; at the next bound a new jarbakhtar takes over. The Persian jān-bakhtār (Arabic جاربختار, sometimes Janbakhtar) means "soul-distributor" or "life-allotter."

In Tradition

In Arabic-Persian astrology the jarbakhtar is the leading time-lord for whatever period of life-direction you are reading. Masha'allah (On Nativities Book III.12), 'Umar al-Tabari, and Abu 'Ali al-Khayyāt all use it as the chronocrator paired with the hīlāj. Dykes's Persian Nativities Vol I gloss treats it as the "protected" Lord of the Year (sālkhudāy), distinct from the kadhkhudhāh — the bound-lord at the hīlāj's birth degree, which supplies the planetary years for length of life.

In Practice

Once you have found the hīlāj by the standard sect-and-placement cascade and directed it forward through the zodiac at one degree of right ascension per solar year of life, you note the bounds it crosses — usually the Egyptian or Ptolemaic sets. The lord of each bound becomes the jarbakhtar for the years the direction takes to cross it. That planet's condition at birth — its sign, house, essential and accidental dignity, aspects to other planets, and whether its dispositors receive it — colors the years it governs. A well-dignified benefic jarbakhtar yields favorable years; a malefic in detriment yields hard ones; a planet welcomed by its dispositor through reception softens the trouble. Masha'allah III.12.6 shows the jarbakhtar in a synastry reading: when the distributor of the year is corrupted and falls in the partner's eastern angle by the annual cycle, "your benevolence will grow cold and be turned into hatred."

Historical Origin

The jarbakhtar is attested across the Pahlavi-Arabic astrological corpus. Masha'allah's On Nativities (8th-9th century, transmitted into medieval Latin by Hugo of Santalla and the anonymous translator of BN lat. 16204) treats it in Book III.12. Persian Nativities Vol I-II — Dykes's edition of 'Umar al-Tabari, Abu Bakr, and Masha'allah, from Arabic public-domain originals — preserves the doctrine in full. Dorotheus's Carmen Astrologicum (1st-century-CE Greek, surviving in Pahlavi and Arabic, public domain) is the underlying source for the bound-based primary-direction technique the jarbakhtar interprets.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading