Saptamsa

sanskrit: सप्तांश (Saptāṁśa)

Definition

The Saptamsa (सप्तांश, Saptāṁśa) is the seventh divisional chart — the D-7 — that Jyotish reads for children and progeny. You form it by splitting each sign into seven equal parts of 4°17'08.5"; Behari notes the last part is given an extra degree to round the sign off. Charak gives the counting rule: in odd signs the seven parts run in order from the sign itself, while in even signs the first part belongs to the seventh sign from it, the rest following on.

In Tradition

Across the Jyotish texts gathered here, the D-7 is treated as the divisional chart for children and progeny — the one a jyotishi (the astrologer) turns to when judging childbirth, the nature of one's children, and the continuity of a family line.

In Practice

You read the D-7 to judge children and progeny. Cole uses it to see the individual nature of one's children and to determine the sex of a child, and takes its kaaraka bhaava — its significator house — as the fifth, with Jupiter as the kaaraka (significator) planet and the Moon as crucial for sustaining a pregnancy; he adds that it can also point to creative endeavors and certain instinctual lusts. Charak extends the chart's use to grandchildren. Rao reads the parents' Saptamsa charts to judge danger periods for a child — for instance a mother's Moon in the second house and Rahu (the Moon's north node) in the eighth of her own Saptamsa — and says his research on children only holds when the Saptamsa is cast with the Chitra-paksha ayanamsha (a sidereal-zodiac offset). Behari notes the D-7 feeds the Saptavarga, the sevenfold strength reckoned as important as the Shadavarga, the sixfold strength.

Historical Origin

These accounts are all modern textbook treatments: Charak's Elements of Vedic Astrology (Vols 1 & 2, Fourth Edition), Behari's Fundamentals of Vedic Astrology, Cole's Science of Light (Volume I, Fourth Edition 2020), and Rao's Astrology, Destiny and the Wheel of Time. No verbatim classical quotation is supplied in this material.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading