What is MidBhav? and its Importance?

[RahuVsKetu]

Hey guys,
In Chalit Table & Chart, we have BhavBegin and MidBhav. I do understand that BhavBegin means degrees where a Bhav (house) starts. And By MidBhav means the Middle of the house? is it correct?
And another question is, what is the importance of MidBhav? does a transit planet, on reaching MidBhav shows it full power/ potential?

thanks

[Rohiniranjan]

Hey guys,
In Chalit Table & Chart, we have BhavBegin and MidBhav. I do understand that BhavBegin means degrees where a Bhav (house) starts. And By MidBhav means the Middle of the house? is it correct?
And another question is, what is the importance of MidBhav? does a transit planet, on reaching MidBhav shows it full power/ potential?

thanks

In traditional jyotish, as far as I know only whole sign as a house or equal house systems were used; some claim that the latter was a later addition. Whole house takes 15deg of each sign as bhav-mid of each house, regardless of whether lagna or ascending degree (zodiacal degree rising at the time of birth) was in early or late part of the sign.

In equal house system, each house is still 30 degrees wide, but the ascending degree is placed in the middle of each house. So if 19d aries is rising, the first house will extend from aries 4d to Taurus 4d.

A further mathematical refinement or sripati house division takes latitude or place of birth (trisecting the cusp on horizon and mid-heaven (tenth) and extrapolating the remaining houses based on the slices. In this system houses will wildly vary, the higher in latitude we go, so an infant born in Chennai would have very different house configurations (with identical placement of planets) from an infant born in London or Stockholm. Sripati system is identical to Porphyrii house system used in tropical astrology long time ago.

When KP was introduced, Krishnamurthy chose to go with western house systems and utilized Placidian house system which is pretty popular in western astrology. Like tropical astrologers, Krishnamurthy also decided to begin the house at the cusp, unlike indian astrologers who placed/place the cusp in the middle. Krishnamurthy in concordance with tropicalists went with the cusp at the beginning.

There is a thread here where Vinay Jha has delved a bit more in the matter of western vs eastern house systems and their possible origins etc. Please do a search.

In practice, most jyotishis I have known or heard about or from use the whole sign or equal/sripati houses. There can be differences between equal house and sripati placements too in many charts, so please be aware of that.

Choudhury (System's approach) maintains that planets give effects only when they are close to the cusps getting weaker and weaker near the junctions or sandhis.

There is another thread in this forum where the use of cusp as the bhavarambha (beginning of houses instead of house-mid) was reported to be better. No conclusions were reached as is usually the case with internet discussions. Five fall this way, five fall that way and the question remains standing!

Love and Light,

Rohiniranjan

Addendum: One thing that I would like to add is something Rishirahul (Rishi, if you are tuned-in and I am misquoting you, please do not hesitate to correct my recollection) once mentioned was that rashi is the result and chalita is the experiences. I had heard similar earlier from another jyotishi long ago who used to see efforts made by a nativity from bhava-chalita (he used equal house system) and the outcome from the rasi chart. That concept stayed with me and I figured it out (or justified) in this way. In Jyotish there is something called chesta-bal (in shadbal) and it depends on progression and retrogression as well as a few other things. In chalita vs rasi, something similar conceptually takes place. Planets either move ahead or backwards with reference to their rasi positions. So, not to take this literally, namely, that efforts are wasted when planets move to the previous house and vice versa when they move ahead -- although that would have been pretty neat and handy, and to some extent very well might, but the very concept of efforts applied to the shift might have some merit. On a degree-wise basis, the aspects do begin to have more prominent influence and applicability if the planet that is shifting its houses in chalit is closely aspected by a planet, such as Saturn will slow down the efforts, mars and moon making it faster (if the aspecting planets are strong etc) and so on.

[RahuVsKetu]

thanks :D

[Rohiniranjan]

thanks :D

Your are very welcome. I have added a note to earlier message if you wish to read that as well.

Rohiniranjan