Last Updated on March 19, 2023 by astrologerbydefault

Sometimes in life, you get assignments which make you feel that death would be better than what you are being made to do. Well, the planets also feel like this sometimes! If they are placed in their ‘maran karak sthan’, they are required to work in ways completely against their fundamental natures. This is different from debilitation of the planets, debilitated conditions are as per the characteristics of the signs and the planets. Maran karak sthan is based on the logic of the houses and the nature of the planets.

When a planet is placed in its ‘death zone house’, its vitality gets reduced and it feels suffocated, it wishes it could rather die that continue in this house! Its extreme discomfort will then adversely affect its ability to give results,

• affect this house that it is in,
• affect the houses that it aspects,
• also the houses in which its signs are placed,
• and all the things that it stands for naturally (natural karak).

Saturn (1st house) is most uncomfortable in the first house, unless it happens to be Libra where he manages to somehow pull on (is exalted here and also its Yogkarak). Planets which perform well in the 1st house are the vigorous energetic outgoing planets like the Sun and Mars. Health, beauty, energy, vitality, speed, spirituality, confidence, authority and action. Now Saturn is not much of these things! He is slow, slowest! Constricted, restricted, dour, low on enthusiasm, aged, loaded with work, under strict discipline, no personal ego, no distinct personality, work and more work. Sun is King, Mars is the Warrior and Saturn is the Servant!

In the zodiac signs too, Saturn is debilitated in the first house Aries, owned by Mars and the Sun gets exalted here. In the first house thus, Saturn cannot stand the outgoing spirit, enthusiasm and fire and goes into Maran avastha (death state).

Jupiter (3rd House) – The natural ruler of the 3rd house is Mercury and the natural agent/karak is Mars. If Jupiter is placed in 3rd house, he gives less than optimal results.

The 3rd house has the potential to become the worst house of the horoscope as it is linked to the desires of the dual mind. All forms of duality are welcomed here and converted into desires, these desires then work their way through the horoscope (Kama trikon) and are finally achieved in the 11th house, the house of gains. A philosophic graha like Jupiter feels drowned in duality and desires which are repugnant to his basic nature. Jupiter is the karmic mirror of the chatty, juvenile, number-crunching Mercury (but then who likes the reflection seen in the mirror? Jupiter is no different!) He feels out of place in the environment of the 3rd house. This is the house of courage/ Parakram, so connected to Mars. The natures of Jupiter and Mars are completely opposite can been seen from the fact that Jupiter is debilitated in Capricorn and exalted in Cancer, the exact opposite of Mars.

Brotherhood and college gangs, Mars and Mercury. Jupiter is the benevolent planet of expansion, humanitarian views, abstract philosophies and wisdom. When such a planet has to live in the house of boldness, he feels uncomfortable with the violence of Mars and the immaturity of Mercury and reaches his ‘death state’.

Doing some Jupiter related activities in the right context may help re-balance his state, e.g you can offer to teach some poor children in your free time, or write on philosophical subjects.

Mercury (4th house): Natural karaka/determinator of the 4th house is the Moon, the 4th house deals with emotions and happiness. Mercury is ‘analysis’ and logic, in every way possible. Emotions have very little to do with logic and likewise. So he feels rather lost here. The 4th also symbolizes ‘needy love’, and Mercury loves being the brash adolescent. Your kid, when he suddenly becomes a teenager, won’t like being cuddled or smothered with maternal love. Something of this sort happens to Mercury in the 4th house. Tell your teenager to sit at home and not go out with his friends/siblings and see what happens! And the other aspect of the 4th house is to provide security and emotional comfort, an immature Mercury is unable to fit in this role either, nurturing is not his thing. Looking after the house, lands, properties is a grown-up’s job.

The 4th house also represents the sum of your astral, sub-conscious, dream, other-dimensional self. This is a very huge ‘database’. Moon is the father of Mercury. He allots just that much information to his son, which he can use and analyse productively. But when Mercury is in 4th he has access to this ultra-humongous database and he starts his number-crunching and database analysis, and then drowns in the data and the analysis. And then our teenager again directly in his father’s control! No wonder Mercury feels death is better than a sojourn in the 4th house.

You can try helping your mother, write up her household accounts. Or learn a skill related to house-keeping, maybe interior designing as a hobby?

Venus (6th house): Natural karak of 6th house is Mars and its natural owner is Mercury. The 6th house is one of the dushamsthana, the houses of turmoil. This is the house of celibacy, aloneness, debts, disease, enemies and karmic servitude. Here all relationships breakdown, all fairness is lost and all partnerships are dissolved. It is just you and the karma you have chosen to resolve in this life. The worst relationship possible.

Venus is debilitated in Virgo. On the material levels Virgo is the eternal virgin young woman and Venus is the agent of relationships and the pleasures from it. Both concepts are contradictory.

On the spiritual level, Venus tries to take you to your most fulfilling relationship which is the relationship you have with your own self, this is liberation in the truest sense. But in the 6th he is forced to oversee bindings on the soul. Everything that weighs you down is the domain of the 6th. Rather than working on your truest relationship with yourself, you are made to work hard and serve others! No wonder Venus, in 6th, goes into the Maran Avastha/’death state’.

If you have time and are so inclined, maybe you can help out as a counsellor to people suffering from conflicts, or help out in old age homes and orphanages.

Mars (7th house): 7th house is equality, marriage, partnerships, fairness, business, legality. Mars is the warrior, challenger, pioneer, fighter, the ‘first’, champion, swords and blood. In the 7th, he will bring in his excessive energy, aggression, loss of temper and war. All the things that are controlled by the 7th or related to the 7th house will eventually suffer with Mars in control. Also the things that Mars stands for in your chart will suffer.

If your partner thinks the same as you do, you can try competing with her/him, video games to jogging as you prefer. Then again, the gym is always an option.

Moon (8th house): Moon placed here is in Maran Karak Sthan (Death Zone). From the sign point of view too, Moon is debilitated in Scorpio, the 8th natural sign. Moon in the 8th is not considered auspicious. Moon is the nurture that creates the body and the mind both. This Moon in the house of death adversely affects the mind/body. There is little maternal love, nurture, emotional anchors, mental comforts in such horoscopes. He is the lens of perception in the house of catastrophic transformations!

In the spiritual sense, Moon is the reflection of Mahamaya, the illusion that is Creation. So when he is placed in the house of death he realises sub-consciously that the Reality is different from the Illusion he represents, thus goes into his ‘death state’.

For such a placement, some deep spiritual practice where you manipulate your vital energies, e.g Dhyan or the physical Hatha yog type of practices would help.

Sun (12th house): Natural ruler of the 12th house is Jupiter and it signifies losses of the physical manifested. Loss of consciousness, loss of ego, loss of the body, loss of everything that the personality and losses of everything that houses 1 to 11 signify. The 12th house signifies sleep, loss of health, astral travel, sensual pleasures, the diffused other dimensions, the dream and the other states and is the ‘creative’ part of the Moksh trikon. Sun is individuality, personal ego, the individual soul, creation, individual personality, sharpness, radiance, good health of the mind/soul. When he is asked to contribute to the 12th house, it goes against his fundamental nature. He becomes very uneasy and this affects his role in the horoscope. Hence 12th house is the death zone i.e. Maran Karak Sthan for Sun.

The luminaries, Sun and the Moon are responsible for creation and consciousness. Now when the Sun is placed in the 12th houses (or to a lesser degree if in the 4th or 8th) there exists a deep unrest in the soul. The soul realises that ‘creation’ is an Illusion, that it, itself is not Reality, it is bound to dissolve ultimately so that the actual Reality can be experienced. This causes deep spiritual discomfort, unless you can use these energies for your spiritual growth. For such a placement again, deep mediation is a way out.

Planets placed in the houses completely antithetical to their nature, get uncomfortable, feel like death/Maran avastha, and do not give good results on the material front. However what is bad for the material is good for the spiritual. So if you have such Maran sthan placements in your chart, do think. Analyse your life, you might see some events which have adversely affected you. But then every event happens for a reason. Ultimately everyone’s goal is spiritual advancement. If you can consciously work with your horoscope, you can make use of every placement in a positive way.