Last Updated on August 13, 2024 by Tejaswini

In this post I have written on the equal house system in Jyotish which is advisable for beginners. We can use equal houses to get generally accurate results if the birth is within the tropics, the error will be marginal.

And this post I have briefly discussed the unequal house system which is the ideal system discussed in the BPHS. You have to compulsorily use it if the birth is beyond the tropics.

The signs are called rashi (each is exactly 30deg in width) and the houses (have variable widths) are called bhav. Both are different concepts. The path of the planets as projected from the equator (rashi chakra) and the path of the planets as projected from the place/time of the birth (bhav chakra) is very different. As you move away from the equator towards the poles, some of the houses/ bhav get stretched and some get compressed depending on the time/ Kaal and place/ Desh of birth.

In the equal house system, we assume that all the houses/Bhava are of the same length, ie uniformly 30deg in extent. But this assumption is incorrect. Equal houses in the chart are possible only for those places which lie between the tropics and only for that day when the length of the day and the night at that specific place is exactly equal. For the rare someone born on such a day in such a place, all the houses in his chart will be exactly 30deg in extent. For the rest of us, the BPHS unequal house system gives precise predictions.

In a chart there are several types of malefic influences. ‘Saumya’ and ‘kroor’ in Sanskrit means ‘gentle’ and ‘cruel’, and not ‘benefic’ and ‘malefic’. Eg kroor graha Saturn is the best benefic for Taurus ascendant or saumya graha Jupiter works as a malefic for Cancer ascendant. Always remember that the malefics active in a horoscope depend on the ascendant and other special conditions which are chart specific. You need to know these T&C before you consider a planet as malefic/ benefic for the chart.

Some examples of malefic influences are,

• The signs and lords of the Dushamsthan the 6^th house, 8^th house and 12^th house are always malefic. But there is one notable exception to this, for the ascendants ruled by Venus or Mars, either 6^th or 8^th house will not act as a malefic as the ascendant himself will own it.
• The signs and lords of the 3^rd house and 11^th house will act as malefics to some extent.
• The Badhak signs and lords are always going to hinder.
• The Kendradhipati dosh is problematic, specific for the ascendants owned by Jupiter and Mercury but applicable only in certain conditions.
• The debilitated planets can turn malefic and especially in their dasha/typical transits.
• Planets caught in paap-kartari are expected to give unpleasant results.

I have discussed all these and more in my posts (index page).

But there is one category of malefic signs /planets which I have not yet mentioned because these depend on an understanding of the unequal house system described in the BPHS. I have written a small post on this system, thus now writing on Bhavheen planets and signs.

Bhavheen, ‘without a house’ planets and signs are class one malefics in a chart.

Refer to our sample chart, Aleister Crowley, 12th Oct 1875, 11: 42pm, Leamington Spa, Britain, (discussed in detail in this post here).

Bhavheen signs

By a rough approximation, about 20 % of the people who are born beyond the tropics will have at least one bhavheen sign in their birth charts.

In the sample chart, the signs, Libra and Aries do not own any house in the horoscope and are bhavheen rashi. Libra is located in the 4^th and 5^th houses and Aries is located in the 10^th and 11^th houses but neither of these owns the center of the house/ bhavmadhya and thus do not rule any house. Some interpretations,

• The keywords of the bhavheen signs are imbalanced. Any action taken under the influence of these signs will ultimately cause trouble for the personality.
• The houses in which parts of the bhavheen signs are located should also be critically examined as they can easily become sources of turmoil.
• These signs will give typical inauspicious results in their dasha periods (when you use the Dasha systems based on the signs).
• Any planet placed in bhavheen signs must be critically examined. They will give inauspicious results in their dasha/ typical transits. In our sample chart, Aries does not have any planet in it but 3 planets are placed in Libra – Venus, Jupiter and Mercury. These three planets will cause trouble for the personality. Or the actions taken under their influence will not give much benefit. The person is unable to manage the significations related to these properly, is often criticised on topics related to these etc.

Bhavheen planets.

In our example, Venus and Mars own one house each, they are Bhavesh for at least one house of the chart, so they are not bhavheen. In this sample chart, no planet is bhavheen.

• But Mars and Venus too must be evaluated critically as they own only 1 house each in the chart. Ideally they should have ruled over two houses as they are the rulers of two signs. But now their influence on the personality shows imbalance. Mars’s power is now doubled in the one house he owns ie the 5^th ruled by Scorpio. And Venus’s power is doubled in the one house he owns, ie the 11^th house ruled by Taurus.
• In this chart, Mars is the Yogkarak, he is exalted and giving all his considerable power into Scorpio, the 5^th house. If you read about this person, he had very significant occult powers, was courageous, took, risks, took addictive substances in efforts to access other energise, was known to use entities in his work, had multiple partners etc. All this is indicative of a highly active Scorpio.
• For Cancer ascendant, the 11^th house is the badhak house, Taurus is the badhak sign and now Venus the badhak lord has double the power to influence Crowley through this house. If you read about his life, he was constantly hindered by one thing or the other. The house of gains failed in his life and this is one of the major reasons.

But you will find several charts where a planet does not own even one house, ie he is ‘without a house’. In a rough approximation, about 10% of the birth charts beyond the tropics will have at least one planet who does not rule a house. Again these planets will become the class one malefics for the horoscope and need to be analysed properly.

• The five Tara graha, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn own two signs each. So there is a reasonable chance that at least one of their signs will fall in the Bhavmadhya/ centre of the house and become ruler of some house or the other. If they rule only one house instead of the expected two then they may become imbalanced. The probability that the Tara graha will become completely bhavheen is relatively lower.
• But the Sun and the Moon own only one sign each, Leo and Cancer. And there is a higher chance that this one sign will not fall in the center of any house in the chart and become bhavheen rashi. And then the Moon or the Sun will also become ‘without a house’. For births beyond the tropics there is a significant chance that either the Sun or the Moon or both are ‘without a house’ and are class one malefics for the chart.

Sun and Moon are the two luminaries, one is responsible for the individual soul/jivatma and the other for the Mind/manas.

If in a chart if either Leo – Sun and/or Cancer – Moon become bhavheen then the personality can get very flawed as their significations have no anchor in the chart. Often the person continually suffers because of these keywords in life. Cancer, Leo, Sun and Moon are very important forces in the chart and if these turn malefic then they have a huge scope for creating turmoil in life. The trouble created by a Bhavheen Sun or Moon deeply affects the entire personality.

• The Sun is your individual self, the jivatma, the limited ego. He is all those things which you feel that you are entitled to and the actions that you will take to achieve these things.
• The Moon is your mother, homeland, traditional knowledge, culture, Sanskars, your patriotism, linkage to the home, loyalty etc. Most importantly he is your needs and indicates how you fulfil them.

In case your birth is beyond the tropics then you should calculate your chart as per the unequal house system as given in the BPHS. If any sign or planet is going bhavheen then you should take corrective measures. And as usual as per the BPHS, there are only two remedies, Mantra and Daana.

For Bharat, the Tropic of Cancer divides the land into nearly equal parts and extends from Gujarat to Mizoram. Major cities near the tropic are Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Ranchi, Aizawl, Agartala etc. If your birth is in South India, then you do not have to bother about the unequal houses. The error will be negligible. But if your birth is to the north of the Tropic of Cancer then the unequal house system will give you the best results.

I am from Dakshin Bharat and just like the rest of us, as a child, I never studied the BPHS unequal system. I would just shift the houses if the ascendant degree was at the very edges and think that this was ‘Bhavchalit’. When I was in my early 20s, one of my schoolmates asked me some questions. And he was born in Jammu. I used the equal houses but his life-history would not tally with the generated data. So I did some research, with the Shripati system and then to my surprise saw that some translations of BPHS clearly mention the unequal house system. 

Most astrologers do not know how to calculate unequal houses, in fact are not aware that the BPHS talks about unequal houses. And as far as I know there is no software for this.