The Moon's Ashtakavarga: the 49-bindu table and how to check it

Definition

Ashtakavarga (literally a group of eights) scores each sign from eight reference points: the seven planets and the ascendant. In the Moon's Ashtakavarga, each reference point gives a bindu (a point) to certain houses counted from the sign it occupies in the birth chart. Each sign ends up with between 0 and 8 bindus.

The table

Houses that receive a bindu, counted from each reference point (BPHS chapter 66; B. V. Raman, Hindu Predictive Astrology): from the Sun 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11; from the Moon 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11; from Mars 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11; from Mercury 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11; from Jupiter 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12; from Venus 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11; from Saturn 3, 5, 6, 11; from the ascendant 3, 6, 10, 11.

Worked example

Suppose the Moon is in Taurus at birth. Counting Taurus as 1, the Moon's own row gives bindus to houses 1, 3, 6, 7, 10 and 11: Taurus, Cancer, Libra, Scorpio, Aquarius and Pisces. The other seven rows are counted the same way from where each planet and the ascendant stand. A sign's bindus are the number of rows that reach it.

A check anyone can do

Count each row: Sun 6, Moon 6, Mars 7, Mercury 8, Jupiter 7, Venus 7, Saturn 4, ascendant 4. Every reference point gives all its bindus somewhere, so the 12 signs always total 49, whatever the chart.

That gives two checks on any published or programmed table: the grand total of 49, and the row counts. The second matters. At least one open-source implementation (PyJHora 4.8.7) puts the 9th-house bindu in the Moon's row instead of Mars's. The total is still 49, so the first check can't catch it, but the rows then count 7 for the Moon and 6 for Mars, against 6 and 7 in BPHS and Raman. Jyotishya follows BPHS and Raman, and its tests check both counts.

How the bindus are read

Phaladeepika (26.41) says a planet passing through signs with more bindus gives better results, and gives no number. The common modern reading treats more than 4 bindus as favouring the transit and fewer than 4 as weakening it. That threshold is a modern convention, not a classical rule.

How Jyotishya uses it

Each day's Why? ends with a reference line giving the number of bindus, out of 8, in the sign the Moon is passing through, counted from your birth chart. It is labelled as not part of the score, and it never changes a rating.