THE ARTHA HOUSES – 2, 6, 10
WRITTEN BY RICHARD FIDLER
Jyotish, or Vedic Astrology, divides the twelve houses (or ‘bhavas‘) of the horoscope into four groups, each associated with one of the ‘puruṣārthas‘, or the Four Aims of Life.
Dharma (righteousness, morality) – 1st, 5th, 9th
Artha (wealth, material resources) – 2nd, 6th,10th
Kama (desires) – 3rd, 7th, 11th
Moksha (final liberation) – 4th, 8th, 12th
The idea that there are four aims of life is not specifically an astrological notion. It’s a basic tenet of Hindu or Vedic philosophy. This astrological correspondence is in fact an example of the close knit integration and ease of communication between Jyotish and other branches of Indian religion, culture and learning. It is similar, for example, with Jyotish and Ayurveda.
Artha, or ‘wealth’, is the material resources we need to support our incarnated experience of life. Simple and clear. This idea is very close to what western astrologers would see in the ‘Earth Houses’; these houses do indeed relate to practical aspects of life.
When Artha is viewed through the prism of the Four Aims of Life, it helps give a clearer perspective to what ‘wealth’ is when viewed in the context of the other aims of life. It is clear that we need stuff, but we aren’t stuff, and have other business here too. It puts materialism in its place.
The 2nd House represents both food and money or material possessions in Jyotish. Food is in fact the most fundamental material need we have, the most basic material support we require, and we typically meet this need with money.
In Jyotish the 2nd House is further associated with ‘family life’. One could, or should perhaps rather call it ‘household’. Your immediate social support. The people who not only break bread with you, but also nurture and protect you in other ways as part of your innermost circle. It could be argued that to eat bad food, and to lack household nurture, is a brand of ultimately material poverty.
The 2nd House is ‘speech’; your style of speaking, whether generally truthful or not, and, you know, ‘your word is your wand‘. The 2nd House is by extension also associated with listening, memory and learning; you ‘bank’ and store a greater wealth of information if you have a good retentive memory.
Understanding and managing your 2nd house Artha is more holistic than eyeing the numbers on your bank account.
The 6th house, being the house of work and service, and by extension servants or employees, is where we earn our daily bread through the rigours of developing and applying useful skills. Our work needs to meet a certain standard to be of any use. It’s exacting. It is practical apprenticeship, compared to the honour and worldly authority of the 10th house. The 6th house can get you down if you don’t like being dynamic and efficient and can’t make yourself useful. Everyone sooner or later has to earn their keep.
There is an element of struggle in the 6th house, to a greater degree than with either of the other two Artha houses. Illness, accidents and enemies may here threaten our fortress. We have to meet these contingencies with fortitude, vigour, commitment and skill. The sterner malefic planets, in fact, yield useful results in the 6th house – wilting wallflowers and shrinking violets need not apply! Benefics struggle here, at least for at time, but ultimately improve due to the 6th house instinct for fixing and adjusting.
If you can manage crisis, and get the dirty work done, and conquer or subdue your enemies, and be ‘early to bed and early to rise’, you safeguard your kingdom and your Artha remains secured.
The 10th house is in a sense the highest or consummate expression of Artha. The ‘Arthashastra‘, an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, is essentially a handbook for those who attain to a full embodiment or mastery of what the 10th house represents: Political power, fame and social influence that can impact the lives of many. A brief perusal of this old tome of practical wisdom reminds one of how well one needs to know the world, society, and people, to manage Artha at that exalted level. You have to build bridges, wage war, wage diplomacy, uncover intrigue and conquer hidden enemies, grow the treasury. It’s a full time job, and I can well believe that it might in a civilized society eventually come with a manual.
If we are not at the very pinnacle of worldly power and influence, the 10th house will represent those who stand above us in the social hierarchy, and upon whose goodwill our Artha may substantially depend; the elders and authorities of our social organization. Our 10th house Artha represents the respect, recognition and honor we can gain as a ‘citizen in good standing with the state’. This good standing is achieved, at it’s most basic level, by diligent execution of duty, obeying the rules, and making yourself somewhat useful to society. This earns you a certain amount of protection and rights within ‘the kingdom’.
At a higher level you have a career that requires harder work, or greater skill, something fairly specialized, important and respected socially, and therefore as a doctor, lawyer, judge or military general, for example, your status ensures that you will enjoy a level of preferential treatment.
If we are able to rise head and shoulders above others through our ambition, self mastery and effort, and successfully undertake great works for the benefit of many, we are recognized, if not celebrated far and wide. If 10th House Artha is mastered, then, inasmuch as it is the highest of the artha houses, we as a matter of course tend to eat fine foods, our words are edicts or become public discourse, and we are spared much 6th house type subservience, rigor and dirty work. This would strictly speaking only really be possible, in it’s fullest expression, if all three artha houses are strong, but a strong 10th house can do a lot to ameliorate deficiencies in the 2nd and 6th houses.
MUHAMMAD ALI , someone who rose to tremendous heights of fame and influence through his career achievements, has Mars in the 10th house in Aries in his Jyotish chart. His 10th house is enormously bolstered by this fact alone, and indeed, as Mars would have it, he was famous as a fighter.
In Muhammad Ali’s chart Mars is lord of the 5th in the 10th which, adding a further layer of ‘luck’ and ‘authentic self-individuation’ to what his strong Mars in the 10th indicates. For every Cancer Ascendant Mars is the ‘Raja Yoga Karaka‘, or ‘kingly power significator’, and thus a temporary benefic, due to it’s lordship of one Angular and one Dharma house (or Kona).
In short, Ali’s Artha was tremendously bolstered by his strong 10th house, even though Rahu in the 2nd House (‘bad mouthing’, household disruptions), and Saturn’s debilitation in the 10th house (problems with authorities), may have blighted his overall Artha package slightly.
Leonardo da Vinci has, in his Jyotish chart, an exalted Sun in Aries in the 6th house, as lord of the 10th house (which already says a whole lot about him). Both the 6th and 10th benefit so far. The lord of the 6th house is exalted Mars in Capricorn in the 3rd house.
Jupiter, lord of the 2nd house, is comfortable enough in the 4th house, and is Conjunct 9th house lord Moon. The Moon and Jupiter, as two natural and temporal benefics (being lords of the 9th and 5th respectively), aspect the unoccupied 10th house with beneficial influence, supporting his social prestige and status.
Leonardo da Vinci was a meticulous, but also a bold and pioneering worker. He believed in his own practical ability, and he gained opportunities to demonstrate it:
‘In 1482, he earned the attention of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, when he wrote that he could build portable bridges and bombardments, make cannons and other war machines of the day, build ships, and sculpt using a variety of materials. In the Duke’s service, he became a principal engineer and architect for many of the Duke’s military operations and, in 1502, after the Sforzas were driven out of Milan, Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia as his chief architect and engineer, overseeing work on the fortresses of the papal territories in central Italy.’
Gordon Ramsay, we know, is capable of producing and regularly savours the finest foods in the world. It is almost patently obvious from his Jyotish chart at a glance, what with exalted Jupiter in the 2nd house of food and all. Jupiter is lord of the 10th – he’s famous for it! Occasionally, when he’s done giving some young would be chef the third degree for gross and disgusting inefficiency, and he’s whipped everyone into shape, he utters words of counsel and encouragement to his hapless apprentices and reality tv victim
This tension and aggression, and the rather terse expressions he has been known to utter when he pours his scorn and derision on fools who f*ck up, is clearly shown in the Ascendant lord, Mercury, being located in the 6th house, in Scorpio (and then there’s also the debilitated Sun in Libra in the 5th which can have issues around co-operation vs. authority and dominance).
Anandamayee 