But in standard vedic astrology, whatever sign is rising no matter what the rising degree is, that entire sign is considered as the first house, and that the next sign in the zodiac is the second house and so on. In this way there is an exact correlation between sign and house in vedic astrology. All of the twelve signs of the zodiac are ruled by one of the seven planets. The following table shows the ruling planet of each sign

>>>> Insert lordship table here

As you can see the sun and moon each lord over one sign only. Namely Leo and Cancer. Whereas the other planets each have two signs for which they are the lord. This is always the case. The signs never have different lords. In a horoscope, as mentioned, one sign is considered the rising sign and the other signs follow in their nature order and take control over the other eleven houses of the horoscope. Whatever planet lords over each of the signs becomes the lord of the house that that sign controls.

For example, if Taurus is the rising sign, then Venus is the lord of the first house since Venus is the lord of Taurus. The second house would then be Gemini and therefore mercury would then be called "The Lord of the Second." Then cancer would be in third house and therefore the moon would be called "The Lord of the Third." There are a number of words for Lord in Sanskrit and one of them is "Pati" (pronounced "putt-tee"). This is the most commonly used word when referring to the lords of the houses in Sanskrit. So in our example, Shukra would be the Thanupati. Which mean lord of the Thanusthana. Which means the house of the body or the first house. In this way the various lords are refereed to by the main name that the house is called to in Sanskrit.

But the most important thing is to know the natural order of the twelve signs very fluently and to therefore know quickly which planets rule each of the twelve houses for each twelve possible rising signs. Thus if a particular sign is rising the student astrologer must be able to quickly ascertain in their mind which planet will be the lord of the ninth house, which planet will be the planet of the fourth house, which planet is the lord of the eleventh house, etc.

This process of instantly knowing the lords of the houses in very important and fundamental vedic astrology. If a very solid, graphical, picture is somehow learned, remembered and lodged in the mind of the twelve houses in their natural order. And the distances between each. Then this process becomes very easy. This requires that the astrologer have the kind of mind which can quickly determined distances between two points within a circle.

For example, the distance between Capricorn and Taurus is five signs. Because you start counting from the first one. In this case Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, that's five. What is the distance between Virgo and Aquarius?...Six houses. In this way one must be able to quickly know immediately the number of houses one sign is away from another sign. With experience and practice this becomes easy.

Now let us begin to examine the importance and use of the lords in vedic astrology.

The first house rules the body amongst other things. All things about the body can be determined from the first house and it's lord, aspects upon the first house and the lord of the first house, as well as planets that reside in the first house, etc. In this chapter we are concerned with the lords primarily so let us focus on that.

Each lord must be somewhere in the horoscope, so the lord of the first house or sign must be in one of the twelve signs. According to which sign he is in, that also determines the house. Lets take the example of cancer rising. The moon is the lord of Cancer. By seeing which sign the moon is in we then instantly know what house the moon is in as well. Let us imagine that the Moon is in Gemini, on a particular horoscope which has Cancer rising. Since Gemini is one sign before cancer, this would put the lord of the first in the twelfth house. Because cancer is rising, moon is the lord, Gemini is therefore the twelfth house and therefore we say " The Lord of the First is in the twelfth".

Primarily, two things happen when a lord goes to any house. Of these two things, by far the most important to know and understand and be able to read is that the house shapes the lord that comes to stay in it. For example, the eighth house is a seriously bad house. Of all the houses in the horoscope, the eighth has the most power to cause bad effects. Therefore, when the lord of the first house goes to the eighth house in a horoscope, then serious physical harm comes to the body. We never like to see the lord of the first house in the eighth house. Because it means serious difficulty will come to that person during their lifetime.

So the principle is the house that a lord goes to greatly effects the affairs of life ruled by the houses that that lord concerned rules.

Again for example, let us say that Taurus is rising. Therefore Venus is lord of the first house as well as the sixth house. If Venus is found in the ninth house then the highly benefic affects of the ninth house flow in a great way towards the first and sixth houses because the ninth house is holding their lord, passing it's benefic affects onto the first lord who therefore passes them on to his own houses. Therefore, to have the lord of the first in the ninth house which is the most fortunate house in the horoscope, is a very positive lordship placement.

If the lord of the first is in the sixth house, since the sixth house is one of the more detrimental houses because it passes the effects of death, diseases and enemies onto the planets it controls, therefore these more negative aspects of life will be placed onto the first lord who will then pass them along to the first house, and the other house he rules (if he be one of the planets other than the Sun and Moon which rule only one house each).

Now let us briefly examine the main areas of life that each of the twelve houses controls and how this might effect a particular lord, namely the lord of the first.

If the lord of the first is placed in the first house, then we could say that the body becomes the focus of the body. In other words, the person focuses much on their own life, their own self and their body during this lifetime.

If the lord of the first is placed in the second house then the body, first lord, shall be greatly influenced by and focused upon the things the second house rules such as family and wealth. Thus people who have lord of the first in the second, are found often to be entangled with and coming from a strong family background and they are concerned with accumulating wealth in some way.

If the lord of the first is place in the third house, then the body is found to be connected with ones younger bothers and sisters the acquisition of college degrees, spiritual initiations and other things that the third house rules.

Since the fourth house rules mother, home, heart and happiness, if the lord of the first is placed there then we find that the person will be greatly concerned with these affairs during their life. They will likely spend alot of time at home, since the first lord rules the body and the fourth house rules home, we find their body at home rather than on the road or at work etc.

At this point, let us take a small digression into greater complexity and note that since the fourth house is tenth from the seventh house, it therefore stands for the career of the spouse. So if the lord of the first is in the fourth, then we will find likely in the life that the person's body will have some connection with the career of the spouse. This means that the person might work for their spouse or work with their spouse and since the fourth also rules the home of the person we may expect that they work for the spouse or with the spouse in their own home in perhaps a home-based business.

So the point here is to see that not only does each house rules something when counted from the Ascendent, but it also rules other things depending on it's distance from other houses. In this way the placements of the lords have their first level meanings and then second, third, fourth and deeper and deeper meanings depending upon the astrologers ability to read the complexity of the house relationships.

If the lord of the first is placed in the fifth house, then the concerns of children, creativity, romance and what one does to make others happy becomes the focus of their bodily activities to a large degree especially during periods ruled by the lord of the first house in the Vimshottari dashas.

To understand when things will take place we need to look to the dashas. That is of course the concern of another chapter of this book, but it is worth mentioning and always remembering that effects take place at certain times in the life according to dashas and transits.

If the lord of the first is placed in the sixth house, then the affects of deaths, diseases and enemies overwhelm the person at points in their life. Obviously that is not a good placement for the lord of the first.

If the lord of the first is placed in the seventh house, then the person is heavily focused on their partner, their spouse, etc., during their life.

If the lord of the first is placed in the eighth house, as already mentioned unforeseen difficulties and serious problems arise at life and overwhelm the lord of the first, or in other words, the person and their body in general.

If the lord of the first is placed in the ninth house then there is an overall fortunate protective cover on the person's body throughout their lifetime; because the ninth house stands for fortune and all general good things that simply come from the environment.

If the lord of the first is placed in the tenth house, then the person's body or the life in general in other words, is heavily focused upon the attainment of career, status position, and success are the domain of the tenth house.

Next the eleventh house controls desires, friends oldest siblings, and gains. If the lord of the first is placed in the eleventh house, then the person is heavily focused upon the achievement of desires and certain gainful things in life.

If the lord of the first is placed in the twelfth house, since this house rules charity, donations, and losses, the persons body will therefore be used up in these ways throughout their life. In other words they may donate themselves to causes. They may live for some other purpose other than their own life. Or in general there just may be a lot of loss in their life.

These are brief examples of how the placement of the first lord in the twelve houses affects the body or the life in general, since the first house stands for the body and the life in an overall general way.

An astrologer must take each of the twelve lords and examine which house they reside in and predict the effects on each accordingly.

More examples: If the lord of the second is in the ninth then fortune will come to the wealth since the ninth is fortune and the second is wealth. If the lord of the third is in the second, then the younger siblings will have a connection with wealth either by giving or taking.

Since the second is twelfth to the third, it indicates loss to the younger siblings, and since that lord would then reside in the second house of the horoscope, it is likely that that person will take the wealth of the person of whose horoscope it is. Or could it be that the younger siblings loose their wealth and donate it to the second house of the concerned person? This is the kind of difficult question that an astrologer concerns themselves with in their on going years of study. The answer of course lies in the nature of each planet concerned since any of the planets could be the lord of the third house depending of the rising sign.

If the lord of the fourth house is in the twelfth house, since the twelfth house is ninth from the fourth house, and the fourth house rules the mother then we can understand that the mother will be strong in her religion. Because the fourth lord has gone to the ninth house from itself. That is similar to having lord of the first in the ninth for yourself. It indicates that the person in general tend to have strong faith, belief, spirituality or religion. So if the fourth lord is in the twelfth, that means that the mother of the person has her own strong religion and it causes a great impact on the life of the individual whose chart we are examining.

If the lord of the ninth is in the eighth, generally this means that there is loss to the ninth house, since the eighth is twelfth from the ninth house. Since the ninth house stands for father, it often means that the father goes away. That there is loss of the father early in life. And indeed we see this lordship placement in many persons who were raised without a father present.

If the lord of the sixth house is placed in the fifth house then there is a draining away of the negative things in life such as death, diseases and enemies. This is good. We do not want the sixth lord to be strong or prominent. We want him to be weakened because he carries many negative properties. The fifth house is twelfth to the sixth house and represents the loss of the sixth house. This is one reason the fifth house is such a good house because it stands for the ending or termination of deaths, diseases and enemies.

If the seventh lord is placed in the ninth house, then since the seventh rules spouse and the ninth one's religion, one may find their spouse in their religion. Or their spouse will have an affect upon their religion. Similarly, their religion will have an affect upon their spouse.

When the seventh lord is placed in the tenth house, we find that the person works with their spouse because the tenth is work or career and the seventh is spouse. If the ninth lord is placed in the fourth, then fortune, ninth, comes upon their home, heart, etc., the things ruled by the fourth house.

If the tenth lord is placed in the eighth house, since the tenth rules career and the eighth rules troubles, we find troubles come within the career efforts of the person or because of the career of the person. Most people I know who have the tenth lord in the eighth house have great difficulty establishing a career. Or when they do establish one, there is some sudden or serious troubles that come and greatly harm their progress in their career.

Because the eleventh lord has much to do with gains and achievement of ones desires, it's placement in the various twelve houses tells us alot about how well this person will achieve the desires in life and where their desires lay.

For example, if the eleventh lord is in the ninth house, then fortune flows to the achievement of their desires. If the eleventh lord is in the eighth house, then great trouble comes in the achievement of their desires. In this way one of the twelve houses exerts itself upon the eleventh lord and the things he controls.

The twelfth lord rules loss and as we said, the house in which the lord resides greatly effects that lord and that lord's houses. So if the twelfth is in the ninth house then religion, spirituality, dharma and god above, have a great affect upon the losses in this person's life. What could this mean? It means that losses will come to this person because of their faith, spirituality, or acts of god. There will tend to be losses based upon the person's religion or by situations which are good and righteous but still cause "loss".

From my own life I can relate an example of the effects of the lord of the twelfth placed in the ninth: In my horoscope the ninth and twelfth lords is Jupiter and Jupiter is placed in the ninth house in Sagittarius. So I have lord of the twelfth in the ninth and lord of the ninth in the ninth. I began Jupiter major period around ten years of age.

Around the age of ten or eleven I was one day taken to our local Church where the priest told myself and all my many brothers and sisters that the church and my mother had reached an understanding whereby my father would for some time be placed in a veterans home for the disabled because he had a serious mental health problem. I was informed of the loss of my father in a church, by a priest.

This example neatly ties together the effects of the twelfth and the ninth houses. Namely, loss, religion and father. There was a loss, twelfth lord, of my father, ninth lord, and since the lord of the ninth and twelfth is in the ninth, I heard about it in the ninth house, or in other words, at a Church, by a priest.

So this is one example of the practical effects of the lords. So the most important thing that happens to a lord placed in a house, is that the house it is placed in greatly shapes how that lord will act. This is the first principle that must be fully understood and through studying real charts, learned; so that you can predict with this technique. In studying real charts of persons you know well, over a number of years, you will gradually see realistically the effects of the houses upon the lords.

The second thing that happens when a lord goes to a specific house, that lord brings his baggage to bear upon that house. This is different from what we were previously discussing. Previously we were discussing how the house effects the lord placed within it. Now what we are saying is that the lord brings effects upon the house he is placed within. This is the exact opposite principle, but it is also true. Both things occur simultaneously.

For example, in the example from my own life that I gave earlier, we saw that the twelfth lord brought his affect of loss upon the ninth house. But we also saw that the ninth house affected how the twelfth lord acted. In other words, there was loss of my father- that is the effect of the twelfth lord, but there was also the ninth lord, or the church and priest, involved in the loss- which was the ninth house bringing it's affects upon the twelfth lord.

Both of these principles have to be used in prediction. Let us take another lordship example in practical life.

I know a couple who have two children.. When we examine the charts of the husband and wife we find the husband has lord of the fifth in the second house while the wife has lord of the fifth in the first house. What in general does this say each of their involvement's with their two children? Overall which of them has more involvement with raising the children?

The correct answer would be the mother because she has lord of the fifth in the first house, which means that the fifth lord or children, has a great effect upon her first house, or her body. Whereas, the husband has the fifth lord in the second house which means that he may speak to the children more than anything else, since the second house rules ones mouth and speech.

Also he will pay for the children's way in life often, since the second house is also wealth, especially at the children's time of rise in career. The father will shell out some money at that time in their lives because the second is tenth (career) from the fifth (children).

When you look at the realistic day to day lives of this family I'm referring to, the mother does most of the physical parenting, while the father mostly works on his career and talks to the children as their father, and he has a very good effect on them in that way. But when it comes to outings, bedtime readings, playing games, and just being with the kids, it is usually their mother who does these things and not their father. The father does however concern himself with making money and supporting the family.

What does Vedic astrology have to say about mothering? The answer is implied in every chart simply by the layout of the houses. The first house is tenth from the fourth house. In other words, our first houses, which represent our early lives, also represent the career, or tenth angle, from our mothers, or our fourth houses. So, the layout of the houses implies that during our early lives our very bodies are the careers of our mothers. It is simply a fact of nature that mothers raise kids and the chart implies that this is their path or proper karma.

Karma means "work" and the tenth house or tenth angle from any house rules karma. Karma is not a bad word. It simply refers to our actions. The tenth house also rules power and position. Our charts imply that our mother's power and position should have been found in raising us as strong, healthy, good children. If the lord of the fourth and first houses in our charts are not nicely placed, then it says something about how our mother's raised us.