3rd lord in the 6th house: the lord of siblings in the house of enemies

What the placement means

The 3rd house lord rules courage, effort and siblings. In the 6th house it enters the house of enemies, rivals, disputes, debt and illness, and in BPHS also the maternal uncle and step-mother. The lord of one's own people, siblings, moves into the house of opponents.

Both houses are upachayas, houses of growth through effort, and both are on BPHS Ch. 34's list of houses whose owners give evil effects. The 6th is also a dusthana. This placement therefore joins two difficult lordships, which is why some later rules read it as more resilient than it looks.

The two houses involved

The 3rd house (Sahaja Bhava) is valour, servants, siblings, initiatory instruction and journeys in BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 4.

The 6th house (Ari Bhava) is the maternal uncle, doubts about death, enemies, ulcers and the step-mother in Ch. 11 Sl. 7. The house pages cover both.

What BPHS says about the 3rd lord in the 6th

BPHS Ch. 24 Sl. 30 says that with the 3rd lord in the 6th the native "will be inimical to his co-born", will be affluent, "will not be well disposed to his maternal uncle and be dear to his maternal aunt". bphs-alt.txt has the same words.

The verse reads almost entirely in terms of relatives, which is exactly what the two houses share in Ch. 11: the 3rd is siblings, the 6th the maternal uncle. Siblings, the 3rd lord's people, are placed in the house of enmity, and the verse calls the relation hostile. The maternal uncle belongs to the 6th itself, and the verse calls that relation cool too; the maternal aunt is the one warm note, alongside affluence. These are the text's statements about types of relationship, reported as such and not as predictions about any family.

BPHS Ch. 14 Sl. 5-6 gives the 3rd lord's favourable houses for siblings (angles, trines, exaltation, friendly divisions); the 6th is not among them. Ch. 34 Sl. 2-7 says owners of the 3rd and of the 6th both give evil effects. Ch. 24 Sl. 145-148 scales Sl. 30 by strength and reads both lordships. The Saravali and Bhrigu Sutras in the corpus give no separate verse.

Set beside the reverse verse

The reverse, the 6th lord in the 3rd (Ch. 24 Sl. 63), is harsher: given to anger, lacking courage, hostile to all siblings, with disobedient servants. Both verses make the native hostile to siblings, so on that point BPHS reads the 3rd-6th connection the same way from either direction. Sl. 30 adds affluence; Sl. 63 subtracts courage. When both happen together the lords have exchanged signs, as in this page's worked example.

The engine's Vipareeta rule

This app's yoga detector applies a rule its code attributes to Advanced Predictive Astrology's case studies rather than to a BPHS sloka: when the lord of the 6th, 8th or 12th sits in the 6th, 8th or 12th, it reports Harsha, Sarala or Vimala Yoga, the family usually called Vipareeta Raja Yoga. A 3rd lord in the 6th triggers it whenever the same planet also owns the 6th, 8th or 12th, which the table below shows for six Ascendants.

BPHS has its own, stricter rules in the same spirit, in the Raja Yoga chapter. Ch. 39 Sl. 19 gives a Raja Yoga when the 6th, 8th and 3rd houses are occupied by debilitated planets while the Lagna lord is exalted or in its own sign and aspects the Lagna. Sl. 20 gives another when the lords of the 6th, 8th and 12th are debilitated, in enemy signs or combust while the Lagna lord, in its own or exaltation sign, aspects the Lagna. A debilitated 3rd lord in the 6th, which happens for Scorpio and Aquarius rising, supplies one piece of Sl. 19, but the rule needs all three houses and a strong Lagna lord as well. The engine does not test these two slokas; they are quoted so a reader can see that BPHS too reads weakness in the difficult houses as potentially favourable, under exact conditions.

Which planet it is, Ascendant by Ascendant

The engine's lordship arithmetic and its sign-only dignity for the 3rd lord in the 6th sign:

For Aries and Libra rising the 3rd lord also owns the 6th (Mercury, Jupiter), so it is in its own sign there, exalted or moolatrikona for Mercury by degree; the engine flags Harsha Yoga. For Virgo and Pisces rising the 3rd lord also owns the 8th (Mars, Venus); placed in the 6th it triggers Sarala Yoga. For Cancer and Capricorn rising it also owns the 12th (Mercury, Jupiter); placed in the 6th it triggers Vimala Yoga.

Two rows give debilitation: Scorpio rising (Saturn in Aries) and Aquarius rising (Mars in Cancer). Two give an enemy's sign (Capricorn, Pisces), three a friendly one (Gemini, Leo, Sagittarius) and three a neutral one. Leo and Aquarius rising bring a 10th-house lordship into the 6th; Scorpio the 4th; Sagittarius the 2nd.

Strength changes the reading

Dignity, combustion and company scale Sl. 30 as usual. Aspects on the 6th come from the 12th by the seventh-house aspect, Jupiter from the 2nd and 10th, Mars from the 3rd and 11th, and Saturn from the 4th and 9th. The Vipareeta reading, where it applies, rests on the planet owning a dusthana and sitting in one; the engine does not weigh dignity in that test.

Worked example: Aquarius rising, Mars debilitated in Cancer

The engine's deterministic search returned: 7 August 1985, 20:48 IST, New Delhi, Ascendant Aquarius 26.1. Re-enter it in the birth chart calculator.

• Aquarius rising makes Aries the 3rd, so Mars is the 3rd lord; it also owns Scorpio, the 10th.
• Mars is in Cancer at 15.04 degrees, Pushya pada 4: the 6th house. The engine marks it Debilitated and combust.
• The Sun (21.40) and a retrograde, combust Mercury (27.16) are in Cancer too. Mercury owns the 5th and 8th for Aquarius rising.
• The 6th lord, the Moon, is in Aries in the 3rd: the 3rd and 6th lords have exchanged signs. Jupiter (from the 12th) and exalted Saturn (from the 9th) aspect the 6th.

The exchange makes Sl. 30 and Sl. 63 apply together, and both read the native as at odds with siblings. Mars is debilitated and combust, the weak end of Sl. 145-148. Mars itself does not trigger a Vipareeta yoga, because it owns the 3rd and 10th, not a dusthana; but Mercury, the 8th lord, sits in the 6th beside it, so the engine flags Sarala Yoga for Mercury in this chart. The engine also reports the Mars-Moon Parivartana, framed as mixed because the Moon owns only the 6th. These are the engine's flags and the text's rules applied to them, not a forecast.

Neighbouring placements

The reverse case is the 6th lord in the 3rd house. The adjacent placements are the 3rd lord in the 5th and the 3rd lord in the 7th; the other dusthanas are the 8th and the 12th. For the worked example's planet see Mars in the 6th house. The yoga calculator shows the engine's flags for your chart, and the Lagna calculator your rising sign.

Questions about the 3rd lord in the 6th house

What does BPHS say about the 3rd lord in the 6th house?

Ch. 24 Sl. 30: affluent, but at odds with siblings, cool towards the maternal uncle and dear to the maternal aunt.

Is this a Vipareeta Raja Yoga?

Only when the 3rd lord also owns the 6th, 8th or 12th, which happens for Aries, Libra, Virgo, Pisces, Cancer and Capricorn rising. The engine then reports Harsha, Sarala or Vimala Yoga.

Does it mean conflict with siblings?

Both Sl. 30 and its reverse, Sl. 63, read the native as hostile to siblings. These are classical rules about positions; this app does not forecast family relationships.

Which Ascendants give the strongest planet here?

Aries rising (Mercury in Virgo, own sign or exalted) and Libra rising (Jupiter in Pisces, own sign). Scorpio and Aquarius rising give debilitated 3rd lords.

How common is it?

250 of 3,000 sampled birth moments 1985-2060 (8.3%) in the engine's sample.