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In short
A Bhava karaka is the graha that classically signifies a house regardless of the chart, its fixed significator. BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 31-34 lists one for each of the twelve houses, from the Sun for the 1st to Saturn for the 12th. This app does not compute a Bhava karaka; this site's house pages name it beside the house and its lord.
What the term means
A Bhava karaka is the fixed significator of a house. Bhava means house; karaka means significator. The Bhava karaka of a house is the same graha in every chart: it does not depend on the Ascendant or on who rules the house. That is what separates it from the house lord, which changes with the rising sign, and from the Jaimini Chara karakas, which are ranked anew in each chart by degree.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 32, "Karakatwas of the Grahas", closes with a short passage on the significance of the houses (Sl. 31-34). After naming what the first houses denote, it gives the Karakatwas of the Bhavas in house order. The same chapter also says that a graha in the 5th becomes a karaka for the wife, a variant the text adds without explanation. Earlier in the chapter (Sl. 18-24) BPHS gives the related idea of constant significations of the grahas and counts houses from them: the 9th from the Sun for the father, the 4th from the Moon for the mother, the 7th from Venus for the wife.
| House | Bhava karaka (BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 31-34) |
|---|---|
| 1st | Sun |
| 2nd | Jupiter |
| 3rd | Mars |
| 4th | Moon |
| 5th | Jupiter |
| 6th | Mars |
| 7th | Venus |
| 8th | Saturn |
| 9th | Jupiter |
| 10th | Mercury |
| 11th | Jupiter |
| 12th | Saturn |
How this app uses it
The engine has no Bhava karaka table and computes nothing from this list. What it does compute is the Jaimini scheme (see Atmakaraka) and the Yogakaraka by lordship. The term appears on this site's house pages, which read a house through three legs: the house itself, its lord, and its fixed significator. A house reading that ignores the karaka is, on the classical account, missing one of the three.
Not the same as the house lord
For a Pisces Ascendant the 9th house is Scorpio and its lord is Mars, but its Bhava karaka is still Jupiter. The two can agree in one chart and differ in the next.
Pages that use this term
- The 9th house (Dharma Bhava) - Jupiter as the fixed significator, read beside the 9th lord.
- The 5th house (Putra Bhava) - Jupiter again, as the karaka of progeny.
- The 7th house (Yuvati Bhava) - Venus as the karaka of the spouse.
- The 11th house (Labha Bhava) - Jupiter as the karaka of gains.
- Birth chart calculator - shows where each karaka graha sits in your houses.
Related terms
- Karaka - the four senses of significator in BPHS.
- Bhava - the house itself.
- Chara karaka - the variable, degree-ranked significators.
- Yogakaraka - a graha made auspicious by its lordships.