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In short
A Bhava pada, or Arudha, is a sign derived for a house by counting from the house to its lord and the same distance again. Each of the twelve houses has one, A1 (the Arudha Lagna) to A12. BPHS Ch. 29 gives the method and its two exceptions; this app computes all twelve when the birth time is known.
What the term means
Pada here means the "arudha", or image, of a house. Every house has a lord; the Bhava pada is the sign reached by counting from the house to the sign its lord occupies, then counting the same number of signs on from the lord. The pada of the 1st house is the Arudha Lagna (A1); the others are numbered A2 to A12. This is a different use of the word from a nakshatra pada, which is a quarter of a nakshatra.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 29 Sl. 1-3 introduces padas "for Bhavas and Grahas", gives the count for the Lagna and says the other houses' padas are found the same way through their lords. It names all twelve: Lagn Pad, Dhan, Vikram, Matru, Mantra, Rog, Dar, Maran, Pitru, Karm, Labh and Vyaya. Sl. 4-5 add that a pada cannot be its own house or the 7th from it; the 10th or the 4th from the house is taken instead. Sl. 6-7 then describe padas for grahas, a separate count.
How this app uses it
- All twelve are computed, whole-sign, with both exceptions measured from the house in question, not always from the Lagna.
- The source's names are kept, except that the 8th-house pada is labelled Transformation Pada instead of the source's death-framed name.
- The Upapada is one of these twelve, selected by whether the rising sign is odd or even.
- Padas for grahas are computed separately; Rahu and Ketu, which own no sign here, are excluded.
A small illustration
For 19 January 1985, 11:14 IST, New Delhi (Pisces rising), the 4th house is Gemini; its lord Mercury is in Sagittarius, the 7th sign from Gemini. The 7th sign counted from Sagittarius is Gemini again, the house itself, so the exception applies and A4 becomes the 10th from Gemini: Pisces, the 1st house. The same run puts A1 in Scorpio and A7 in Sagittarius.
Pages that use this term
- Bhava Padas calculator - all twelve padas for your chart.
- Arudha Lagna calculator - the first pada on its own.
- The 1st house (Tanu Bhava) - the house of A1.
- The 7th house (Yuvati Bhava) - a house page that reads the Arudha.
- When the birth time is unknown - why the padas need one.
Related terms
Arudha Lagna, Upapada, house lord, bhava and Jaimini system.
Bhava Padas
All twelve Arudha Padas, one per house, each counted from that house's own lord.
What it needs
Date, time and place
That is more than this article asks for - it only ever takes a date, and sometimes a time, and never a name or a birth place. So this one runs on its own page, which asks for exactly what it needs and stores none of it.
Run it on its own page