Saturn in the 7th house: full directional strength in the house of partnership

The 7th is the house where Saturn is strongest by direction. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35-38 make it the one graha that gains strength in the West, and BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 7 place that strength in the 7th house: full there, nil in the 1st. In this app's strength run, a Saturn in the 7th was labelled Strong more often than in any other house. By signification, the same placement is one of Saravali's hardest Saturn verses, and the 7th is the house of the spouse. Those two measures pointing opposite ways are the frame for most of this page.

It describes rules, not a marriage, and makes no statement about anyone's spouse. For the planet, see Saturn in Vedic astrology; for the house, the 7th house, Yuvati Bhava.

The house and its significator

BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 8 list the 7th as wife, travel, trade, loss of sight and death. Saravali Ch. 3 names it Stri and Kama, and BPHS Ch. 29 call its Arudha the Dar Pad. The Bhrigu Sutras' own house list widens it to a life partner of either sex, a business partner, legal bonds and influence abroad. BPHS Ch. 7 make it a Kendra, the descendant, and Ch. 32 name Venus its fixed significator. It is also one of the two Marak houses of Ch. 44, a classification from the longevity chapters that this app does not use.

Ch. 34 Sl. 2-7 bear on Saturn in two ways. Malefics owning Kendras do not stay inauspicious, and the 7th and 10th are "specially for happiness". And one warning involves the 7th directly: the 8th lord that also owns the 3rd, 7th or 11th proves specifically harmful. The 7th and 8th share a lord only for Cancer rising, and the planet is Saturn.

Directional strength: Saturn at its strongest

BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 7 measure Saturn's directional strength from the Lagna, so it is nil in the 1st and full in the 7th, and Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 35 agree. The engine gives a Saturn in the 7th the full 4 of 4 directional points. In this app's strength run over 121,469 New Delhi charts from 1950 to 2049, a Saturn in the 7th averaged 10.80 of 20 and was labelled Strong in 31.3 per cent of charts, the highest share of the twelve houses; a Saturn in the 1st averaged 6.92 and was Strong in 2.9 per cent. The Shad Bala calculator shows each component.

Saravali Ch. 4 adds an exception for Saturn (line 472): where a strong significator usually magnifies what it signifies, "in the case of Saturn it is different". BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 32-33 are more guarded: "Sani's extreme strength will give long life as well as miseries". Strength in the 7th, then, is not a promise of ease in the 7th; the texts keep the two questions apart.

What the texts say about Saturn in the 7th

Saravali Ch. 30 Sloka 80

Saravali Ch. 30 Sl. 80 (p. 105): always in ill health, loss of the wife, bereft of wealth, ugly, sinful and doing "very mean acts". It sits with Saravali's Sun and Mars verses for the 7th, all of which read harshly with no condition attached. Health phrases are the text's wording and not medical advice, and "loss of the spouse" is reported here as what the verse says, not as anything this app computes.

BPHS Ch. 18: a malefic in the house

BPHS Ch. 18 judge marriage mainly through the 7th lord. Sl. 1: the 7th lord in its own sign or exaltation gives full happiness through the spouse. Sl. 4-5: a strong 7th lord with a benefic makes the native wealthy, honourable and fortunate. Sl. 16 bear on an occupant: difficulty for the spouse if the 7th house or its lord is joined by a malefic, "especially" if house or lord lacks strength. A Saturn in the 7th is a malefic joining the house. No verse in this group rests on a single factor except Sl. 3, on Venus.

Saravali Ch. 34 Sl. 45-46 (p. 129) give the simpler rule: benefics in or aspecting the 7th shape the spouse after themselves, malefics there affect the spouse adversely, and the reading is taken from the Ascendant and the Moon, the stronger counting more. A Saturn in the 7th from the Lagna is the second case.

The Bhrigu Sutras, Sutras 32-36

Sutras 32-36 (Bhrigu Sutras p. 104, corpus line 4128): a lean-bodied wife, an afflicted body, great sorrow, and a set of explicit sexual lines, made stronger in own sign or exaltation and with Ketu, Mars or Venus; this page names them and does not repeat them. The commentator (p. 104) softens the own-sign and exaltation case, calls Aries, Taurus and Libra rising powerful Dhana yogas, and adds Sasa. Of the authorities quoted (pp. 104-105), Brihat Jatak, Phaldeepika and Saravali read it as hard on character, health or wealth, while Chamatkar Chintamani gives good friends, stable wealth and a steady wife; the Note records that all but Chamatkar Chintamani agree with the sutras.

The app's lines, and what was dropped

This app wrote two lines from the Bhrigu Sutras' Saturn chapter. Favourable: "a mature, enduring partnership - capable of forming Sasa Yoga here, and real Dhana Yoga potential for several ascendants". Testing: "real strain and instability in partnership under affliction". The provenance comment beside them records that the chapter's 7th-house lines tied to Saturn with Mars, Saturn with Venus and Saturn with Ketu were dropped as explicit content. The favourable line is one of the few app lines that read Saturn in the 7th kindly, and its source passage is not summarised anywhere this page can check.

Sasa Yoga in the 7th

BPHS Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2 and Saravali Ch. 37 Sl. 2 form Sasa when Saturn is in its own sign or exaltation in an angle. In the 7th that means Aries rising (Saturn exalted in Libra), Cancer rising (own sign, Capricorn) and Leo rising (Moolatrikona or own sign, Aquarius). In the engine sample, 10,017 charts had Saturn in the 7th and Sasa formed in 27.1 per cent. The Yogas calculator reports it; because Saturn stays in a sign for years, the yoga is shared by everyone born in that span with the right rising sign.

BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 25-30 set a limit on angles: planets in mutual angles in own, exalted or friendly signs become Yoga Karakas, but planets merely sitting in the 1st, 4th or 7th without such dignity do not. Occupying the 7th is not enough on its own, for Saturn as for any planet. Sasa and that rule ask the same question.

Your rising sign: Saturn's sign and the houses it rules

With whole-sign houses, a Saturn in the 7th is in the sign opposite your Ascendant. The Lagna calculator gives your rising sign. BPHS Ch. 24 has one sloka for each house lord placed in the 7th.

Read together, the lords of the 5th, 9th and 10th in the 7th are the rows the text reads as unmixed happiness, and the lords of the 6th, 8th and 12th the rows that disturb the marriage. For Saturn that splits the Lagnas sharply. Aries and Taurus rising bring two warm slokas each, for the 10th and 11th lords or the 9th and 10th. Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Aquarius and Pisces rising each bring one of the Trika-lord slokas. Capricorn and Aquarius rising bring Sl. 7, which for a malefic Lagna lord in the 7th reads harm to the spouse.

Ch. 18 Sl. 17 set the bar for the severe reading: a 7th lord "devoid of strength" placed in the 6th, 8th or 12th, or a 7th lord in fall. A Saturn in the 7th is never itself a 7th lord in a Trika, and is in fall in the 7th only for Libra rising, where the 7th lord is Mars, not Saturn. So Sl. 17's severe case is about a different planet in every Saturn-in-the-7th chart; what Saturn contributes is the malefic occupant of Sl. 16.

Cancer and Leo rising: Saturn as the 7th lord

For these two Lagnas Saturn is the 7th lord in its own sign in the 7th. BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 1 read the 7th lord in its own sign as full happiness through the spouse, and Ch. 24 Sl. 79 as happiness through the spouse with courage, skill and intelligence. Sasa forms in both. Against that, the Lagna-by-Lagna slokas of Ch. 34 (Sl. 27-30) call Saturn a maraka acting by association for Cancer and a malefic and maraka by association for Leo, and for Cancer Saturn is the 8th lord too, the combination Ch. 34 Sl. 2-7 call specifically harmful. For Leo it is the 6th lord, and Ch. 24 Sl. 67 read that lord in the 7th as unhappiness in wedlock alongside fame and wealth.

So the two cleanest Sasa cases in the 7th are also the two where lordship carries the most caution. The app's line about "real Dhana Yoga potential for several ascendants" does not say which; the Bhrigu commentator (p. 104) names Aries, Taurus and Libra rising.

How this app decides favourable or testing

The Kundali reading prints the favourable line when Saturn is Exalted, Moolatrikona, in its Own sign or in a Friendly sign; the 7th is not a dusthana. For other signs the engine combines Saturn's natural relation to the sign lord with a temporary relation read from your chart: a lord in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th sign from Saturn is a temporary friend.

• Always favourable: Aries rising (exalted in Libra), Cancer and Leo rising (own sign or Moolatrikona).
• Never favourable: Libra rising, Saturn debilitated in Aries.
• Favourable if Venus or Mercury sits well from Saturn: Scorpio, Sagittarius and Pisces rising; otherwise Neutral.
• Friendly or Enemy, decided by Jupiter: Gemini and Virgo rising.
• At best Neutral: Taurus, Capricorn and Aquarius rising, with Saturn in a sign of Mars, the Moon or the Sun.

In the engine sample 47.7 per cent of Saturn-in-the-7th charts printed the favourable line. The test does not look at the 7th lord, which Ch. 18 judge first, at Venus as the karaka, or at the Navamsa, which BPHS Ch. 7 assign to the spouse. Note the oddity for Taurus rising: Saturn is the Yoga Karaka, ruling the 9th and 10th, two lordships Ch. 24 read as happiness in the 7th, and the engine will print the testing line unless Mars sits well from Saturn, because Scorpio is a sign of Saturn's natural enemy.

Saturn's three aspects from the 7th

Saturn aspects the 3rd, 7th and 10th places from itself (BPHS Ch. 26 Sl. 2-5). From the 7th those fall on the 9th, the 1st and the 4th, and the engine returns those three. The 7th aspect lands on the Lagna, so a Saturn in the 7th always supplies the malefic half of BPHS Ch. 12 Sl. 3's condition, bodily health suffers when the Lagna is touched by a malefic with no benefic aspect alongside. Whether a benefic also aspects the Lagna is the other half. Saturn's 10th aspect, here on the 4th, is returned only by Mars. For the 9th, see the 9th house.

The Saturn in the 1st house page covers the mirror placement, where Saturn's directional strength is nil and its aspect falls on the 7th.

Company in the 7th

BPHS Ch. 45 Sl. 11-18 put any planet joined with Saturn in the Kshudhita state. In the 7th that most often means Venus, the karaka, or the 7th lord, the two planets Ch. 18 judge marriage by. Saravali Ch. 15, reads Saturn with Venus as a skilled worker in wood, a painter or sculptor, fond of wandering; with Jupiter, heroic, wealthy and famous; with Mars, quarrelsome; with the Moon, well liked by the public but under the control of others. BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 18 name a lack of marital happiness when the Moon is in the 7th, the 7th lord in the 12th and Venus weak, all three together.

Beyond the birth chart

BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 1-8 assign the spouse to the Navamsa, and Ch. 18 uses it in several slokas. A Saturn in the 7th of the birth chart is half of the picture the text asks for. The same page lists three further measures: the Dar Pada read against the Arudha of the Lagna (Ch. 29), the Upa Pada joined or aspected by a benefic (Ch. 30 Sl. 1-6), and an unobstructed benefic Argala on the 7th (Ch. 31). None is decided by Saturn's house alone. The Navamsa calculator and the Argala calculator compute two of them.

Saravali Ch. 6 Sl. 1-2 (926-932) use "karaka" in another sense: planets in their own sign or exaltation in angles become mutual karakas, co-workers. For Aries, Cancer and Leo rising a Saturn in the 7th is such a planet, and any other planet in its own or exaltation sign in an angle of the same chart pairs with it. Saravali's own example is Saturn in Libra for a Cancer Lagna, the 4th house rather than the 7th.

Aspects on Saturn, by Saravali Ch. 29

Saravali Ch. 29 Sl. 25-48 read the aspect of each graha on Saturn, grouped by the lord of Saturn's sign. Jupiter's aspect is favourable in every group: a king's minister in the signs of Mars, charitable and well liked in Venus's, trusted in the king's circle in Mercury's, a king, minister or army chief in Jupiter's own, famous and long-lived in Saturn's. The Sun's aspect reads badly in most groups. For a Saturn in the 7th the Sun's full aspect means the Sun in the Lagna, and Jupiter's means Jupiter in the 1st, 3rd or 11th. Saturn's company by aspect therefore runs through the Lagna, the house of the self, for the Sun, and through the houses of effort and gain for Jupiter.

Saravali by dignity and by sign

Saravali Ch. 45 describes Saturn by dignity: exalted, royal assignments and leadership; in Moolatrikona, of good family, wealthy and valorous; in its own sign, honourable and happy; debilitated, adversity; in an enemy's sign, dirty and distressed; in a friend's sign, depending on others for food. Its Ch. 29 by sign gives, for the 7th-house cases that decide the engine outright: Libra (Aries rising), rich, soft-spoken, money and honours from abroad, a king or a scholar; Capricorn (Cancer rising), learned, honourable, famous, courageous, living abroad; Aquarius (Leo rising), eminent but "a great liar" and very ill-tempered; Aries (Libra rising), worn down by hard labour.

Two of those sign verses mention life or honours abroad, and BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 8 list travel among the 7th house's subjects. The texts make no link between them, and this page does not draw one.

Timing: the Saturn period, Marak rules and transits

The Saturn Mahadasha lasts nineteen years (BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 15). BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 53-56 describe a strong Saturn's period as recognition, position and property; Sl. 57-60 the reverse for a Saturn in the 6th, 8th or 12th, debilitated or combust, with an escape for a Saturn in an angle or trine, joined or aspected by a benefic, or in Jupiter's signs. A Saturn in the 7th is in an angle, so it meets the escape by position. The Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives your dates.

Two dasha rules apply. Ch. 48 Sl. 5-8 give the 7th lord's period a hard line, which the app softens to "strain in partnership and marriage - historically a house needing extra care in this Dasha" when Saturn rules your 7th, for Cancer and Leo rising. And Ch. 48 Sl. 18-20 list among the unfavourable ones the periods of planets associated with the 2nd and 7th lords in the 2nd or 7th; a Saturn in the 7th falls under it only with the 2nd or 7th lord beside it, or as the 7th lord itself for Cancer and Leo rising. Ch. 48 does not name any period as the time of marriage. The Saturn Mahadasha page covers the period in full.

For transits the Gochar calculator counts from the Moon and reads Saturn in the 7th from the Moon as neutral, a position its source gives no rule for. The Kundli Matching score is another method again, computed from the two Moons only.

A worked chart

The figures below are this app's engine output for a birth at 03:15 IST on 2 June 2013 in New Delhi. They illustrate the rules, and are not a reading of any person.

Saturn is exalted in an angle with full directional strength: Sasa forms, the engine labels it Strong at 16.63 of 20, and every engine verdict is favourable. For Aries rising Saturn rules the 10th and 11th, so Ch. 24 Sl. 115 and Sl. 127 apply, both of them readings of happiness or gain through the spouse. BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 19-22 class Saturn a malefic for Aries, and say its conjunction with Jupiter gives no yoga.

The classical cautions are also present. Rahu shares the 7th with Saturn, two malefics joining the house, which BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 16 and Saravali Ch. 34 read against the spouse; the 7th lord, Venus, is in the 3rd. Jupiter aspects Saturn from the 3rd, a benefic aspect the escape clause of Ch. 47 would count, and which Saravali Ch. 29 read, for Saturn in a sign of Venus, as charitable and well liked. The Moon in Purva Bhadrapada starts life in Jupiter's Mahadasha, and the Saturn period runs from age two and a half to twenty-one and a half. Saturn at 11.74 degrees is in its middle decanate.

Checking a Saturn in the 7th in your own chart

1. 1.Confirm the placement with the birth chart calculator: Saturn is in the 7th if it is in the sign opposite your Ascendant.
2. 2.Find Saturn's dignity and the two houses it rules. Are you Cancer or Leo rising, where Saturn is the 7th lord?
3. 3.Find your 7th lord: its sign (Ch. 18 Sl. 1), its house (Sl. 2) and its company (Sl. 4-5, 16).
4. 4.What shares the 7th with Saturn? Each is Kshudhita by BPHS Ch. 45.
5. 5.Does a benefic aspect your Lagna, which Saturn in the 7th always aspects (Ch. 12 Sl. 3)?
6. 6.Look at the 7th and Venus in the Navamsa (D9), and at the Dar Pada in the Bhava Padas calculator.
7. 7.Note when the Saturn periods run, and keep transits separate.

Two-chart comparison is on the Compatibility page. The methodology page explains how positions are computed, and the sources page lists the books.

Common misreadings

• "Saturn in the 7th means a failed marriage." Saravali's verse is harsh, but BPHS Ch. 18 judge marriage mainly through the 7th lord, and for Cancer and Leo rising Saturn is that lord in its own sign. This app makes no marriage prediction.
• "Saturn is strong in the 7th, so the 7th is strong." Directional strength measures the planet. The texts read a strong Saturn as long life and burdens together, not as ease.
• "Sasa Yoga cancels the hard verses." It is a named condition met; the two cleanest Sasa cases in the 7th, Cancer and Leo rising, are also the ones with the strongest lordship cautions.
• "Saturn in the 7th delays marriage." No text cited here states that rule, and BPHS ties no marriage date to Saturn.
• "Kundli matching checks my Saturn." The app's Ashtakoot uses the two Moons only.

Frequently asked questions

Is Saturn in the 7th house bad for marriage?

Saravali Ch. 30 Sl. 80 read it harshly, and BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 16 count a malefic joining the 7th against the spouse. BPHS judges marriage mainly through the 7th lord, which for Cancer and Leo rising is Saturn itself, in its own sign.

Why is Saturn strongest in the 7th?

BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 7 measure Saturn's directional strength from the Lagna, so it is full in the 7th; BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35-38 call Saturn the one graha strong in the West. In the engine sample a Saturn in the 7th was Strong more often than in any other house.

Does Saturn in the 7th form Sasa Yoga?

For Aries, Cancer and Leo rising, where Saturn is in Libra, Capricorn or Aquarius. In the engine sample it formed in 27.1 per cent of Saturn-in-the-7th charts.

What does Saturn aspect from the 7th house?

The 9th, the 1st and the 4th houses. The aspect on the Lagna is a malefic aspect BPHS Ch. 12 Sl. 3 weigh against any benefic aspect there.

What do the Bhrigu Sutras say about Saturn in the 7th?

No page on this site summarises that passage. The app's lines were written from it, and its notes record that lines about Saturn with Mars, Venus or Ketu in the 7th were dropped as explicit content.

When does a Saturn in the 7th show its effects?

Classically in the Saturn Mahadasha and Antardashas. BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 57-60 count a Saturn in an angle among the escape conditions from an adverse period, and Ch. 48 Sl. 18-20 list planets in the 7th among the unfavourable ones.

Where can I read the neighbouring placements?

See Saturn in the 8th house and, for the karaka in the same house, Venus in the 7th house.