Sun in the 7th house: the luminary opposite the Ascendant, in the house of partnership

A Sun in the 7th house sits directly opposite the Ascendant. Two things follow before any verse about marriage is read. The Sun's one aspect falls on the 1st house, so the planet the texts call the soul and the king looks straight back at the native. And the 7th is a Maraka house in BPHS, a house whose malefic occupants are counted among the "killers" of a chart. The marriage verses come on top of those two facts.

Those verses are not gentle. Saravali gives the Sun in the 7th poverty, insult, disease, royal displeasure, imprisonment and coolness toward the spouse. The Bhrigu Sutras give late marriage, more than one partner and an unstable mind, then attach conditions. This page sets them out, adds what BPHS's method for the 7th lord brings, and shows how this app's engine reads the same placement. For the planet see the Sun in Vedic astrology; for the house, the 7th house, Yuvati Bhava.

What the verses say

Saravali Ch. 30 Sloka 8

The verse (p. 101): the native "will be poor, insulted, will suffer bodily diseases, royal displeasures and imprisonment, will take to bad ways and will not be well-disposed to his wife". Every clause is a difficulty, and only the last is about marriage: the rest concern money, honour, health and standing with authority. Saravali reads the Sun, Mars (Sl. 32) and Saturn (Sl. 80) in the 7th harshly and attaches no condition to any of them. Its general rule (Ch. 30 Sl. 86-87) explains why: malefics harm the houses they occupy, except the 6th, 8th and 12th, and the 7th is not one of the exceptions.

The Bhrigu Sutras, Sutras 69-74

The sutras (p. 25): marriage "will take place late"; the native will not respect the opposite sex, will have relations outside marriage and more than one wife; in the 25th year he travels far from his native land; he is witty, fond of non-vegetarian food, does not deal fairly with his wife and is of unstable mind. If the Sun is in its own sign Leo, "the native will live with only one wife". If the Sun is with an enemy or debilitated planet, or joined or aspected by a malefic, the text gives a number of wives or partners. These are the text's statements, not forecasts.

Most clauses are tendencies, one is a single dated statement, and the conditions are tied to the Sun's sign and company, which is the kind of condition Saravali omits. The commentator (p. 25) calls the placement "not at all favourable for marital relations except when he is in own sign Leo", and asks readers to verify the travel sutra from experience.

The Leo condition has a mechanical consequence worth stating plainly. Leo is in the 7th only for Aquarius rising, so that clause applies to one Ascendant in twelve, the one where the Sun is also the 7th lord sitting in its own house. The far-travel age is an age, not a dasha; this app does not compute or mark it, as with the ages on the 4th and 5th house pages.

One detail in the app's favourable string should be read carefully. It says "genuine devotion in partnership when Sun is in its own sign", echoing the Bhrigu Sutras' Leo clause. But the engine prints it for any strong dignity, including an exalted Sun in Aries (Libra rising) and a Sun in a friendly sign. The wording names the best case; the test that selects it is wider.

The Sun's aspect on the Ascendant

Every planet aspects the 7th sign from itself, and the Sun has no other aspect (BPHS Ch. 26 gives special aspects only to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). From the 7th, that single aspect lands on the 1st house: aspectedHouses('sun', 7) returns [1]. Of the twelve Sun-in-house placements, this is the one where the Sun aspects the Ascendant itself.

BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 14-16, the general test of a house, counts a benefic's aspect as a strength and is silent on a malefic's; none of the three texts gives a specific result for the Sun aspecting the Lagna from the 7th, so this page states none. What the engine does is mechanical: the Sun is a malefic, so its aspect lowers the Shad Bala of any planet in your 1st. For the house that receives it, see the 1st house, and for the Sun occupying it, the Sun in the 1st.

A malefic in a Maraka house

BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 8 lists the 7th's indications as wife, travel, trade, loss of sight and death. The last is explained in Ch. 44 Sl. 2-5. The 3rd and 8th are the houses of longevity; the 12th from each is its loss; so the 7th (12th from the 8th) and the 2nd (12th from the 3rd) are the Marak Bhavas. Sl. 3 lists who counts as a Maraka: the lords of the 2nd and 7th, malefics in those houses, and malefics joined to those lords.

The Sun is a natural malefic (BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11). A Sun in the 7th is therefore a malefic in a Maraka house, which is one of the three routes Sl. 3 names. For Aquarius rising it is also the 7th lord, the second route. Two points put this in proportion: the same verse makes a Maraka period bring an end only "depending on whether he is a long life, medium life, or short life person", and every chart has a 7th lord and passes through several Maraka periods. This app does not compute longevity and labels no period as dangerous to life.

BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 8-10 ranks the malefics and puts the Sun second-mildest, after the weak Moon. The Maraka role is a classification of who carries the 7th's death signification, not a measure of severity; Ch. 44 does not grade Marakas by which malefic they are.

An angle, and the Sun's strength in it

The 7th is a Kendra, the descendant in BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 33-36. BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 2-7 adds that while the 5th and 9th are "specially for wealth", "Yuvati and Karm Bhava are specially for happiness". It also states the Kendra rule of lordship: benefics owning angles do not give benefic effects, and malefics owning angles do not remain inauspicious. That rule is about owning an angle, not occupying one, so it touches the Sun only where the Sun rules an angle: Taurus rising (4th), Scorpio rising (10th), Aquarius rising (7th) and Leo rising (1st).

Directional strength, by the arithmetic of BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 7 set out on the Sun in the 4th house page, is measured for the Sun from the 4th house: the distance is divided by three, and anything past 180 degrees is taken from 360. The 7th is a quarter-circle from the 4th, so a Sun in the 7th is roughly halfway between its zero point and its peak at the 10th. The exact figure depends on degrees, and the Shad Bala calculator computes it.

The angle yogas mostly pass the Sun by. Panchamahapurusha yogas (BPHS Ch. 75) are formed by Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn only. BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 25-30 says planets merely sitting in the 1st, 4th or 7th without dignity "do not become such Yog Karakas". What can involve the Sun is lordship: Ch. 34's yoga from an angle lord linked to a trine lord (Sl. 11-12). For Aquarius rising the Sun is an angle lord in the 7th; for Aries rising it is the 5th lord, and for Sagittarius rising the 9th lord, sitting in an angle.

What changes with your rising sign

Houses are whole signs from the Ascendant here, so the Sun is in your 7th when it occupies the sign opposite your rising sign. The Lagna calculator finds yours. That fixes the Sun's sign, its dignity and the house it rules (wherever Leo falls), and BPHS Ch. 24 gives a verse for each house lord placed in the 7th.

The table has a pattern: the 5th, 9th and 10th lords in the 7th are the three rows of unmixed happiness, the 6th, 8th and 12th lords the three that disturb the marriage. Two rows are worth singling out for the Sun specifically.

• Leo rising. Sl. 7 splits on whether the Lagna lord is a malefic or a benefic, and the Sun is a malefic, so the verse's first half, about the spouse's lifespan, is the one a literal reading reaches. It is the text's statement, not a forecast. The Sun is also in an enemy sign (Saturn's Aquarius).
• Aquarius rising. The Sun is the 7th lord in its own sign in the 7th. BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 1 promises "full happiness" through the spouse when the 7th lord is in its own sign or exaltation, Ch. 24 Sl. 79 gives happiness through the spouse, and the Bhrigu Sutras' one-spouse clause applies. It is the one row where the texts' Sun verses and their lordship verses point the same way.
• Aries rising. The Sun is debilitated in Libra but rules the 5th, and Sl. 55 is among the best rows. BPHS Ch. 24 Sl. 145-148 scale every result by strength; a debilitated Sun delivers little of it.

BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 19-44 gives the Sun a role for each Ascendant. For Aquarius rising, where the Sun owns the 7th, the role is "killer", the Maraka role again; for Cancer rising, where it owns the 2nd, also a killer. For Scorpio rising it is the Yoga Karaka with the Moon, and for Aries, Taurus, Leo and Sagittarius rising, auspicious.

The 7th lord and Venus decide more

BPHS Ch. 18 judges the house through its lord first. The method comes down to four checks: the 7th lord's dignity, its house, what joins or aspects the lord and the house, and the strength of Venus, the karaka. Sl. 1 promises full happiness when the 7th lord is in its own sign or exalted. Sl. 2 reads a 7th lord in the 6th, 8th or 12th as a sickly spouse and immediately excepts its own sign and exaltation. Sl. 4-5 make a strong 7th lord with a benefic "wealthy, honourable, happy and fortunate". Sl. 17 needs a weak 7th lord in a Dusthana, or a fallen one, for the severe reading.

With the Sun in your 7th, the 7th lord is the lord of the Sun's sign: Venus for Libra or Taurus, Mars for Aries or Scorpio, Jupiter for Sagittarius or Pisces, Saturn for Capricorn or Aquarius, Mercury for Gemini or Virgo, the Moon for Cancer, the Sun itself for Leo. That planet also decides the Sun's dignity verdict in the engine. Two verses touch the Sun's presence directly. Sl. 7-8½ name the kind of partner each planet in the 7th associates the native with, and for the Sun it is barren females; this page reports that and does not apply it. Sl. 16 gives evils to the spouse if the 7th is joined by a malefic, "especially" if house or lord lacks strength. A strong 7th lord is the text's own mitigation.

Venus is the fixed significator of the 7th (BPHS Ch. 32 Sl. 31-34), and the Sun counts Venus a natural enemy. Venus also stays close to the Sun in the sky, so with the Sun in the 7th, Venus is often in the 6th, 7th or 8th. In the 7th beside the Sun, Venus may be combust: this app uses a 10 degree orb for Venus (8 when retrograde), as listed on the Sun page. Ch. 18 Sl. 18 names a weak Venus as one of three conditions for lack of marital happiness. See Venus in the 7th house for the karaka in this house.

Saravali Ch. 34 Sl. 45-46 (p. 129) gives a simpler test: benefics in or aspecting the 7th shape the spouse after themselves; with malefics there "the wife of the native will be destroyed (i.e. adversely affected)", in the translator's gloss. It adds that the house may be judged from the Ascendant or the Moon, the stronger having more significance. The Sun counts as a malefic in the 7th from the Ascendant, but the 7th from your Moon may hold something quite different; the Moon sign calculator gives the sign to count from. BPHS Ch. 7 also assigns the spouse to the Navamsa, which the Navamsa calculator computes.

Second opinions on the house, not on the Sun

BPHS reads the 7th through more than the birth chart, and none of these tools is specific to the Sun. Ch. 29 reads Dar Pad, the Arudha of the 7th, against the Arudha of the Ascendant: in mutual angles or trines "there will be amity between the couple", and Dar Pad in the 6th, 8th or 12th from Lagn Pad is read as poverty. The Bhava Padas calculator shows Dar Pada. Ch. 30 Sl. 1-6 give "full happiness from progeny and spouse" when the Upa Pad is joined or aspected by a benefic, and a malefic there as asceticism without a wife. Ch. 31 gives "abundant wealth and marital happiness" to an unobstructed Argala on the 7th, from a malefic or a benefic, which the Argala calculator works out. A Sun in the 7th does not change any of these calculations directly; it is one input among many to the house they describe.

How this app grades the placement

The Kundali reading prints the favourable line when the planet's dignity is Exalted, Moolatrikona, Own sign or Friendly sign and the house is not the 6th, 8th or 12th. The 7th is not a dusthana, so the Sun here is judged on dignity alone. The Maraka role, the aspect on the Lagna and the 7th lord do not enter that one line.

Outside Aries, Leo and Libra the dignity is the fivefold relation of BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55-58 with the sign's lord: the natural half fixed (Moon, Mars, Jupiter friends; Venus, Saturn enemies; Mercury neutral), the temporary half read from your chart (the lord 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 or 12 signs from the Sun is a temporary friend). Only Friend or Great Friend counts as Friendly. For the Sun in the 7th the rising signs fall into four groups.

• Always favourable: Libra rising (Sun exalted in Aries) and Aquarius rising (Sun in Leo).
• Favourable only if the sign lord is in a temporary-friend position: Taurus, Gemini, Virgo and Capricorn rising (Sun in Scorpio, Sagittarius, Pisces or Cancer). The lord in the Sun's sign or 5 to 9 signs from it gives Neutral and the testing line.
• Favourable only if Mercury is in a neighbouring position: Sagittarius and Pisces rising (Sun in Gemini or Virgo).
• Never favourable: Aries rising (Sun debilitated), Cancer and Leo rising (Saturn's signs), Scorpio rising (Venus's Taurus).

The dasha panel is stricter. dashaQuality() calls the Sun good only if exalted, Moolatrikona or in its own sign, challenging if debilitated, in an enemy sign or in a dusthana, neutral otherwise. The Sun Mahadasha page sets the two tests side by side.

Timing

The Sun's Mahadasha lasts six years (BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 15) and it runs an Antardasha in every other Mahadasha; the Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives the dates. BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 7-11 list a Sun in a Kendra among the conditions of a strong Sun dasha (wealth, felicity, honours from the government), and Sl. 12-15 the conditions of a weak one, including association with malefics or with the 6th, 8th or 12th lord. A Sun in the 7th meets the Kendra condition by position; its dignity and company decide the rest.

For Aquarius rising, the Sun is also the 7th lord, and BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 5-8 give the 7th lord's dasha a hard line, distress to the wife and the possibility of the native's death, the Maraka doctrine as a dasha rule. This app keeps the direction and drops the death clause: "strain in partnership and marriage - historically a house needing extra care in this Dasha". Sl. 18-20 extend the unfavourable list to grahas associated with the lords of the 2nd and 7th in those houses, which a Sun in the 7th becomes if the 7th lord shares its sign. BPHS does not name the 7th lord's or Venus's dasha as the time of marriage, and this page does not either.

How sub-periods nest inside the six years is explained in Antardasha and Pratyantar.

The Sun passing through the 7th from your Moon

The Gochar calculator reads transits from the natal Moon. For a natural malefic the engine's source gives no rule for the 7th from the Moon, so the Sun's month there reads as "a classically unremarkable transit position from your Moon". That transit is a different thing from a natal Sun in the 7th, which is counted from the Ascendant.

A worked chart

The figures are this app's engine output for 17:00 IST on 10 April 1990 in New Delhi, an illustration of the rules and not a reading of any person. Two hours later the same Sun is in the 6th of a Libra Ascendant, worked on the Sun in the 6th page.

Why favourable: Jupiter, lord of Pisces and the Sun's natural friend, is in Gemini, the 4th sign from the Sun, a temporary-friend position. The result is Great Friend. Note that the printed string still says "when Sun is in its own sign", though the Sun is in Pisces; that is the wording issue described above.

What the texts add. With Virgo rising the Sun rules the 12th, so Ch. 24 Sl. 139 applies: expenditure on account of the spouse and no conjugal bliss. The 7th lord, Jupiter, is in the 10th, an angle; Ch. 24 Sl. 82 gives a 7th lord in the 10th a disobedient spouse alongside religion, wealth and sons. Venus, the karaka, is in the 6th. The Sun's aspect falls on Virgo, the Lagna, which holds no planet. Counted from the Moon in Libra, as Saravali Ch. 34 allows, the 7th is Aries, where Mercury, a benefic, sits. The Sun here is a malefic in a Maraka house; it rules the 12th, not the 2nd or 7th. These are the factors the texts name; the page does not net them into a verdict.

Steps for your own chart

1. 1.Confirm the Sun is in the sign opposite your Ascendant in the birth chart calculator. An uncertain birth time can move the Ascendant and the house.
2. 2.Find the Sun's dignity: exalted in Aries, own in Leo, debilitated in Libra; otherwise count from the Sun to its sign lord.
3. 3.Find the house the Sun rules and read that row of the Ch. 24 table.
4. 4.Find the 7th lord (the lord of the Sun's sign): its dignity, house and company, as BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 1-5 and 16-17 ask.
5. 5.Check Venus: its sign, house and distance from the Sun.
6. 6.Run Saravali's test from the Moon as well as from the Ascendant.
7. 7.For timing, list the Sun's and the 7th lord's periods in the timing feature.

How positions are computed is on the methodology page; the books behind the readings are on the sources page.

What the Sun in the 7th does not mean

• "It means divorce." No verse says so. Saravali gives coolness toward the spouse; the Bhrigu Sutras late marriage, more than one partner and an unstable mind, with one spouse in Leo. They are classical statements, not forecasts.
• "It is a Maraka, so it is dangerous." The Maraka role is a classification, conditional in BPHS on the length of life the chart otherwise shows, and every chart has Marakas. This app computes no longevity.
• "The favourable line means the Sun is in Leo." The string mentions its own sign, but it prints for any strong dignity.
• "An angle makes the Sun strong." Directional strength is about halfway here, and Panchamahapurusha yogas exclude the Sun.
• "The 7th lord's dasha is when I will marry." BPHS gives that dasha a different theme and names no such timing.
• "The 7th from my Moon in transit is my 7th house." Transits count from the Moon; natal houses from the Ascendant.

Questions about the Sun in the 7th

Is the Sun in the 7th house bad for marriage?

Saravali Ch. 30 Sl. 8 is harsh and unconditional. The Bhrigu Sutras give late marriage and an unstable mind, with one spouse if the Sun is in Leo. BPHS judges the marriage mainly through the 7th lord and Venus, and Ch. 24 changes the reading by the house the Sun rules.

What does the Sun aspect from the 7th?

The 1st house, the Ascendant, by its only aspect. None of the three texts gives a separate verse for it; the engine counts it as a malefic aspect in Shad Bala.

Is the Sun in the 7th a Maraka?

By BPHS Ch. 44 Sl. 3, malefics in the 2nd and 7th count as Marakas, and the Sun is a malefic. The same chapter makes the effect depend on the lifespan the chart otherwise shows. This app does not compute it.

Which rising sign gives the best Sun in the 7th?

Aquarius rising: the Sun is the 7th lord in its own sign, which BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 1 and Ch. 24 Sl. 79 read well and the Bhrigu Sutras' one-spouse clause covers. By dignity, Libra rising also gives an exalted Sun.

Why does the app's line mention "its own sign" when my Sun is not in Leo?

The favourable string was worded after the Bhrigu Sutras' Leo clause, but the engine prints it for any Exalted, Moolatrikona, Own or Friendly dignity.

Does the Sun burn Venus in the 7th?

If Venus shares the Sun's sign within 10 degrees (8 if retrograde), this app marks it combust. BPHS Ch. 18 Sl. 18 counts a weak Venus as one of three conditions for lack of marital happiness, all required.

Does the Sun in the 7th affect business partnerships?

BPHS lists trade among the 7th's indications, and Ch. 24 Sl. 91 (Capricorn rising) is the one verse in the chapter that speaks of business. The Sun verses in Saravali and the Bhrigu Sutras do not mention trade.

What about the far travel in the 25th year?

It is one clause of the Bhrigu Sutras' Sun-in-the-7th passage (Sutra 70, p. 25), and BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 8 does list travel among the 7th's indications. It is a single age with no stated method; this app does not compute or mark it, and this page does not treat it as a prediction.

Is a Sun transiting the 7th from my Moon the same thing?

No. The transit lasts about a month and the engine reads it as unremarkable for a malefic. The natal placement is counted from the Ascendant.