EIGHTH HOUSE IN VEDIC ASTROLOGY- bhava VIII

Other Names for 8^th House: Randhra Bhava – Ayusthan (longevity) - Ashtama Bhavam, Mangalya (marital bond)

Parashara calls this Bhava the “cavity or flaw.”

“Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.”  Dalia Lama

The house of change the greatest gift of the 8th house - spiritual transformation, transforming our insecurities into strengths.

Ruled by Scorpio –mars/ketu

Karaka mars: Mars signifies accidents, wounds, injuries, surgeries, operations, etc. The eighth house too signifies all these things as well as chronic and mental illnesses.

Karaka Shani: Hardest lessons in life - Saturn shows loss and grief in life.

General Explanation: The hidden, shocking, scandalous, deceptive and unexpected events in life come through the eighth house. It’s related to endings, weakness and our deepest fears.

This is the house of in-laws and married life, separation from partner or death of partner, dowry house of transformation and regeneration.

The 8th bhava is the most feared bhava with all its negative implications and Saturnalian qualities.

8th magnifies the 6th house qualities – thus, you get chronic ailments, dangerous enemies, hardship and toiling work etc.

The 8th house is moving into the lower dark hemisphere and connotes loss of energy and vitality.

Of the dusthanas the 8th house is maligned as the most malefic because it’s the 12th house (loss) from the 9th house (fortune), which makes it the house of misfortunes

“The Lord of the 8th house by virtue of being the 12th from the 9th does not produce good results.''(Laghu Parashari Ch 1 shloka 9)

8th being 12^th to 9^th shows antithetical to religion, luck, fortune, prosperity, blessedness, grace, God’s kindness, law & legitimacy, transparency & openness, compassion, charity, philanthropy, higher education & research.

Thus, the 8th house signifies attributes of atheism and agnosticism, unlucky, misfortune, scarcity & poverty, cursedness, disgrace, notoriety & infamy, punishment & penalty, illegal and unethical, opaqueness and obscurity, cruelty & malevolence, miserliness & stinginess, selfishness, self-centredness and lack of education and narrow mindedness.

The 8th house is arguably the most difficult house in the chart and accentuates the infirmities and enmities of the 6th house being the 3rd to the 6^th. The 8th house also share similar qualities of the 6th especially enmities and infirmities but in a more virulent and chronic duration. While a 6th house affair is usually acute, the 8th house tends towards chronic and death inflicting or terminal. The 6th may indicate debts but the 8^th can cause bankruptcy. 6th can indicate litigation but 8th may indicate court cases which can ruin lives. Therefore, the ailments, debts and enemies indicated in the 6th become worse in the 8th which signifies chronic & prolonged major ailments which can be deadly or act as death inducing diseases or multiple ailments afflicting several parts of the body. Debts in the 6th could bring about poverty or bankruptcy in the 8th and hidden enemies in the 6th could become implacable unknown major foes which inflict serious debilitation.

But despite all its bad, undesirable signification 8H is “Blessings in Disguise”. The greatest gift of the 8th house - spiritual transformation. The 8th house is not only a dusthana house, but a house of moksha or liberation along with the 4th and 12th houses. The 8th house takes us to our edge where transformation and rebirth are just on the other side of despair and death. It’s a house of transition from one state to the next. Its role is not just to create upheaval that leaves us in a sobbing heap on the floor, but to liberate us. The destructive principle of tamas paves the way for new creation (rajas), just as compost provides fertile soil for new seeds to grow.

The significations of mystery, mysticism and esoteric matters, occult and abrupt accident are part of the 8th house.

Receiving money from inheritances, grants, insurance policies, or simply snatching it from your spouse`s purse. The 8th house is the 2nd house (gains) from the 7th house (relationships) and represents other people's money in general, especially one's spouse.

Shared resources also fall within the Eighth House: inheritance, alimony, taxes, insurance and support from another. Financial support, as well as spiritual, emotional and physical support, are addressed by this house.

It’s the house of intense transformation because it corresponds to the 8th sign of Scorpio, the most intense sign. The last moksha house, the 12th house, represents the ultimate dissolution of the ego, but the 8th house is the battle between the ego and the soul. Mars, the planet of war, rules Scorpio.

Mangalya (marital bond) in females The mangalasutra or wedding necklace given to the bride is signified by the 8th house because it represents symbolically the immediate support or resource of the spouse as the 2nd house of the 7th house.

Adjectives for 8th house  are accidental, abrupt, sudden, shocking, inherited, atheistic, agnostic, unfortunate, unlucky, scarce, penurious, handicapped, criminal, illegal, immoral, unethical, obscure, obscurantist, veiled, covert, secret, debilitated, decayed, decreasing, declining, mystical, mysterious, esoteric, penetrating, insightful, explorative, poisonous, revengeful, retributive, death, deadly, dangerous, morbid, moribund, pathological, forensic, investigative, detecting, deep, catastrophic, disastrous, disruptive, chaotic. Drugs, prostitutes, power to manipulate others.

Body parts – The base of the spine, orifices, excretory organs, anus, colon, sweat pores, genitals, nasal orifices, ear orifices, sahasrara orifice ( kundalini chakra, the lower chakra) in all its the orifice of release & waste removal

Jobs related to the 8th house include explorers, thinkers, death merchants, criminals, mercenary, murderers, butchers, terrorist, rioters, underground profession, swindlers, forensics, researchers, investigators, private detectives, puzzle solvers, pathologists, transformative work of any type is related to the eighth house.

Eighth house people: Those we are afraid of losing. Those we fear in general. A killer. Those we can’t control. The astrologer. The hypnotist. The therapist. The insurance agent.

Places: Mortuary, graveyard, Bankruptcy Court, disaster zone, dungeon, dark place, the counsellor, psychic or astrologer’s office.

Objects: Weapons and other dangerous things, Tarot cards, astrology charts. Insurance policies. Inheritance. Eighth house also presents dark places, underground things e.g. Gem stone found in underground, mines, ground stores, oils resource, ghost and graveyards.

BPHS: Longevity (āyu), debts- should be rina (raṇaṁ), nija-dosa (ripuṁ), fortress (durgaṁ), wealth from the dead- insurance, inheritence (mṛtadhanaṁ), knowledge of past and future (gatyanukādi)

Prashna Marg: Destruction, cessation of everything (sarvapranasa); misfortune, danger (vipad); defame, loss of repute (apavad); cause and place of death (maranasya hetupradesha); servants (daas); external houses, house external to the living place (mathadikam veshma); chronic diseases (gadaa); danger, obstacles (vighna)

8H indicate degradation, destruction, sorrows debt, death, dishonour, negative, criminal or violent behaviour of mind, severe chronic disease.

Eighth House  also represents hospital emergency room, confidential banking, money laundering, state secrets, espionage, midwifery, surgery, healing, yoga-tantra, magic, shamanism, revolution, sudden, violent change; explosives, and eruptions of previously hidden force, distant travels or strong adventures

Hiding Behaviours: Grahas in bhava-8 signify hiding and secrets. The core image of randhra bhava is the tantric hunter, moving cautiously through the thick forest, alert to hidden energies which may suddenly emerge at any moment. The outcome of the hunter's awareness could lead to a successful capture, or it could protect one from surprise attack. In any case, Grahas in bhava-8 must pay profound attention to the Unseen.

Grahas in bhava-8 either hide things, or are hidden, or both.

The 8th house represents the Bhuva loka (sky), ruled by Sun corresponding with the Swadishthana Chakra. The 8th house in the natural horoscope is the house of longevity and the Sun as the natural karaka for health and the body, rules this loka. The 8th house is also the 2nd from the 7th and hence the house of sustenance for Bhu loka. The lordship of the Sun over this domain ensures that the people are not subjected to poverty.

8H rules death and rebirth of a person or how one rises after a great fall in their life. 8H also shows money through in-laws and friends as in loans, financial loans for home, business.

Deep rooted issues of one’s life, as 8th house deal with things that are buried deep beneath the earth.