The Nine Planets

Brihat Jataka chapter 2 opens with one short verse that names what each of the seven traditional planets is in the cosmic person and what role each plays at court. Everything later about planet significations starts from this verse, so it is the right place to start.

The seven traditional planets and their primary natures

The Sun is the soul. The Moon is the mind. Mars is strength. Mercury is speech. Jupiter is knowledge and health. Venus is desire. Saturn is sorrow BJ 2.1. The same verse adds a court metaphor: the Sun and the Moon are kings; Mars is the commander; Mercury the crown prince; Jupiter and Venus are counsellors; Saturn is the servant.

These are the karaka roles: the things each planet stands for as a fixed nature, regardless of the sign or house it occupies. A chart inherits them. When the Moon is challenged in some chart, the mind is challenged. When Jupiter is strong, knowledge and protection are amplified. The karaka language is the bridge between abstract planet names and concrete life experience.

Three temperaments

Brihat Jataka also classifies the planets by guna: the three temperaments of classical Indian thought. The Sun, Moon, and Jupiter are sattva guna (clear, harmonious). Mercury and Venus are rajas guna (passionate, active). Mars and Saturn are tamas guna (heavy, dark) BJ 2.7. The guna of a planet does not make it good or bad. It tells you the texture of how its themes show up: a sattva planet brings clarity to its area, a rajas planet brings activity and movement, a tamas planet brings density and slowness.

The same verse classifies the planets by varna (caste): Venus and Jupiter are Brahmins; Mars and the Sun, Kshatriyas; the Moon, a Vaisya; Mercury, a Sudra; Saturn, a Chandala. The varna scheme is rarely cited in modern chart reading, but it appears in commentary and is part of how classical texts contextualize a planet's social-functional role.

Body, color, element

The rest of chapter 2 fills in physical and elemental descriptors that the reader will see again throughout Brihat Jataka. The Sun rules copper, the Moon white, Mars red, Mercury green, Jupiter yellow, Venus mixed colors, Saturn black BJ 2.5. Among elements, Mars is fire, Mercury earth, Jupiter akasha (ether), Venus water, Saturn air BJ 2.6. Body tissues, deities, and directions also map to specific planets in the same chapters.

This material gets practical use when a chart reading touches material domains: gem prescriptions, color associations, professional environments. The relevant move is to know the descriptors exist and that classical readings draw on them. Memorizing them is not necessary on first pass.

The two lunar nodes: Rahu and Ketu

Brihat Jataka mentions Rahu and Ketu by name in chapter 2 but does not develop them as fully as the seven traditional planets BJ 2.3. Modern Vedic practice treats them as full planets in the sense that they are placed in signs and houses and contribute to chart readings, even though they are mathematical points (the Moon's ascending and descending nodes), not physical bodies.

The canonical treatment of the nodes is more developed in BPHS BPHS 3.31 than in Brihat Jataka. The short version: Rahu functions as an amplifier and obsessive force, drawing the chart toward whatever house it occupies and intensifying the desires of the planets it touches. Ketu functions as a dissolver and detacher, releasing the area it occupies and softening the planets it touches into intuition or disinterest. The pair always sits in opposite houses (1st-7th, 2nd-8th, 3rd-9th, etc.): they are the two ends of one axis.

Practice

For each of the seven traditional planets in your chart, write down the karaka nature from BJ 2.1 (soul, mind, strength, speech, knowledge, desire, sorrow) and the house it sits in. The combinations themselves are interesting: a soul-planet (Sun) in the 10th tells one story; a mind-planet (Moon) in the 12th tells another. You do not need to interpret yet. Just learn to see karakas and houses as a paired statement.