Lesson 9 of 14
Transits, and Sade sati in plain words
Where the planets are today, counted from your birth Moon.
- Mithunam 12th from the Moon Rising expenses and unsettledness
- Kadagam 1st from the Moon Peak the heaviest stretch, on the Moon itself
- Simmam 2nd from the Moon Setting the load eases; care with money and speech
The birth chart is fixed, but the planets keep moving. Where they are today, read against the birth chart, is , transit. In the Tamil way transits are counted from the Moon’s rasi: a planet today in the sign after your rasi is "in the second from the Moon", and so on. That is how a weekly or a yearly rasi palan is written, one reading per rasi, and why two people with the same rasi get the same forecast.
Which transits matter
The fast bodies matter little on their own: the Moon changes sign every two and a quarter days and the Sun once a month. The slow ones colour whole years. moves one sign in about a year, and its move, , is read for every rasi; the second, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh from the Moon are the favourable places for it. moves one sign in about two and a half years, , and is favourable in the third, sixth and eleventh. and change signs every eighteen months or so, always moving backwards.
Sade sati
, "seven and a half", is the stretch when Sani transits the twelfth sign from the birth Moon, then the Moon’s own sign, then the second. Two and a half years in each makes seven and a half. Sani takes about thirty years to go round the zodiac, so most people meet Sade sati two or three times in a life.
Its three phases are read differently. The , in the twelfth, is read as a time of expenses and unsettledness. The , Sani on the Moon itself, is the heaviest: the mind feels the load. The , in the second, is read as the load easing, with care needed over money and speech.
What it means in plain words
Sani stands for discipline, work and time, so Sade sati is read as a period of responsibility and slowing down, when things take longer than planned and shortcuts do not work. It is not a sentence of misfortune. Many people finish a degree, build a house or settle into a career in Sade sati, precisely because Sani rewards steady effort. How much it is felt depends on the whole chart: where Sani sits at birth, the running dasha and the points of the signs it crosses.
For the sample chart, with the Moon in , Sade sati runs while Sani crosses , Kadagam and . The diagram shows the three signs with their phases.
Two smaller Sani transits
Sani in the eighth from the Moon is , about two and a half years read for obstacles and care with health. Sani in the fourth is , read for unease at home. And once a month the Moon itself passes through the eighth sign from your rasi for about two and a quarter days, the , when families avoid starting anything important.