Venus Jupiter Conjunction August 2014

On August 18, Venus and Jupiter will be conjunct. They will come close to the exact longitudinal degree early morning on August 18. Both Jupiter and Venus are pretty bright planets and thus it will be a great planetary spectacle in the early morning sky during this while.  This conjunction is happening in the Cancer sign and Pushya Nakshatra at Cancer 13°, hence very close the middle of the sign and will be thus visible in the sky. Since they will be rising in the sky before sunrise, it it a possibility to photograph the event too. I will certainly try.

Venus is a fast moving planet. It zips through the sky moving from one sign in the horoscope to another in a matter of weeks. Therefore, a conjunction on Venus with Jupiter (or other planets) in a horoscope is not-so-rare phenomenon. It occurs once every 14 months.

There are two aspects of this conjunction that I will discuss in this article.The first is conjunction and related yogas between the planets and in this case it is the two sattvic planets in Vedic Astrology. Second is planetary war. When two planets are very close to each other, within a degree or so, they get into a combination called planetary war (ग्रह युद्ध).

Jupiter is the teacher/guru of Devas and Venus is the guru of Rakshasas. They are both planets associated with learning and sophistication, but their natural tendencies are really poles apart. Jupiter is associated with higher learning, spirituality while Venus is associated with luxury, dazzle, sexuality. In a horoscope too, Venus and Jupiter do not get along with each other. They are not natural friends. Jupiter considers Venus as enemy while Jupiter is neutral for Venus. Venus gets exalted in Jupiter’s sign though.

For persons born in Venus’s lagna, Jupiter is a malefic in their janma and rashi kundalis. For Taurus lagna, Jupiter is lord of 8th and 11th house in the horoscope. 8th is a difficult house in the kundali. Ownership of 11th house makes Jupiter a malefic. For Libra lagna, Jupiter is lord of 3rd and 6th houses and hence is tainted. 6th house in the horoscope is for litigations, diseases, conflict, enemies and these qualities come to be associated with Jupiter. For Jupiter’s signs, there is a similar story. For Sagittarius, Venus is lord of 6th and 11th houses and a first rate malefic. For Pisces, the house ownership is 3rd and 8th. It is not as bad as the previous case, but still cannot be called a good combination. While this is counted for the lagna, the logic and explanation is true for any of the houses as relative position of Venus’ and Jupiter’s sign do not change. Hence Jupiter and Venus cannot be simultaneous temporal benefics for any lagna.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Venus cannot thus be termed as good blindly, as the treatment is in many astrology books. I am literally translating from one of the “best-sellers” in Hindi language published by a leading book house and it says:

If Jupiter and Venus are conjunct in a birth horoscope, the native (जातक) is rich and famous, has a beautiful wife. He is intelligent and would earn money through teaching, i.e., teacher, lecturer, professor, management coach etc.. He would frequently engage in discourse with other learned men in his area of expertise.

If Venus is aspected by Jupiter or conjunct with Jupiter, the combination is called Satkalatra karaka. This combination is explained in many books with a description that lord of 7th house in a horoscope or Venus is in mutual aspect or conjunction with Jupiter or Mercury. Specifically applying this yoga to Jupiter and Venus, we get the description as above. As I said before, the above statement cannot be taken at face value.

Hora Sara deals with this combination is a more realistic way and provides some rules for this combination to work –

गुरुभ्रुगुयोगे मतिमानुदयात्मजधर्मेषु वा निधने |
स्त्रीधनपुत्रसमेतोऽन्यत्र गदैः पीड़ितोऽतिदूःखार्तः ||

In 1st, 5th, 9th or 8th house in the horoscope, it is a good combination giving a good wife, wealth and kids. In other kundali houses, this is a bad combination and will give sorrows. Sagittarius lagna and Libra lagna does not have this problem even though Jupiter and Venus are 6th lords.

A ग्रह युद्ध in a birth horoscope will need to be taken into account to see which of the houses and the associated factors (कारकत्व) will lose strength, rather “destroyed”. 

There is a more mundane application of exact conjunction between two planets, it is called planetary war. If two planets are less than a degree apart, they clash with each other. This results in a war between the two in which one is a victor and other is vanquished. The one whose longitudinal degrees are lower is the victor.

There are 4 types of planetary war described in Brihat Samhita – bheda yuti, ullekh yuti, apsavya yuti and anshu-mardan, described in plain English here – https://www.facebook.com/drscmishra/posts/595553260463464. Dr. Mishra is an authority because he is the one who wrote the treatise on Brihat Samhita in Hindi that I refer to. As of 18th August, the latitude of Jupiter is 26.1’ and that of Venus is 37.5’. They are going to be extremely close to each other and if my understanding is right, they will overlap each other like a partial eclipse. This is the case of anshu-mardan. Brihat Samhita, chapter 17 says that in case of anshu-mardan, there are chances of war, diseases. What is happening in Ukraine can actually become worse.

Another use of planetary war is on stock market, financial astrology. In this case, Venus is the fast moving planet and Jupiter is the slow one. On 18th, Venus moves in from behind and wins the war with Jupiter. Jupiter is vanquished and this will result in the overall market sentiment going down. Banking stocks will go down. The commodities indicated by Jupiter will have supply problems, indicating rise in the associated food grains. Soon, Venus moves forward and Jupiter is the the victor. This will be a hard time for FMCG stocks.