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About Alison Bodhani
Alison Bodhani started college at the age of sixteen at Simon’s Rock of Bard College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts and has a Masters in counseling from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She began studying Vedic Astrology in 1998 with masters of the subject, chiefly Hart de Fouw and Narendra Desai. She has also studied and practiced complementary healing and consciousness expanding traditions including ayurveda, yoga, and shamanism and uses them all to create unique sessions for her clients. She has practiced since 1999 and has taught for the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, NM as well as for various other organizations.
Kalā means performing arts and refers to the 64 classical skills/arts (Chatushashta Kalas) in traditional Hindu scriptures. In ancient India, learning and knowledge of the 64 Kala was a cornerstone in developing a cultured individual in society. Texts like Kamasutra stress on how 64 Kalas would shape an individual.
Lord Krishna possessed all 64 Kalas, and there is an anecdote of Lord Krishna and Balrama learnt the 64 kalas in 64 days, including 14 Vidhyas, at Guru Sandipani’s ashram. Each of these would take a person two and a half years to accomplish.
Nidhi means treasure. Thus, Kalānidhi Yoga means a “treasure of skill.” Skill is defined at dictionary.com as:
Lord Krishna possessed all 64 Kalas, and there is an anecdote of Lord Krishna and Balrama learnt the 64 kalas in 64 days, including 14 Vidhyas, at Guru Sandipani’s ashram. Each of these would take a person two and a half years to accomplish.
Nidhi means treasure. Thus, Kalānidhi Yoga means a “treasure of skill.” Skill is defined at dictionary.com as:
1. The ability, coming from one’s knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well.
2. Competent excellence in performance; expertness; dexterity.
3. A craft, trade, or job requiring manual dexterity or special training in which a person has competence and experience.
Kalānidhi yoga is defined in two ways. First, as Jupiter in the second house or fifth house associated or aspected by Mercury and Venus; second, as Jupiter occupying a rashi of Mercury or Venus.
The latter definition becomes more significant when Jupiter occupies such a rashi and occupies the second or fifth house, or aspects the second house, fifth house, ascendant, or ascendant lord. However, even if Jupiter simply occupies a rashi of Mercury or Venus in any house, one will usually find the person has cultivated a special skill even if it only appears as an avocation. They may be an excellent gardener, graphic artist or something of that nature.
Kalānidhi Yoga emphasizes the influence of Mercury and Venus on Jupiter with the involvement of houses of learning and creativity. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are the triumvirate of planets that produce interest in knowledge and the arts and the ability to cultivate such interests. Following are the charts of famous people whose lives clearly demonstrate skill.
Examples: Steve Jobs
Inventor of all things “i”, Jobs has a potent Kalānidhi Yoga. Jupiter is in Gemini, the sign of Mercury, it is retrograde, increasing its strength, and it aspects the fifth house from the eleventh. Venus sits in the fifth aspecting back onto Jupiter. Both planets are located with innovative and yoga-intensifying nodes. Plus Jupiter aspects the Sun in the seventh, who is the ascendant lord, thereby tying the yoga directly to Jobs. One of the skills on the list of sixty-four kalas is “the creation of simple mechanical objects”. While Jobs’s objects may not be simple in and of themselves, he did gear his creations in the direction of the greatest simplicity or user-friendliness possible, and his ability to do so has been one of the chief features of his success.
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg is one of the most successful, renowned Hollywood directors of all time. The gross receipts on his movies exceed 8 billion dollars. His movie, Jaws, was a huge innovation in film style that had not been seen before. He has made many of America’s iconic films, including Jaws, E.T., and The Color Purple. He also has a great Kalānidhi Yoga. Jupiter is in Venus sign with Venus in the fifth house and Jupiter aspects the first house, tying this yoga
directly to the person. The fifth house is the premier house of creativity and entertainment and also the house of the intellectual mind.
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso has a Kalānidhi Yoga formed by retrograde Jupiter in the eleventh opposite Mercury in the fifth house, where the lord of his chart, the Moon, is sitting. Because his fifth house contains Mercury, the debilitated Moon, and exalted Rahu who conjoin with the Kalānidhi Yoga his renowned skill was also highly unusual.
Raphael
Raphael is another painter of nonpareil status with a beautiful Kalānidhi Yoga. He has retrograde Jupiter in the eleventh in Virgo with exalted retrograde Venus in the fifth with Jupiter aspecting ascendant lord Mars. Both Venus and Jupiter are strong, moreover, Venus is just reaching its exact degree of exaltation (27). Venus is totally combust but this can enhance the inner qualities of a planet and Raphael’s painting was a very high expression.
Britney Spears
While Spears is unlikely to be remembered in the same light as the previous chart owners, she is a successful singer and she does have a weaker Kalānidhi Yoga formed by Jupiter in no special condition in Libra in the second house. The averageness of this yoga makes her popular with the masses but not a producer of timeless masterpieces.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is one of India’s legendary saints. He has a Kalānidhi Yoga formed by retrograde Jupiter in Gemini in the fifth house. In his case, multiple yogas indicating great spirituality turn his Kalānidhi Yoga into spiritual skill.
Some other people renowned for skill with a Kalānidhi Yoga include Fred Astaire, Roger Abbott, Hank Aaron, Igor Stravinsky, Henry Ford, Carl Jung, Alexander Graham Bell, and Ammachi.
Sarasvatī Yoga
A premier yoga of skill and learning, Sarasvatī Yoga is defined in Phaladīpika CH.6 as “Highly intelligent; skilled in dramatics, prose composition, versifying accounts, poetry, narrative descriptions, and the exposition of sacred lore. Will be world-renowned, prosperous, and blessed with wife and progeny. He will be fortunate and respected by even the best of rulers.”
Sarasvatī Yoga is formed when Venus, Mercury and Jupiter are all in angles, trines or the second house with Jupiter exalted, own sign, or in a friendly rāśi. Sarasvatī is the Goddess of knowledge and this yoga, when formed with strength, confers first-class scholarship across a lifetime, usually of a very refined nature.
Following are example charts of Sarasvatī Yoga.
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco has been described as a “colossus of learning.” He is an Italian writer, teacher, and researcher. He holds thirteen honorary doctorates, he speaks five modern languages and has a good grasp of classic Greek and Latin. He is one of only a few hundred people regarded to have mastered semiotics, the study of signs and symbols. He has written several enormously large and successful books and he lives with a library of over 30,000 books. He has a lovely Sarasvatī Yoga formed by exalted retrograde Jupiter in the ascendant, Venus in the seventh and Mercury in the fifth. Mercury conjoins his lagna lord in the fifth, which Jupiter aspects. And Venus aspects his ascendant, so all three elements of his Sarasvatī Yoga are tied to the ascendant or the ascendant lord making him able to fully utilize his capacities.
Omraam Aivanhov
A Bulgarian mystic, philosopher and teacher, he was a leader of the Universal White Brotherhood, which taught timeless spiritual precepts with a predominantly Christian flavor. His Sarasvatī Yoga is formed by Jupiter in the second, Mercury in the fourth and Venus in the fifth. Because Jupiter conjoins Rāhu on his Kāla-Sarpa Yoga axis, forming a Guru-Cāṇḍāla Yoga his organization was not always well respected.
Enrico Fermi
A Nobel Prize winner in physics, Fermi discovered nuclear fission, invented the nuclear reactor and created the first controlled nuclear fission reaction. He was a child prodigy in math and physics and received his doctorate at the age of 21. His Sarasvatī Yoga is formed by Mercury and Venus in Libra in the seventh and Jupiter in Sagittarius in the ninth.
Bertrand Russell
Another Nobel Prize winner (in literature), Bertrand Russell is considered one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. He was a mathematician, logician, social critic and philosopher with strong humanitarian leanings. He wrote over 3000 publications and 40 books. He is standard fare in any liberal arts education.
His Sarasvatī Yoga is formed by exalted Jupiter in the tenth and Venus and Mercury in the seventh. His Sarasvatī Yoga is completely unafflicted and Jupiter is in the tenth, making him a strong humanitarian.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the greatest universal geniuses of all time. He remains legendary today for his painting, his mathematical abilities and his inventions, but he was also skilled in numerous fields including writing, music, botany, sculpture and architecture. He has a Sarasvatī Yoga formed by Jupiter in the fourth, Mercury in the fifth and Venus in Taurus in the seventh, making also a Mālavya Yoga. His Jupiter is in Aquarius, only the sign of a neutral
planet to Jupiter, but Jupiter can function like it is exalted in Aquarius, so it is a special exception. Mercury is debilitated but it has nīca bhaṅga from both Venus and Jupiter. Mercury in Pisces can represent a diversified thinker because fish, the symbol of Pisces, breed in hordes, so often the mind of a debilitated Mercury person has hordes of thoughts. This can make someone ditsy and disorganized or multifaceted and brilliant depending on other indications in the chart. Albert Einstein also had a Sarasvatī Yoga with Jupiter in Aquarius and Mercury in Pisces. One difference between Einstein and da Vinci is that da Vinci’s lagna lord is Mars exalted in the third house of skills whereas Einstein’s chart is ruled by debilitated Mercury, so da Vinci had hands on practical skill as well as diversified intelligence, whereas Einstein was primarily a thinker and not at all practical in his own life.
