Hello Everyone! Hope you all are doing great.
This post is going to be a complete analysis of Mangal Dosha, its origin, its context, its effect, and any and every considerations about it. I would try to keep it as short and as clear as possible and I would try to delve into all aspects of Mangal Dosha so that people develop a thorough understanding of the same.
What is Mangal Dosha? Why Mars?
Mangal dosha or manglik dosha is simply the influence of Mangal on particular houses. Now, there are several explanation of mangal dosha, so I would try to tell you what the books mention. But before knowing how it is formed, it needs to be known why Mars has such a pivotal role in married life.
Mars is the planet of of bruises and scars. It is the karaka or significator of all kinds of cuts, injuries, external damages, breaks, hindrances and so on. Mars as a rule gives a scar to whichever house it relates to. If in lagna, the person has a scar on their face. If relating to the 4th, it gives cuts to mother and damages to the car. If in the 4th or afflicting mercury, a break in education. If in 10th, a break in career and so on. Now, these are not generalized results that will be seen in every horoscope. They tend to have modifications, but this is the basic concept.
Hence, Mars has the potential to damage the spouse if it relates to its aspects. If not, it is likely to damage family life if it relates to that. Hence, the presence of Mars in particular places is not advisable. More so, in the earlier periods, when arranged marriage was the only norm, when divorces or late marriages were not common, the only result of mangal dosha that could be seen was death of the spouse.
For the average population, the medical services were less, the possibility of unnatural death was high, and the only obvious way someone’s married life would get hindered was the death of spouse because the society was not as open. Hence, all factors played together meant that Mangal dosha is likely to kill the husband. Today it isn’t so. Mars can play out its scar in several thousand ways and death is the rarest of the rare situation. Perhaps you would get to see such a case only once or twice in a lifetime.
How is the mangal dosha formed?There are several quotes about mangal dosha and its explanations. Such as:
Lagne vyaye sukhe va api saptame va ashtame kuje; subhadrgyogahine cha patim hanti na samayah;
The woman born becomes a widow if Mangal is in the 1st, 12th, 4th, 7th or 8th unaspected by benefics
Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra
Lagne vyaye cha patale jamitre chaashtame kuje, kanya bhartri vinashaaya bharta kanya vinaashaka;
If there is Mars in the 1st, 12th, 4th, 7th, 8th in the husband’s horoscope, it destroys the wife, and if in the wife’s horsocope it destroys the husband.
Agastya Samhita
Dhane vyaye ch patale jamitre chastame kuje, kanya bhartuvinashayah bhartuh kanya vinashyati;
If there is Mars in the 1st, 12th, 4th, 7th, 8th in the husband’s horoscope, it destroys the wife, and if in the wife’s horsocope it destroys the husband.
Maansagari
There are several other texts, but quoting the same rule again and again would be pointless. Hence, simply put; the common point from all the texts comes out to be that 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th and 12th are the houses in which Mars gives rise to Mangal dosha.
Why these houses?
Before I go into explaining the reason for different houses, it is important to set the context. In the early days, the wife’s age was decided by that of the husband and the husband’s age was decided by that of the spouse. Simply put, the society was such that women had a lifeless or soul-less life and hence her life was assumed to be as long as her husband lives. Whenever a maraka dasha or transit operates, it does not give death. Death is a possibility that happens only once at the end of your lifespan. Before that, whenever an afflicted period operates, it gives mrityu-tulya kashta or suffering equal to pain. Hence, the husband’s death could be predicted from afflictions to a wife’s horoscope. It would actually be the husband to die, but the wife would suffer a death like situation.
Now, we all know that the 8th house from the any house is the age of that house. 8th from Lagna is the Aayu or lifespan. However, for a wife’s horoscope, 8th is said to be the age of her husband as well.
Saptame patisaubhagyam, vaidhavyam nidhane dvija; Srinaamasambhavam yadyat tatphalam tatpatau vadet;
Fortune for the husband from the 7th house and widowhood (death of husband) from the 8th should be known, O Brahmin! Also, the effects that are not relevant to the female, those should be declared applicable to her husband.
Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra
Hence, the husband’s death or the wife’s death are judged interchangeably as the two (in the old times) depend on each other.
Hence, in the 1st, Mars afflicts the 7th and 8th. In the 2nd, it afflicts the 8th house and family life (2nd house). In the 4th house, it afflicts the 7th house and is in trine from the 8th house. In the 7th house, it afflicts the 7th and the 2nd (the actual house of age for husand, 8th from 7th), In the 8th it afflicts both 8th and 2nd. In the 12th, it afflicts the 7th.
Which is why, Mangal dosha poses a threat to the husband’s age and longevity. This is milder for the case of a husband because his existence does not depend on the wife (again, in the older social context).
Why Mangal Dosha is more important for women?
Traditionally, the role of women has been identified as housewives. Their lives has been revolved around taking care of home and of kids. Hence, most aspects of life that exist for men, do not exist for women. Again, this isn’t my own male chauvinistic view. This is how things existed in the history of the world.
As Brihat Parashara mentions in the last shloka I mentioned:
O Brahmin! Also, the effects that are not relevant to the female, those should be declared applicable to her husband.
Which is to say, because the effects cannot exist for the wife, they get translated to the husband. So to understand this, lets see an example:
If one has malefics in the 4th house, it damages vehicle. If there is Mars in the 4th, it also indicates landed property. Now, in the early days, nobody named the property in the name of their wife, because it lead to no tax savings or hiding of assets. Hence, if the wife’s 4th house is damaged or has strong affliction of Mars, neither can it affect her land, nor her vehicle. These results would get translated for the husband. As for the wife, the 4th house represents family happiness and character, which are relevant to her. So Mars would only afflict these two. Additionally, Mars in 4th would also afflict 7th or her married life. Hence, the only possible result of these for the wife in such a context is that there would be loss of happiness at home and problems in married life. Now this could either be due to her character, or due to her husband’s longevity.
So you see, because the scenario and possibility gets limited, the only result Mars could bring about was related to the husband because the husband was the only existing aspect in her life. For the husband’s horoscope, death of horoscope would need severe affliction to Venus, 7th house, 2nd house and involvement of Ketu. Because in the absence of all of these, a single factor would lead to the damage of that respective area, and not life.
When your vehicle is damaged, it is a limited result. You don’t whine or cry, you don’t suffer mentally, your family doesn’t undergo a loss. When your spouse dies, it is a grand event. Hence, bigger calamities happen only when major afflictions exist. But for a women, since the possibility is only limited, the result has to happen with respect to what already exists. Since only the husband exists in her life, that is the only thing to get damaged no matter where or what the affliction is.
The modern circumstance:
As we know, things have changed. Part of why people don’t consider mangal dosha these days is because they have the example of a lot of manglik people who have had good married lives. Now this is because, in a world where the possibility of a woman’s life is greatly expanding, and is almost head to head with that of a man, mangal dosha again looses its ability to damage the husband unless very severe afflictions to all aspects of married life exist.
No doubt that results for mangal dosha occur, but with the current possibilities, there are a thousand ways in which mangal dosha can manifest. Not just the death of the husband.
Most common results in mangal dosha:
- Delay in marriage: Now, delay per say is not the result of Mangal dosha. But the delay would occur because a few relationships would break. Remember, mars gives scars. It would scar one or two relationships (sometimes more) before letting the person settle. Same way, for an arranged marriage, it would have a lot of proposals being rejected.Chaos in marriage: Often when Mars afflicts the 7th house and 7th lord, a very prominent result to come is that during, before, and immediately after the marriage there would be a lot of chaos, quarrels and problems. This is specially true for arranged marriages. 7th house and 7th lord both represent the first phase of marriage. It is the point in the horoscope where marriage begins. Affliction of mars there means disagreements, arguments, and other issues during the marriage ceremony. Which is again why dowry and related issues are at times linked to marriage. When the mangal dosha is very strong, there are even arguments and fights at the marriage dias between the groom’s and the bride’s side.
- Health issues to spouse: Some health issues are observed for spouse in case the mangal dosha afflicts the 7th, 8th and 2nd. This is true without a doubt if there are no benefic aspects. Death does not come, but some health issues and accidents will happen and if the affliction is strong, some accident would already have happened in the spouse’s life before marriage as well. Because while you meet your spouse after marriage, your horoscope indicates them since their birth.Personality issues: If mars afflicts the 1st and the 7th, adjustment issues and problems due to an aggressive personality are common. This again is what is most commonly known by everyone. Now, it has to be noted that this is a recent issue. Just like death was previously the major problem, this is currently the major problem. Earlier, women were not as outspoken and free as today. Today they are. Hence, mangal dosha increases the aggressiveness and arguments in marriage. Escalation of issues, exaggerated reactions by both the partners, etc. are the most common issues in marriage.
Judgement of Mangal Dosha:
Just the fact that mangal dosha exists does not indicate the result. There are several ifs and buts that need to be studied:
- If Mars is retrograde, mangal dosha does not exist. Especially if there is a benefic aspect on the 7th or 1st house. This is so because, retrogression changes the behavior of planet.
- Mars in its own house, or in its exaltation does not do a lot of damage, results are felt but still, lesser than expected.
- Planetary exchange minimizes the dosha, be it rashi exchange or nakshatra exchange.Similar afflictions in both the horoscope denies mangal dosha. This is so because one of the most important rules of astrology is that afflictions of similar level cancel each other out. (This is strictly limited to similar afflictions, if both are manglik, only ill effects due to being manglik would be cancelled. If there are more afflictions by other planets, they remain the same and would d)
- If Mars is not afflicted and aspected by benefic, most ill effects do not happen.
- If Mars is in benefic influence, results would change after the maturity of Mars. If the house lord or some other planet is strong and protecting the 7th, results would change after the maturity of that planet. If it is an exchange, results would change after the exchange is activated.
- Mangal dosha is judged from all three of Lagna, Moon and Venus. And mangal dosha needs to be judged mutually for both horoscopes as well. There are numerous rules of cancellation. Some which cancel mangal dosha in one chart, some which cancel mangal dosha with respect to the spouse’s chart.
- Death is the rarest of the rare possibilities. No matter what your pundits say. Your pundit would have to be extremely lucky to get such a rare case, make such a prediction and see such a result in front of his eyes.
So, in a nutshell, thats all about Mangal dosha that you need to know to save yourself from the hue and cry raised by it.
