Surya

Surya, the Sun, is the first of the nine grahas, the moving bodies of Vedic astrology. Jyotisha counts nine rather than the modern planets: the seven classical bodies plus the two lunar nodes. Surya's presiding deity is Surya himself, its gemstone is the ruby, its element is fire, and its period in the Vimshottari dasha system is six years. In jyotisha Surya signifies the soul (atman), the father, vitality, status, and authority. It is classed as a mild malefic because its heat and brilliance overwhelm what stands too near it, a planet within a few degrees of the Sun is said to be combust and weakened.

Surya rules the sign Simha (Leo) and is exalted in Mesha (Aries). Its condition in a chart is weighed for questions of health, confidence, and the relationship with the father and with power. These are the tradition's significations rather than astronomy; the underlying body is the star at the centre of the solar system.

A graha is not read in isolation but through the several tables that make up a Panchanga and a chart. It rules Sunday in the seven-day week, which in the Indian tradition as in the European one is named for the seven visible grahas in the order of the planetary hours. It holds 6 years of the Vimshottari dasha cycle, and it is lord of three of the twenty-seven nakshatras, Krittika, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha, spaced nine apart so that the nine grahas cover the twenty-seven exactly three times over.

The Vimshottari dasha system divides a notional lifetime of 120 years among the nine grahas in a fixed order, Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, with fixed lengths that sum to exactly 120. Which period a person begins life in is determined by the nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth, and how far through that period, by how far through the nakshatra the Moon had travelled.

In the scheme of dignities it is exalted in Aries and in its fall in Libra, and dignity is what the classical rules for strength are built on, since a graha in its own sign or its exaltation is read as able to act and one in its fall as constrained.

The Sun is a graha in this system rather than a star, and graha means seizer rather than planet: the nine are the bodies that take hold of a life, and the list therefore includes the two luminaries and the two lunar nodes alongside the five star planets. That is a different category from the Western one and the difference matters, because the Sanskrit tradition never had to decide whether the Sun and Moon were planets.