Why is Saturn Related to Brahma?

“Vahni (Fire), Ambu (Water), Shikhija (Skanda), Vishnu, Vidauja (Indra), Sachi, and Ka (Brahma), O’ Twice Born, from the Sun and the other Grahas in their order are known the Devas.” – Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Chapter 3:18

This quote is from a foundation text of Vedic Astrology, the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, on the allotment of different deities to the Grahas (The Sanskrit word for the planets).  These are not the only associations that the Grahas have to different deities, however.  It should be remembered that all the many deities of Hinduism are considered to act through the agency of the different Grahas for their purposes and responsibilities as custodians of the various forces of nature on Planet Earth.  So while this list is not meant to be the only correlation of Deities to Grahas, it is a very insightful list to consider, shedding much valuable information on the nature of the different energies of the Planets.  In this post, for brevity’s sake, we will just be focusing on Saturn’s correlation to Brahma as it is quite interesting to contemplate.

This relation of Saturn to Brahma is very confusing and hard to understand for most.  If you study Jyotish you are probably already wondering where I am going with this, but lets first make sure we understand a little about Saturn.  He is in many ways the toughest planet to understand… Saturn rules death, lack, loss, negative karma, disease, depression, sorrow, and those things we must do that we are not good at doing.  When well placed in the birth chart, He is the planet that does the hardest jobs that no one else cares to do.  He does it without concern for himself and just for the sake of others. When Saturn is weak one is not able to do the hard things they know they must do for success and therefore usually are not very successful in the world, as most successful people in the world didn’t get that way by avoiding or not wanting to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.  Saturn is the one who does that. Jaimini says that if Saturn is in the 10th from the swamsha (atmakaraka in navamsa) the person will live a life of “accomplished deeds”.  Meaning this person gets things done in the world.

Mythological image of Brahma.  Depicted with four heads, each continually reciting one of the four vedas.  Even his mythological image seems much more busy at work like Saturn, when compared to Vishnu and Shiva who are both mythologically seen lounging on a coiled serpent, or sitting in blissful samadhi.
Mythological image of Brahma. Depicted with four heads, each continually reciting one of the four vedas. Even his mythological image seems much more busy at work like Saturn, when compared to Vishnu and Shiva who are both mythologically seen lounging on a coiled serpent, or sitting in blissful samadhi.

The word for the absolute God without attributes is Brahman in Hinduism.  The names of the threefold aspect of God as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva respectively.  This correlates to Christianity and its holy trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, actually.  Brahma is the God of creation, he creates but does not get involved with creation and does not destroy or transform it, those are Vishnu and Shiva’s roles… Everybody knows that, so what is my point?  Well Saturn is not the planet of creativity, so you would think Jupiter or Sun would be related to the creative aspect of God (Brahma).  But they arent… Why is that?

I am not asserting to know exactly why that is, but here are some interesting ideas about why that may be the case:

Brahma is the force that releases just the right finite amount of God’s infinite potential of energy to create a galaxy and cause creation to occur.  Too much or too little of God’s infinite potentiality would cause tremendous imbalances in the grand scheme of the creation… So Brahma is that force which releases just the right amount of energy, but not too much.  In this way we can see that for creation to occur most perfectly from God’s standpoint, there needs to be a Saturnian element of restraint involved for the creation to be harmonious and properly balanced…If new worlds were constantly created before the old ones got destroyed then everything would be off and their would be less purpose to creation.  In a smaller way this is why I think the yogic guidelines Patanjali gave in the Yoga Sutras called one of the Yamas “Brahmacharya”.  In plain english, this is one of the 10 do’s and dont’s of Raja/Kriya Yoga and it is normally translated as “celibacy”.  This is a bad job of translating though.  Brahma means God’s creative energy, and Charya means “going, driving”.  So it simply means “going the way that God goes”.  And God doesn’t waste It’s creative energy in frivolous sexual pursuits.  So Brahmacharya really means to use one’s creative energy wisely and like God would, so as not to waste the spiritual force generated from Yoga practice.  Its true that sexual over-indulgence is the fastest way to waste that force for most people and so this is why it has slowly come to mean that, though it really means much more.  Talking excessively, being on social media unnecessarily, and eating bad foods that take too much energy to digest are just as obvious and popular ways of wasting one’s spiritual force in this modern age as sexual indulgence is.  And in the same way but on a smaller level, when Saturn is strong in a birth chart that individual will usually be much more focused on important works and not be as easily distracted or waste its energy on over-socializing, overeating, or overstimulation in general.  And so from the perspective of God it may be more that creation is not real, it is an illusion, but it is Brahma/Saturn’s job to continue this illusion for the purpose of individuals to grow beyond whatever separates them from God and to eventually unite with God.  So in this sense creation is very much an “Accomplished Deed” and thus related to Saturn.  Also we must remember that we dont incarnate unless there is some Karmic debt (Saturn) that must be worked out.  Even having too much good karma can cause a need to reincarnate and live an awesome life, which happens often for Saints and Yogis.  Even this is still a karmic debt that must be spent before the positive and negative karmic-balancing scale can go back to zero and one can finally become liberated.  Its like a bank account balance, it has to be zero to close out (get liberated), so a positive balance must be spent in an incarnation, and a negative balance must be worked off in an incarnation.  So when we see that Creation is actually just this path we must navigate to get beyond our lack and separation, and to merge back with God, we can see how similar it is to Saturn’s astrological role.

Here is another way to see how creation is related to Saturn, and this is basically paraphrasing what Ernst Wilhelm has written in his book Graha Sutras, so all credit goes to him on this perspective:  In order to have creation, the Absolute God must hide himself and be “veiled” in order to make creation seem real and separate from himself.  The veil is called “maya” in sanskrit and is created by each person’s “Avidya”- the ignorance of their soul nature as pure Spirit.  Saturn is responsible for each person’s ignorance and so this is how we can see his connection to creation from the perspective of having to create illusion/separation/lack from our real Self.  Ernst even goes so far as to say that Saturn rules the flow of life force into the nerves, making us sense things as cold/hot, fast/slow, dark/bright, etc. and not as God essentially.  So in this way Brahma requires and uses Saturn to create the world and the ignorance of our soul nature that so often accompanies our incarnation.

Another interesting factor is that Brahma is the most neglected of the trinity by far, as there are very few temples to Him and He is hardly mentioned compared to Vishnu and Shiva.  Saturn is similarly always the most neglected planet as well!  This is really because Saturn is misunderstood, and gets blamed for being the worst planet, but it is really because He has the most enemies from the standpoint of the lajjitaadi avasthas, and so therefore on average will be the weakest and most afflicted planet.  So then when his dasa or transits occur, we experience those weaknesses and difficulties.  But this is not because Saturn wants to wreck our life, it is because our Saturn is often not strong enough to deal with all the negative karma that we have and so during his periods there are difficulties.

14 thoughts on “Why is Saturn Related to Brahma?

  1. Here are a couple of more ideas I’ve sussed out from my own teachers that comes from a more Jyotish related point of view on the basic attributes of the planets as outlined by Parasara. Parasara denotes “Ka” as the deity linked to Saturn, not specifically Prajapati or Brahma which are common associations that do have their place. For example, Ka is the start of Kala, which is time personified, and in it contains prajapti (ka) + vasudeva (a) + rudra (la) or the more commonly used Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva connection. Since this is the cycle of creation we see that it is Prajapati/Brahma that creates a new being, universe, whatever out of the old cycle. The only reason we are reborn in this cycle is due to our sins ( or karma if you like) which is exactly what Saturn represents in the birth chart. Applying this to the chart we see those sins for which we are reborn is signified by the 8th house with Saturn as karaka as well. No sins/karma = no rebirth / no Brahma /no more cycles of maya for this expansion of the universe.

    If we take this to the guna level we see that the planets that can cause the most sin in this world are the rajas planets of Mercury and Venus – something many people do not often consider. To understand this we must recognize that rajas is highly self motivated /ego driven action and people often see these planets as benefic in some way, though miss this Brahma/ rajas connection in which a great amount of sin can be created as we do not even know we are doing it! Saturn only represents that sin which you have to answer to that is mainly created out of this rajas cycle of Mercury/Venus and rajas is the guna associated with Brahma. Ever wonder why the vast majority of people come to astrology asking about career/money ( Mercury) or their relationships ( Venus)? This is where the most karma is created and hits us the most as well!

    We could even push this analogy to the tattwa level as we see Saturn as the controller of Vayu tattwa. Vayu is that which keeps our body moving and hence gives Saturn control over our longevity. Movement is also associated with the chara rashi’s which are also rajas/ Brahma rashi’s and hence Saturn has a lot connection to the moveable signs – particularly the moveable vayu sign of Libra where he is exalted.

    There are various reasons and myths around why Brahma is not worshiped. Though given the above we can understand that we are born due to rajas and our sin. Why would someone worship their rebirth when the goal is moksha? Sattva can bring purity and tamas can give great strength to destroy ignorance ( if wielded properly), but it is very difficult to wield rajas properly as it breeds more self created and ego driven behavior that we are trying to get out of all the while pretending to be our friend which makes it that more difficult to see what is really going on. Too much movement in rajas creates confusion which is not as much the case with sattva or tamas.

    Just a few thoughts. I think they are helpful – hope they help.

    1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The Sins/Saturn/8th house connection is what I was trying to get at as well in the above post….the fact that without a Karmic debt we cannot incarnate and Saturn rules karmic debt. Those are good points.

    2. Thank you very much for your wisdom, Frank and Corey. Very helpful to shed light on this enigmatic subject for us.

  2. Wow, thank you for the insights.

    I am curious, my Saturn is in the 1st house, with a lagna in scorpio. Does this make my Saturn strong or weak?

    Kind regards,
    Viv

    1. I will do my best to answer this question, but there are many factors to assess when determining the strength of a planet, I will just mention the most helpful general ways:
      When Saturn is in Scorpio, he is in the “Trishita Avastha” meaning he is “Thirsty”. Planets in a thirsty avastha act just like people who are thirsty, one can still act and be productive but not as comfortably or contentedly. So Saturn in scorpio is not very strong but strong enough to get by most of the time, all other things being equal.

      But where is Mars your lagnesh? Depending on where Mars is, that Saturn will be in a different “temporary dignity” that will apply to your chart and will have a say on how the Saturn dasas will play out.

      And then we want to consider whether Saturn is getting any “delight” (Mudita, Sanskrit) from his friends Venus or Mercury, and if so they will help him out and boost his productivity more… But in the same way if Sun, Moon or Mars are strongly aspecting, he gets hurt more. So a lot needs to be considered to accurately assess Saturns strength in your chart, and thats just one Varga. To be thorough we must do that for all 16 Vargas.

      We must remember that Saturn will fall in different dignity in each other Varga and so if very strong in another varga, in that area of life represented by that Varga, Saturns qualities will shine regardless of his placements in the Rasi. I hope this is helpful to you in your studies, if you have any other questions feel free to ask away 🙂

  3. Conduct Shani puja to remove malefic of Planet Shani in horoscope and for His divine blessings. Performing puja on Shani Pradosh would reap immense benefits.

  4. Please let me know about my situation = saturn + moon in 2nd house and Libra moon sign + cancer sun sign. Retrograde Jupiter in my chart and going through Jupiter mahadasha + shani sarhe saati last phase. I want to attain moksha asap on 1 hand, on the other, I’m struggling with getting my lost health, wealth and respect in society.

    1. Well, it sounds like you are asking about some important things that would be best answered after studying the chart in depth and in its entirety. You could hire an astrologer like me or someone else to do that. But if you are really serious about attaining moksha, then dont worry at all about your karma, and just focus on your sadhana. Surrender completely to God and what happens with the body doesnt really matter then. But in the world, there will always be good and bad to come, with health, wealth, and respect in society. Even if you get it you may lose it. But if focusing on moksha dont even worry too much about your karma, just keep going towards the goal with unwavering devotion.

  5. Hi Corey

    I read above Saturn is connected to 8th house. I learned Sun though being Father of saturn is also bitter enemy.
    I am curious how Son – Saturn conjuct Father -Sun behave. Furthermore how would it turn out if Saturn conjuct Sun in 8th house – Leo for say Capricorn ascendant when Saturn and Sun are both in supposedly own houses . Will there be an all out war ?

    Regards
    Jay

    1. Saturn and the Sun is a very challenging conjunction to have in any house or sign, but it will vary greatly depending on those factors. In the 8th house it can be very bad. It can play out many different ways though, but there are usually a lot of ego battles and difficulties with authorities, or in how they themselves behave as an authority, or both. Often one’s masculinity feels thwarted and hurt and that can cause one to act out in aggressive ways to try to seem very strong and masculine, but actually feel very weak inside. But these people will benefit from spiritual practices if they can commit to them, that really helps this over time.

  6. hi corey, just discovered your website and info on saturn. thanks so much!

    i have saturn in the 12th house in scorpio (libra on cusp of 12th) conjunct my ascendant (4 degrees). asc. in scorpio with moon in scorpio.

    my goal is to do whatever i need to in this life to transmute past karma so i’m reading up on everything i can. i’m a visual artist who is a lone a lot; also do yoga 4 times a week; read and practice connecting to source and try to be the best person i can be in this lifetime.

    my scorpio is square my sun too. (my birthday: may 16, 1954, 6:03pm, Whidbey Island, WA.

    any advice you can give me regarding this configuration…how to transcend the negative energy or ??? will really help me a lot! thanks sooooooooo much!

    much love and adventure, linda

    1. Hi there Linda,
      What I can say briefly is that Scorpio is a major sign of self transformation and transmutation, and is one of the best signs for yoga practice and spriitual growth. So yes just go deep into yogic practice, meditate deeply every day, if you dont know how, find someone who can train you until you can daily sit and experience superconsciousness, and then keep doing that and see where that takes you. There is also artistic placements in your chart, one due to the Moon in the ascendant that you mention conj 4th lord of visual art. But as far as advice, yes I could give you days and days worth of advice on your chart and every area of your life as this is my job to do that….But…Please do understand… that I cant really give any more advice or time to this question as it would be rude to the 3 months worth of clients I have waiting in line for readings who have already paid me…So I do hope that helps, but anything more specific, you will have to acquire it in the appropriate way by scheduling a session with me. I hope you can understand 🙂

    2. Here are some initial thoughts after a quick read of you chart…..Saturn with Moon is difficult, particularly on the lagna as Saturn is in its “marana karaka sthana” place where it feels like it is dying on some level. If we use your sidereal chart, Saturn is exalted retrograde (giving some debilitation results after initially good ones) which means you may have had some type of big upset or unexpected change that happened, particularly in your Saturn dasha that ran from 66 to 85 which would have impacted this placement even further, though we would have to rectify and look deeper for a proper read. If you use your tropical chart, which I don’t do, it would have just been a rough period in general due to debilitation of Moon with Saturn, though since the ascendant lord would be exalted and in the third it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. With your AK being Jupiter in tropical your soul level lessons in life would be related to teachers, children and things of this nature and have a strong impact on you. In sidereal chart your AK is Venus so your deepest soul yearning/ lessons in life would related to relationships and activities involving this planet – you can make the call on this. I would note that your sidereal chart also has a much stronger connection to Venus, which rules over visual arts but alas…. In both charts, malefics in the 3rd house with nothing in the 11 (argala principle) will make someone do whatever they want at any cost and can make one very independent, even possible criminal activities depending on other factors, though the sidereal placement would soften this some with a Venus lagna lord, while a Mars lagna lord in tropical would only exacerbate your harshness and third house of will quite a bit. Usually non-violent communction or things of this nature can be recommended in such cases, though the Saturn on lagna can limit social interactions and it may have been more internally directed (self harm,etc.) but is not where I would place initial emphasis. For the Saturn with Moon, which is a good place to start here to deal with the negativity you speak to, approaching Kali is recommended traditionally to deeply cut out the negativity present ( Sa + Moon show Kali in a chart), particularly with the uccha bhanga in effect on lagna ( standing forms of deities are indicated by lagna placements for worship by the way), though one must be careful with the mahavidyas so one might start with something safer unless you have prior experience with mantra or a qualified teacher to help you. A safer way to approach the negativity of Saturn in this position, which is where a lot of your problematic energy is coming from, is to chant “aum hoom vishnave namah” as a japa/mala practice which can purify Saturn’s negativity through the use of Vishnu which is a much sweeter/purer energy. Usually 40 days is minimum, though the heavier it is the longer things can take to find the shift. From there you might try the jyotirlinga mantra “aum namah shivaya kaleshvarya haum jum sah” which will help bring things back to life with the strength of Shiva. Please look it up for pronunciation if you unfamiliar with the Sanskrit as that is important. When doing this practice you can imagine a shiva linga in your heart or just your soul or whatever you connect to there that you are pouring your mantras onto. This upcoming January 9th will be a good time to start a sadhana if you feel so inclined. If mantra is not your cup of tea there are other practical remedies that might be of some benefit, though mantra is best for clearing the mind and is the main go to remedy in traditional Jyotisha. Curious to hear which descriptions you resonate with more from the above, though hope this helps some.

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