Saturn in Vedic Astrology

With Shani, nothing is hurried. Saturn advances about two minutes of arc per day: he is the most distant graha of the Vedic sky, its seventh. He represents the sorrow of the cosmic being, what weighs down. The neighboring notions are cut from the same cloth, slowness and duration. At the court of the grahas he plays the servant, the one who works for others. People readily read in him what remains after everything has been taken away.

Makara and Kumbha are his signs. He is exalted in Tula, peaking at the twentieth degree, and falls in Mesha. His moolatrikona takes in the first twenty degrees of Kumbha, like that of Surya in Simha. Neither masculine nor feminine, he belongs to the element air and the quality tamas.

Malefic by nature: this term describes a dry and bare graha, not a deadly fate. He is held to be the oldest of the grahas and the weakest of the seven in natural power. A subtle remark: a Saturn deprived of strength indicates the absence of sorrow, since the intensity of a graha amplifies the matter it is in charge of.

He is the only one to receive his directional strength from the west, in bhava 7, where the sky ends. He dominates the night. His full aspect reaches the seventh sign from him, as well as the third and the tenth. Budha and Shukra are his friends. Surya, Chandra and Mangala are his enemies, and Guru is neutral to him. He becomes combust within 16 degrees of Surya, or 15 depending on the calculation.

He signifies bhavas 8 and 12.

Shani rules Capricorn sidereal, Makara and Aquarius sidereal, Kumbha.