8th House in Vedic Astrology
Bhava 8, Randhra, the crack, is a difficult succedent house: struggles, inheritances, things past and future.
Randhra means a breach, a fragile spot, and it is the name of bhava 8. It is also called, bluntly, the hole. This house evokes the place where you are exposed. It belongs to the trika, the group of the three hard houses. Succedent, it forms with bhava 4 the pair called chaturasra.
Here you find combat and fortresses, the inheritance of the dead, what is past and what is to come. Add gifts received, and you can also read past and future lives here, which is an interpretation. Shani signifies it, and the eighth sign from it is read in the same way.
Its lord is not held to be favorable, for a reason of geometry: the 8th is the twelfth house counting from the 9th. There are exceptions. If this lord also rules a trine, it becomes benefic. That Surya or Chandra governs the 8th is not judged harmful. Finally, the reverse rule applies to the hard houses, where benefics diminish.
An inheritance to be shared among brothers and sisters is a good picture of it.
The axis of the 8th house
Slowness in taking action and public blame to endure: that is what Rahu goes through in the eighth house, bhava 8.
Opposite, Ketu occupies the second house, bhava 2. It is given poor quality of speech and the habit of taking meals at other people's homes, of living a little off them.
The two nodes are read each on its own. A corrective tempers these portraits: Rahu and Ketu strengthen the results of the house they occupy, those of the grahas that accompany them and those of the aspects received.