Rahu as pitrikaraka

Rahu as pitrikaraka shows an unusual, unconventional story with the father and mentors: the influence of elders may come from another culture, profession or worldview. The person often has to rethink family patterns and build their own attitude to authority.

How Rahu becomes the pitrikaraka

In the eight-karaka scheme Rahu’s degree is counted backwards from the end of the sign, because it moves retrograde. It ends up fifth in size when its “reversed” degree falls in the middle of the sequence. Rahu as pitrikaraka indicates that the theme of the father does not fit the usual framework.

How it manifests

• a father or mentor with an unusual destiny, connected with foreign lands, technology, new ideas;
• a strong, sometimes contradictory influence of elders that is hard to assess unambiguously;
• a wish to win the recognition of authorities or, on the contrary, to reject them;
• teachers outside the official tradition.

What to look at

Rahu acts through the lord of its sign and through the planets it is conjoined with, so their strength is checked first. With the support of Jupiter or a favourable dispositor the elders’ unusual experience becomes a resource: the person gains a broad outlook and freedom from prejudice. Under pressure from Saturn or Mars the theme may come with uncertainty, separation or idealisation of the father. Clarity comes when the person separates the real image of their elders from their own expectations.

On the planet itself, see the page on Rahu; the rule for counting degrees is in the overview of chara karakas. You can get the karaka table for your chart after the calculation on the site.