Mangala

Mangala is Mars. Ara, Vakra and Avaneya (son of the earth) are among the other names the Brihat Jataka gives it. In the book's picture of the Kalapurusha, a body with a sign for each limb, Mars is strength, and in the court of the planets it holds the rank of general. The text describes a young body with a narrow middle, a generous and unsteady nature, and a color that is both red and white.

Mars governs fire, the south and an acerbic flavor in the book's table, and shares the summer months with the Sun. Its signs are Mesha and Vrishchika, it is exalted in Capricorn at the twenty-eighth degree and falls in Cancer at the same degree. Aries is its mulatrikona sign, one more strong placement, and the typed Sanskrit of the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra gives the first 12 degrees of it, from an unidentified edition. The Sun, the Moon and Jupiter are friends, Mercury the enemy, and Venus and Saturn neutral.

The Brihat Jataka's stanza on aspects, which the book calls sight, sets out the rule. Mars has the same full sight on the seventh house as every planet, and an extra full sight on the fourth and eighth. Iyer's 1905 note says each aspect reaches about 15 degrees to either side of the exact point. The typed Sanskrit of the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, chapter 26, states the same pattern for Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

In the nine-lord timetable called Vimshottari, Mars rules 7 years and the nakshatras Mrigashira, Chitra and Dhanishta. A later popular rule about where Mars stands, Mangal Dosha, is not stated under that name in the books read here, and the topic page of that name sets out what they do say.