Saturn Combust Dates

For about five weeks each year the Sun passes Saturn, and for as long as the two stand within fifteen degrees Saturn is combust. Parashara and Surya Siddhanta give fifteen degrees as Saturn's orb. During those weeks Saturn is lost in the Sun's glare and cannot be seen. The state is asta, and it costs Saturn its strength.

The Sun and Saturn are enemies in Parashara's table, father and son who do not agree. Saturn's significations, duty, discipline, service, delay, the old and the poor, lose their steady ground for the period. Authority presses harder on those who serve, and the patient work of months feels undone.

The texts treat a combust graha as unable to give its full results, good or bad. A Saturn that protected a person through discipline protects less, and a Saturn that obstructed obstructs less. Which applies depends on the birth chart, and on how Saturn is placed there.

The house of the conjunction, from the Moon and from the lagna, says where the pressure falls. Government, employers and fathers are its usual sources. The elderly and the chronically ill need more care during the five weeks, and the person's own stamina is lower than usual.

What is shown is the graha one holds when it cannot be seen. Saturn combust reveals how much of one's discipline was habit and how much was choice. For five weeks the habit is not there to lean on. A person who keeps the routine anyway comes out of the period with a discipline that is their own.

• Offer water to the rising Sun and serve the old, which answers both grahas.
• Give sesame and oil on Saturday, the dana Parashara names for Saturn.
• Recite Om Sham Shanaishcharaya Namah, and delay the start of long commitments until Saturn reappears.