On December 16, 2022, the world’s largest aquarium collapsed in Berlin Germany. Fifteen-hundred fish and 264,000 gallons of water came tumbling out of a 50-foot-high glass structure all at once in a hotel lobby. No humans died, only two were slightly hurt, although it was a fish apocalypse that poured all the way out onto the sidewalk.
Vedic astrology uses a sidereal chart, giving us a Scorpio lagna, ie 1st house. Scorpio is a water sign and is the 8th sign in the natural zodiac. The 8th house has many difficult meanings: death, destruction, dissolution, carnage, explosions, etc. Scorpio being the 8th sign shares these 8th house meanings.
Mars is the lord of Scorpio. Mars is the God of war, son of Saturn, and the God of death and transformation. Mars rules accidents, explosions, destruction, etc. At the time of this event (5:45 AM), Mars was retrograde, making him very strong and erratic. Mars was placed in the 7th house, which is a Maraka house.
The Maraka houses are 2 and 7. Maraka houses, their lords and the planets placed in them are given a potential for harming and even killing, or bringing an end to something or someone.
Mars in a Scorpio ascendant, owning the first house and the 6th house. The trik houses, 6-8-12 are all capable of undesirable and disruptive influences. So this Mars, the lord of this chart, goes to a Maraka house as lord of H6, and aspects 4, 7 and 8 houses away from it. In other words, it throws its influence onto those houses.
This brings us to the 2nd house of this chart. This house, as stated, is a Maraka house and has in it Sun, Venus and Mercury. Why this is so central for this event is that the time period running when this event happened was Sun/Moon/Mercury, AKA the dasa-main period, bhukti—the sub-period and Mercury is the sub-sub-period. These grahas are central to the timing of this event at this time and place.
The Sun is the dasa lord and it is placed at 0 degrees in Sagittarius in the 2nd house. This position is called gandanta, and it occurs between water signs and fire signs. This juncture is also the space between the end of a nakshatra cycle and the start of the next nakshatra group. It is said in the Vedic astrology classics that a planet (graha) placed here is profoundly weak, stuck and troubled. If other factors support, then a difficult event can occur. Not only is Sun gandant, a powerful natural malefic Mars, lord of 6th house, placed in a Maraka house, aspects—throwing his troubling influence onto this Sun. And what’s more, Venus is the lord of the most difficult 8th house and Mercury is the lord of the 12th. The 12th house is a house of loss and “a fall from a high place”. This is all quite a bitter soup of influences.
The 3 main focal points of a chart are the lagna, the Moon and the Sun. It is commonly done in Vedic astrology to rotate the chart to each of these and read the chart again. So make the Moon in Leo the ascendant, and then Sun in Sagittarius in the first house. In all 3 cases, we see catastrophe.
Jupiter was in Pisces and hence, throwing a powerful influence/aspect onto the lagna. Pisces has the symbol of two fish and indicates, or is the karaka for, animals of the sea. Jupiter at the time of the event was aspected by a powerful Saturn. Saturn is an indicator of accidents, death and destruction.
One last point is the 64th navamsa and it plays in this chart. The 64th navamsa is famous for its connection to triggering 8th house types of events, usually difficult things. The classics all calculate from the lagna. So, what- ever the lagna degree is, put it in the 8th house and that navamsa is it. Some classics include from the Moon too. In the modern era, we see people like K.N. Roe and others saying to calculate the 64th N from all the grahas. I have gotten a lot of hits with this. In this chart, the Lagna Lord Mars is in the 64th navamsa from explosive/destructive Ketu! And Mercury is in the 64th N from Mars! And Moon is in the 64th N from Saturn!