The Working Vocabulary of Cuspal Interlinks
Every specialised method builds its own vocabulary, and Cuspal Interlinks Theory is no exception. The terms are few, but they are used precisely, and a reader who half-understands them will half-understand everything built on them.
What follows is a working glossary. Each entry is brief by design — enough to recognise the term when you meet it, not a full treatment of the idea behind it. Keep it beside you while reading and it will do its job.
The cusp and its lords
Cusp — The exact degree at which a house begins. It is the entry gateway to that house: the house is read through this point, never through whatever happens to be sitting inside it.
Cuspal Star Lord — The star lord of the cusp's degree. The broadest of a cusp's three rulers and the weakest in authority, carrying fifteen per cent of that house's verdict.
Cuspal Sub Lord (CSL) — The sub lord of the cusp's degree, and the strongest of the three at sixty per cent. Most judgements in this system come down to this one planet.
Cuspal Sub-Sub Lord — The sub-sub lord of the cusp's degree, carrying twenty-five per cent. It stands between the other two in strength.
Potential, Destiny, Fate — Three interchangeable names for the same thing: what a house's own cuspal sub lord delivers back to that house.
How houses connect
“In the star of” — Names a planet's nakshatra lord. The phrase carries weight because a planet works for its star lord rather than for itself.
“In the sub of” — Names a planet's sub lord, which decides whether whatever the star lord has begun will continue or stop.
“Possesses the cusp” / “is CSL of” — Says that a planet holds the sub lordship of a particular cusp. Holding it is what makes that planet the house.
Connected with — Two houses are connected when the sub lord of one has, as its own star or sub lord, the planet that is sub lord of the other. The connection runs in both directions at once.
Source — The house whose cusp is being read; the starting point of the chain.
Matter — The houses supplied by the star lord. This is what the event will be about.
Decider — The houses supplied by the sub lord. This settles whether the matter holds or collapses.
Agent — Any planet carrying a given cuspal sub lord as its own star or sub lord. The more agents a house has, the more steadily its significations run.
Reading the connection
Own house effect (inner effect) — What a house produces for itself.
Other house effect (outer effect) — What a house produces for the other houses it is connected with.
Direction — “The ninth going to the tenth” is not the same statement as “the tenth going to the ninth.” The house that owns the chain spends its significations; the house it reaches receives them.
“Nth from” — Counted inclusively, starting from the house you are standing on. The count decides what the connection does:
- 12th from — total loss; the house does not activate
- 8th from — activates in the opposite or worst direction
- 4th from — activates to about thirty per cent, then breaks
- 10th from — holds to about seventy per cent, then weakens
- 2nd or 6th from — limited support; cannot grow beyond average
- 3rd or 11th from — doubles; growth to the next level
- 9th from — arrives effortlessly
- 5th from — activates smoothly
- 7th from — neutral, except for odd houses, which activate anyway
Each of those twelve is set out at length, with the reasoning behind it, in Counting From a House.
Groups of houses
Odd bhavas — Houses 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. The inner team, following the Ascendant: personal, non-material, concerned with body, mind and enjoyment.
Even bhavas — Houses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12. The outer team, following the second house: material, monetary, concerned with economic standing.
Evolution bhava — The third house from any house is its evolution. Step by thirds from the Ascendant and you get every odd house; from the second, every even house. This is why the two teams exist.
Trikona groups — Dharma (1, 5, 9), Karma (2, 6, 10), Kama (3, 7, 11) and Moksha (4, 8, 12). Each group shares a common nature.
Saptama pair — A house and the seventh from it are treated almost as a single house: 1-7, 2-8, 3-9, 4-10, 5-11 and 6-12.
Spoiling — The pair immediately preceding a pair destroys it. 2-8 is spoiled by 1-7, 3-9 by 2-8, 4-10 by 3-9, and so on around the wheel.
Permanent (fixed) bhava — Houses 1, 2, 6, 7 and 10, whose significations a person is expected to enjoy lifelong.
Temporary bhava — Every other house. Their significations belong to a phase of life rather than the whole of it.
Significations
Graha Karaka — What a planet signifies in its own right.
Bhava Karaka — What a house signifies in its own right.
Inner and outer karakas — Every house carries both: a personal set of significations, and a set it delivers outward to others.
Time and the chart
Dasa, Bhukti, Antara, Sookshma, Prana — The five levels of running period, from longest to shortest. The Bhukti is the deciding level.
Fate versus Dasa-Bhukti — Fate settles what will happen. The running period settles when it happens.
Ruling Planets — The planets governing the moment a chart is taken up: four drawn from the Ascendant, being its sign, star, sub and sub-sub lords, and five from the Moon, which adds the sub-sub-sub lord.
Birth Time Rectification — Correcting a recorded birth time, most often using the Ruling Planets of the moment.
Lagna Sandhi — An Ascendant falling within roughly two degrees of a sign boundary, where a small change in the recorded time moves it into the neighbouring sign.
A note on two words
Two terms in this list are worth pausing over, because they are the ones most often blurred in ordinary usage.
The eighth is not a house of delay. A connection to the eighth denies a matter or turns it in the opposite direction; it does not merely postpone it. The house that delays is the sixth. The working word for that reversal is counterpace, and it is set out in The Phrases You'll Actually Hear.
And connected with is not a loose phrase. It has one precise meaning in this system, given above, and nothing else counts as a connection — not occupation, not aspect, not ownership of a sign.
Keep this page bookmarked. The terms will make more sense the second time you read them than the first, and more still the third.
The three reference pages
These were written to be used together rather than read in order. One holds the terms, one holds the arithmetic every rule is phrased in, and one holds the working phrases that are never formally defined because everyone is assumed to know them already.
- The Working Vocabulary of Cuspal Interlinks — the nouns — cusp, sub lord, connection, the house groups. You are here.
- Counting From a House — the arithmetic — what each of the twelve positions does.
- The Phrases You'll Actually Hear — the verbs — spoiled, counterpace, develops, enjoy.
Reading Cuspal Interlinks is a three-part reference set in the OccultSanctum library. Our daily tools — live panchang, muhurat and chart work — are in Vedic Samay, free on the App Store and on Google Play.