♄︎ Śani · Shani
Saturn
Time, limitation, labour, and what is only earned slowly.
- Nature
- Krūra / pāpa — a natural malefic
- Rules
- Capricorn and Aquarius
- Exalted
- Libra
- Debilitated
- Aries
Śani is time itself — the graha of delay, limitation, and everything that has to be worked for. It is the strongest malefic and the most misunderstood.
What Saturn withholds it withholds in order to make it durable. Its placements are typically the areas of life that come late and then stay. A reading that treats Saturn only as misfortune misses the entire point of the graha.
It is exalted in Libra, the sign of weighing — Saturn’s impartiality is at its best where judgement is the task.
Kāraka — what it signifies wherever it falls
- time
- longevity
- labour
- discipline
- sorrow
- the elderly
- servants
Source: BPHS ch. 3; Phaladīpikā ch. 2