Pillar article
How to Read a Mars Transit
Count the sign Mars occupies from your lagna, then note the two extra aspects. A transit stirs a house. It does not replace natal Mars or the Vimshottari period.
The house, then the aspects
A Mars transit is Mars changing sidereal sign on a Lahiri chart, and the conflict it can stir is read with the 6th house when that is the house he occupies. Every planet aspects the opposite sign. Mars also aspects the 4th and the 8th signs from his position. So a transit is never only one house. If Mars is in the 1st from your lagna, the body is the occupation and the 4th and 8th houses receive the extra aspects: home and sudden change. If he is in the 10th, career is the occupation and the 1st and the 5th receive those aspects, because they lie four and eight signs on from the 10th. Learning this once saves you from twelve monthly horoscopes that pretend every Sun sign feels the same sky.
Natal Mars is still the person
The transit is a visitor. The birth Mars is the resident. A native with Mars exalted in Capricorn meets a difficult transit with a strong natal planet. A native with Mars fallen in Cancer meets an easy-looking transit with a fallen resident who still rules whatever houses Cancer's Mars rules. Retrograde stretches make Mars linger, review, and sometimes repeat a sign. That linger is not a curse word. It means the house stays under the visitor longer, which helps a 10th-house project that needed force and exhausts a 6th-house dispute that needed to end. No ingress date is stated here. The method is the same in any year: find the sidereal sign, count from the lagna, include the 4th and 8th aspects, and stop.
The dasha can ignore the visitor
The Vimshottari dasha already running outranks a transit. Mars walking over the 7th house during a supportive Venus mahadasha can heat a marriage that the D9 Navamsa is able to hold. The same walk during a dasha with no link to the 7th is a quarrelsome month, not a new biography. Coral is not put on because Mars changed signs. Coral follows a birth chart that has named Mars. Mangal dosha is also not created by a transit. It is a birth placement in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, or 12th. A transit through those houses can resemble the dosha for a while and then leave. People who redraw their lives every time Mars moves have mistaken weather for the building. Read the building first.
Frequently asked questions
How long does Mars stay in a sign?
Often about six weeks, and longer when he is retrograde. The exact span belongs to an ephemeris for that season, not to a round number pasted on every year.
Does Mars transit cause accidents?
It can coincide with heat in the houses he occupies and aspects, including the 8th's sudden events. It does not schedule an accident, and it is not a medical prediction.
Which lagna feels Mars most?
The one whose relevant house he is crossing, especially if natal Mars or the dasha lord is also involved. There is no universal unlucky sign.
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D1, D9, D10, dashas, yogas, and transits, the same calculations referenced in this article.