The dashas: the nine Vimshottari periods and their sub-periods

So far, you have read what a chart promises. Jyotish goes further: it says when each promise opens. Its tool is the dasha, Sanskrit for “state” or “period”: a stretch of life during which one graha takes the leading role.

The major period is called a mahadasha. Each of the nine grahas governs one, in turn, and the nine together make a cycle of 120 years: the Vimshottari, “the one of the hundred and twenty.” Nobody lives all of it: each person enters it at a different point, set by the Moon at birth.

The order never changes: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, then Ketu again, because the cycle is a loop. You already know it: it is the order of the nakshatra rulers, learned last night.

The lengths, though, are unequal: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, the Sun 6, the Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17. Venus has the longest period, the Sun the shortest; Ketu and Mars share the same length.

Learn the sequence by heart, each graha with its length: every calculation tonight rests on it, and tonight’s trial asks for it without a reminder.

Not everyone starts with Ketu. The first mahadasha of a life belongs to the ruler of the Moon’s nakshatra at birth. The Moon of the example sky is in Jyeshtha, ruled by Mercury: this life opens in the mahadasha of Mercury, then come Ketu, Venus, the Sun…

The twenty-seven nakshatras, sorted by ruler. Ketu: Ashwini, Magha, Mula. Venus: Bharani, Purva Phalguni, Purva Ashadha. Sun: Krittika, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha. Moon: Rohini, Hasta, Shravana. Mars: Mrigashira, Chitra, Dhanishtha. Rahu: Ardra, Swati, Shatabhisha. Jupiter: Punarvasu, Vishakha, Purva Bhadrapada. Saturn: Pushya, Anuradha, Uttara Bhadrapada. Mercury: Ashlesha, Jyeshtha, Revati.

This first period is rarely complete. At birth, the Moon had already travelled part of its nakshatra: the same share of the mahadasha has already elapsed. What is left to live is the share not yet travelled.

The calculation: the length of the period times the share that remains. A Moon a quarter of the way through a nakshatra of Venus (20 years): three quarters remain, 15 years. Halfway: 10 years. Three quarters of the way: only a quarter remains, 5 years. The trap: giving the elapsed share instead of the remaining one.

The example sky: the Moon had travelled 80% of Jyeshtha. That left 20% of Mercury’s 17 years, a little over three years. Hence the weight of the birth time: in one hour, the Moon moves half a degree, and all the dates shift.

Each mahadasha is cut into nine sub-periods, the antardashas: one per graha, in the same order, starting with the graha of the major period itself. The mahadasha of Venus opens with Venus-Venus, then Venus-Sun, Venus-Moon… The mahadasha sets the stage, the antardasha tells the scene played on it.

Its length: the years of the major period, multiplied by those of the sub-period, divided by 120. Venus-Sun: 20 × 6 ÷ 120 = 1 year. Venus-Venus: 20 × 20 ÷ 120 = 3.33 years, that is 3 years and 4 months, since a third of a year is 4 months.

The shortcut: multiply the two lengths, divide by 10, and you have the length in months. Jupiter-Saturn: 16 × 19 = 304, that is 30.4 months: 2 years and 6 months, rounded to the month.

A dasha does not say “the Sun” in general: it says your Sun. During its period, a graha delivers what it carries in the chart. Four things to look at: the house it occupies, the houses it rules, its dignity, and the houses it aspects.

The example sky lives the mahadasha of the Sun from age 30 to 36. In the D1, this Sun is in house 9, exalted in Aries; it rules Leo, house 1; it aspects house 3. Six years when the self, house 1, moves to the foreground, carried by house 9: fortune, dharma, the right path.

A graha that is debilitated or sits in a dusthana does not make its period “bad”: it shows the ground where effort pays off. A dasha describes a climate and its levers, never an event written in advance.

To know at what age a mahadasha begins, you add up the periods lived before it. Only one does not count in full: the first, of which you take only the share that remained at birth.

The example sky, in rounded ages: a little over three years of Mercury, and Ketu begins at age 3. 3 + 7: Venus at 10. 10 + 20: the Sun at 30. 30 + 6: the Moon at 36, until 46. Mars comes next.

Tonight’s trial sets the calculation on a life that begins with a full mahadasha. If it is that of Mars (7 years), Rahu begins at age 7 and Jupiter at 7 + 18 = 25. Hence the value of knowing the order and the lengths without hesitation.

The dasha and the transit do not do the same job. The dasha allows: it says which graha has the floor for years. The transit triggers: the passage of a graha in the sky says which months set that matter in motion. A transit weighs more when it touches the graha of the current period.

In Jyotish, transits are read from the natal Moon: this is the gochara. The best known is Sade Sati: Saturn crosses the sign before the Moon, the Moon’s own sign, then the next one, seven and a half years in all, a long time of building.

You can now read time: the period, its sub-period, what their graha carries. Next night, you will pick up the magnifying glass: the divisional charts, to look at each area of life more closely.