Seasons of life
One of the most distinctive ideas in Jyotisha is the dasha: a period of time during which one planet takes the lead. Just as a year has seasons, a life is said to move through planetary chapters, each bringing its own themes to the foreground.
Parashara describes many dasha systems, but the one most widely used is the Vimshottari Dasha. Vimshottari means 'one hundred and twenty', the total length of the cycle in years.
The nine periods
Each of the nine grahas rules one mahadasha (major period) of a fixed length. They always come in the same order:
- Ketu: 7 years
- Venus: 20 years
- Sun: 6 years
- Moon: 10 years
- Mars: 7 years
- Rahu: 18 years
- Jupiter: 16 years
- Saturn: 19 years
- Mercury: 17 years
Added together these make 120 years. Few people live through every period, so most of us experience five or six mahadashas in a lifetime.
Where your cycle begins
Your starting point is set by the Moon. The ruler of your birth nakshatra gives the first mahadasha. If the Moon was in Hasta, ruled by the Moon, your life opens in a Moon period. The cycle then continues in the order above.
You rarely start at the beginning of that first period. If the Moon had already crossed, say, three-quarters of its nakshatra at birth, only the remaining quarter of that period is left. This is called the balance of dasha at birth. It is one reason the Moon's exact degree, and so your birth time, matter.
Periods within periods
Each mahadasha is divided into nine antardashas (sub-periods), one for each planet, starting with the mahadasha lord itself and following the same order. Their lengths are proportional. In a Venus mahadasha of 20 years, the Venus sub-period lasts 20 x 20 / 120 = 3 years and 4 months, and the Sun sub-period lasts 20 x 6 / 120 = 1 year.
Antardashas can be divided again into pratyantardashas, giving finer and finer timing. In practice, the mahadasha sets the broad theme of a chapter and the antardasha shows which part of that theme is active now.
How a period is read
A dasha does not simply 'switch on' the general nature of a planet. An astrologer looks at what that planet means in your own chart:
- Which houses it rules and which house it sits in.
- Its sign, strength and dignity.
- Which planets it is joined with or aspected by.
- How it relates to the planet ruling the sub-period.
So a Saturn period can be a time of building a solid career for one person and a time of slowing down and simplifying for another. Neither is a punishment.
Keeping perspective
Dasha changes are often felt as a shift in emphasis rather than a sudden event. Transits of the slow planets add detail on top of the dasha, which is why astrologers read the two together.
The Dasha page shows your current mahadasha and antardasha, when each ends and the full sequence of periods. What Matters Now combines your current period with today's planet positions.
