Dasha Calculator
See your Vimshottari dasha periods - which planet rules now, and what runs next.
See your Vimshottari dasha periods - which planet rules now, and what runs next.
The Vimshottari dasha system divides life into planetary periods running in a fixed 120-year cycle, starting from the position of the Moon at birth. Enter your birth details above to see your full timeline - which mahadasha you are in now, the antardasha inside it, and the dates each period begins and ends. You can drill into sub-periods from any level.
The Vimshottari scheme rests on one number: 120 years. That span is split between nine grahas, the seven planets plus Rahu and Ketu, in fixed and unequal shares. Ketu holds 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17. They add to 120 exactly. The order never varies, and it loops: after Mercury comes Ketu again.
Where a person enters that loop is decided by the Moon at birth. The Moon occupies one of 27 nakshatras, the lunar mansions, and each mansion is owned by one of those nine. The owner of the birth mansion runs the first period. The Moon almost never sits at the very start of a mansion, so that first period is a part period, the balance left over rather than a full run.
One hundred and twenty years is longer than a life. The older texts treat it as a full human span rather than a promise of one. In practice a person passes through five to seven of these large periods and no more. Which five or seven is fixed at birth and never changes afterwards.
A mahadasha is one planet's whole share of the 120: six years for the Sun at the short end, twenty for Venus at the long. It is the widest band on the printed list, and it sets the background against which every smaller division is read. A nineteen-year Saturn stretch and a six-year Sun stretch are not the same kind of thing, and that difference is arithmetic rather than opinion.
The share does not say what the period holds. That comes from the condition of the planet in the birth chart itself: which house it occupies, which houses it rules, which planets sit with it or look at it. The same sixteen-year Jupiter band reads one way in one chart and differently in the next. Because these bands are long, the handover from one to the next is usually the largest single shift the whole list shows, and it is easier to recognise looking back than while it is happening.
Each large period is cut into nine sub-periods called antardashas, using the same nine planets in the same fixed Vimshottari order. The sequence always opens with the lord of the large period itself and then follows the loop. A Rahu period therefore begins with Rahu-Rahu, moves to Rahu-Jupiter, then Rahu-Saturn, and carries on until all nine have been used.
The lengths are proportional, not equal. Multiply the large period's years by the sub-lord's own share and divide by 120. Inside Saturn's nineteen years, the Venus sub-period runs about three years and two months, while the Sun sub-period runs about eleven months. Venus gives the longest sub-period in every large period and the Sun the shortest, because their shares of the 120 are the biggest and the smallest.
This second level is where most practical work happens. The large period names the subject and the sub-period says what turn that subject takes in a given year or two. Neither is read alone. A difficult sub-lord inside a supportive large period is a different matter from the same sub-lord inside a hostile one.
The division does not stop at two levels. Every sub-period splits into nine pratyantardashas by exactly the same rule: same order, same proportion, opening with the sub-period's own lord. Below those come sookshma periods, and below those, prana periods. Five levels in all. A single large period therefore contains 9 sub-periods, 81 pratyantardashas and 729 sookshma periods.
The arithmetic holds at every level, but the usefulness does not. Divide five times and the shortest prana period, the Sun's inside a chain of Sun periods, works out at roughly twenty minutes. Nothing that short can carry a meaning a person would recognise as separate from the minutes on either side of it. Careful work usually stops at the third level, which is fine enough to name a month or a season without claiming a precision the method does not have.
A timeline from any dasha calculator is a list of dates, not a list of events. It is read from the top down. Find the large period first and ask what its lord holds in the chart. Then look at which sub-period covers the year in question. Then narrow to the third level, but only when a tighter window is genuinely needed. Jumping straight to the smallest row is the most common mistake.
The cheapest test available is to look backwards before looking forwards. Take two or three periods that have already passed and see whether their shape matches what actually happened in those years. If the past does not fit, nothing built forward on the same Vimshottari table will fit either. This check costs nothing and it is the one thing a person can verify without help.
Two habits are worth dropping. The first is calling a planet good or bad in general, without checking what it rules and where it sits in that particular chart, because the same planet is helpful in one chart and awkward in the next. The second is expecting a period to switch on at its printed date. The dates are exact because the division is exact, and that precision belongs to the arithmetic rather than to the life being lived.
What is a Vimshottari dasha?
A system of planetary periods totalling 120 years, allotted in fixed shares to the nine grahas. Which period you are born into is set by the exact nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth, which is why the calculation needs your birth time rather than just the date.
What is the difference between mahadasha and antardasha?
The mahadasha is the major period, lasting from six to twenty years depending on the planet. Inside it, antardashas subdivide that span among all nine planets in the same fixed order. Below those sit pratyantardashas, and the subdivision continues further still.
How accurate does my birth time need to be?
Dasha start dates are calculated from the Moon's exact degree, so a few minutes of error shifts every period by weeks or more at the outer levels. If your recorded time is approximate, treat the dates as indicative rather than exact.
Is this the same as a dasa calculator?
Yes - dasha and dasa are two spellings of the same word, and Vimshottari is the most widely used of several dasha systems. This tool computes the Vimshottari timeline, which is the one most Indian astrologers work with by default.