What is a mahadasha?
Vimshottari dasha divides a life into nine major periods, each ruled by a planet. The period running at any moment colours those years: its planet's themes come forward, through the houses that planet sits in and rules in your chart. The order never changes, and the full cycle lasts 120 years. Where you start in it is set by the Moon: the planet that rules the nakshatra the Moon was in at your birth gives your first mahadasha.
The nine mahadashas and their length
| Mahadasha | Years | Traditionally about |
|---|---|---|
| Ketu | 7 | detachment, spirituality, research and letting go |
| Venus (Shukra) | 20 | love, marriage, comfort, the arts, beauty and luxury |
| Sun | 6 | authority, career standing, father, vitality and recognition |
| Moon | 10 | the mind, emotions, mother, home and the public |
| Mars | 7 | energy, courage, property, siblings and competition |
| Rahu | 18 | ambition, foreign links, technology and sudden, unconventional change |
| Jupiter | 16 | wisdom, teachers, children, growth of wealth and dharma |
| Saturn | 19 | discipline, hard work, responsibility, patience and lasting results |
| Mercury | 17 | intellect, communication, business, learning and skills |
Antardasha and pratyantar dasha
Every mahadasha splits into nine antardashas in the same order, starting with its own planet. Each one lasts the mahadasha's length times the sub-period planet's years, divided by 120. In a 20-year Venus mahadasha, for example, the Venus antardasha lasts 3 years 4 months and the Sun antardasha 1 year. Each antardasha splits the same way into nine pratyantar dashas. Read together, the mahadasha sets the chapter, the antardasha the current theme, and the pratyantar the weeks.
How to read your dashas
Look at the running planet's place in your birth chart: the house it sits in, the houses it rules, its sign and its strength. A planet ruling your 10th house brings career forward in its period; one ruling the 7th brings partnership. The calculator above shows the house and rulership facts for your running mahadasha and antardasha. For the full chart, see your free kundli; for what each period means for you, the detailed report reads them one by one.
Questions about dashas
How do I find my current mahadasha?
Enter your date, time and place of birth above. The calculator finds the nakshatra the Moon was in at birth, which fixes your first mahadasha and how much of it was left, and then lays out every period of your life with dates, showing which mahadasha, antardasha and pratyantar dasha run today.
What is the difference between mahadasha, antardasha and pratyantar dasha?
A mahadasha is a major period of 6 to 20 years ruled by one planet. Each mahadasha divides into nine antardashas (sub-periods), one for each planet, starting with the mahadasha lord. Each antardasha divides again into nine pratyantar dashas, lasting days to months. The three together describe the theme of the years, the months and the weeks.
Why does my birth time matter for dasha dates?
The Moon moves about one degree every two hours, and the dasha balance at birth comes from how far it had travelled through its nakshatra. A different birth time moves every period of your life by the same few days or weeks.
How long is each mahadasha?
Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17: 120 years in all. Your first mahadasha is shorter, because part of it had already passed before you were born.
Is a mahadasha good or bad?
No period is good or bad in itself. What a mahadasha brings depends on where its planet sits in your chart, which houses it rules and how strong it is. The calculator shows where each running lord sits and which houses it rules; the detailed report reads what that means for you.
Is my first mahadasha calculated correctly here?
Yes. The first mahadasha is cut short by birth, but its antardashas still run at their full length from the period’s true start, with the part before birth removed. Some calculators wrongly squeeze all nine into the time left; this one does not.