Vimshottari Dasha Calculator
The 120-year cycle almost every Vedic reading is timed against — nine lords, entered at the point your Moon's nakshatra dictates.
A worked example
The full 120-year Vimshottari sequence for one illustrative chart, exactly as the engine returns it.
Chart: 13 December 1961, 05:30, Channarayapatna, India (Lahiri ayanamsa)
Vimshottari mahadashas — 13 December 1961
The full 120-year sequence for one illustrative chart. Mars opens it as a balance — a seven-year lord with under two years left to run at birth — and the last row's end is extrapolated, since no successor period supplies it.
| Planet | From | To | Length | Classical years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MarsBalance | 13 Dec 1961 | 18 Sep 1963 | 1y 9mo 4d | 7 |
| Rahu | 18 Sep 1963 | 17 Sep 1981 | 18y 4d | 18 |
| Jupiter | 17 Sep 1981 | 17 Sep 1997 | 16y 4d | 16 |
| Saturn | 17 Sep 1997 | 17 Sep 2016 | 19y 4d | 19 |
| Mercury | 17 Sep 2016 | 18 Sep 2033 | 17y 4d | 17 |
| Ketu | 18 Sep 2033 | 17 Sep 2040 | 7y 1d | 7 |
| Venus | 17 Sep 2040 | 18 Sep 2060 | 20y 5d | 20 |
| Sun | 18 Sep 2060 | 18 Sep 2066 | 6y 1d | 6 |
| Moon | 18 Sep 2066 | ≈ 2 Oct 2076Estimated | 10y 16d | 10 |
Vimshottari years per lord
The nine allotments total 120 — the number the system is named for. Venus and Saturn hold thirty-nine of them between them; the Sun holds six.
| Planet | Years | Planet | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ketu | 7 | Rahu | 18 |
| Venus | 20 | Jupiter | 16 |
| Sun | 6 | Saturn | 19 |
| Moon | 10 | Mercury | 17 |
| Mars | 7 |
Illustrative birth data used to demonstrate the output. It is not a customer chart, and no birth details you enter above are ever stored, put in a URL, or published.
Vimshottari is the timing system most Vedic astrology actually runs on, and it is the one a reader meets first. It divides a notional 120-year life into nine planetary periods, hands each one a fixed number of years, and fixes where an individual chart enters that sequence by the nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth. What comes out is not a forecast but a calendar: which planet governs which stretch of a life, and how far through the current stretch a chart currently sits.
120 years shared among nine lords
The allotments are Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17. Added together they make 120, and the wheel always turns in that order before returning to Ketu. Nobody lives the whole rotation, so what a chart actually receives is a window onto part of it — typically four or five mahadashas across an ordinary lifetime, beginning partway through whichever one the birth fell inside.
The spread of the allotments is what gives the system its texture. Venus and Saturn between them account for thirty-nine of the hundred and twenty, so a chart that opens in either can spend the better part of two decades under a single governing planet, while a Sun period is over in six years and a Mars or Ketu period in seven. Two people born a fortnight apart can therefore be handed quite differently shaped calendars.
The Moon's nakshatra decides where the sequence starts
Each of the twenty-seven nakshatras belongs to one of the nine lords, three apiece, and the lord of the nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth is the mahadasha a chart begins in. A Moon in Ashwini, Magha or Mula opens under Ketu; a Moon in Pushya, Anuradha or Uttara Bhadrapada opens under Saturn. This is the whole of the entry rule, and it is why an accurate birth time matters here more than it does for most single calculations: the Moon covers a nakshatra in roughly a day, so a shifted birth time can move the starting lord and re-cut every date below it.
Because the Moon is almost never at the exact start of its nakshatra, the first period is entered partway through. How far through is set by the proportion of the nakshatra already traversed, and the remainder is what the tradition calls the balance at birth.
Why the first row looks short
In the worked example the first mahadasha belongs to Mars, whose classical span is seven years, and it runs for one year, nine months and four days. That is not an error and it is not a different Mars. The engine reports the period as beginning in September 1956, five years before this birth, because that is when a full Mars period containing this Moon position would have opened; only the part after the birth moment was lived, and that remainder is what the table shows.
Every date on this page is measured from the birth moment for that reason, never from the notional start. It is worth knowing that the underlying figure exists, though, because the balance is the number a traditional reading quotes when it says a chart began life in the last stretch of a period rather than at the head of one.
Below the mahadasha, the same proportion repeats
A mahadasha subdivides into antardashas that run through all nine lords in the same fixed order, starting with the mahadasha lord itself. Each sub-period takes the same share of its parent that its own allotment takes of 120 — so Saturn's antardasha inside a Saturn mahadasha is nineteen twentieths of nineteen years times nineteen over a hundred and twenty, and the Sun's inside the same parent is proportionally brief. The pattern then repeats a level down for pratyantardashas, and again below that.
The result is that the running antardasha is usually the more informative of the two figures. A mahadasha of nineteen years is too coarse to say much about a given season of life; the sub-period beneath it moves on a scale of months and is what most readings are actually keyed to. The table below shows the sub-periods of whichever mahadasha is currently running, which is the pair a single calculation is for.
Classical source. Parasara sets out Vimshottari in Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra as the dasha to be used when no conditional system applies, which is why it became the default reckoning in practice.
This calculation is one panel of the full chart
The free birth chart runs every calculation on this site for one set of birth details at once — 23 divisional charts, 56 dasha systems, ashtakavarga, yogas and every bala, including this one.
Related calculations
- Kalachakra DashaSign-based dasha periods read off the Moon's nakshatra pada, running forward or backward through the zodiac.
- Ashtottari DashaThe 108-year conditional dasha — eight lords instead of nine, counted from Ardra rather than Ashwini.
- Yogini DashaYogini dasha: eight periods of 1 to 8 years in a 36-year round, counted from the Moon's nakshatra, with dates and sub-periods.
- Chara Dasha (Jaimini)Jaimini chara dasha: twelve sign periods from the lagna, each sign's years counted to its lord, dated across two cycles.
Other calculations
- Vimsopaka BalaScore each planet out of 20 on its dignity across the vargas — four schemes, from six charts to sixteen.
- Bhava BalaStrength of the twelve houses — lord, direction and aspect combined, then ranked one to twelve.
- Gulika, Mandi and UpagrahasAll eleven upagrahas — the five computed from the Sun and the six taken from the divisions of the day.
- Moon Sign (Rashi)The Moon's sidereal sign — your rashi — with nakshatra, pada and both lords, found from a birth date even without a time.
- Lagna (Ascendant)The rising sign at the birth moment — its degree, nakshatra and pada — and where the lagna lord sits.
- Sun Sign (Vedic and Western)Your Sun sign twice over — Vedic sidereal and Western tropical — with the ayanamsa gap and a cusp flag.
- Birth TithiYour birth tithi and the five limbs of the panchang at the birth moment, with the tithi's start and end times.
- Navamsa (D9) ChartDraw the D9 navamsa chart, with each planet's ninth-part sign and house and every vargottama placement flagged against the Rasi.
- D10 Dasamsa ChartThe D10 dasamsa: ten 3° parts per sign, each body's D10 sign and house, and the tenth house of the D10 examined.
- D7 Saptamsa ChartThe D7 saptamsa — seven parts of 4°17′ per sign, read classically for progeny, with the fifth house of the D7 examined.
- AtmakarakaFind your Atmakaraka and the seven karakas below it, ranked by degrees in sign with Rahu counted backwards.
- Ishta DevataTrace the ishta devata from the Atmakaraka's navamsa sign to the twelfth sign beyond it, the way the Jaimini Sutras do.
- Mangal DoshaManglik or not: Mars in the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th or 12th counted whole-sign from the lagna, with the Moon and Venus counts for reference.
- Kaal Sarp DoshaChecks whether the Sun through Saturn all lie between Rahu and Ketu, and names the form from Rahu's house.
- Pitra DoshaThe five traditional pitru dosha indicators, each shown as met or not met in your chart — indicators, not a verdict.
- Gemstone (Traditional)The traditional ratna for your lagna lord and the two trikona lords, beside what the classical text prescribes instead.
- DarakarakaFind the Dara Karaka under both classical schemes, with its D9 sign and its house counted from both ascendants.
- AmatyakarakaFind the Amatya Karaka, second only to the soul planet, with its D10 sign and its house from both lagnas.
- Arudha LagnaCount from each house to its lord and on again to find the AL and every pada of the birth chart, exceptions applied.
- Upapada LagnaThe arudha of the twelfth house, which Jaimini practice consults on marriage, with the second sign from it.
- ShadbalaThe six-fold strength of the Sun through Saturn, each component listed, totalled in rupas and measured against its classical minimum.
- AshtakavargaSarvashtakavarga points for all twelve signs, counted as houses from the Lagna, with each planet's own bindu table.
- D2 Hora ChartThe D2 hora — two halves per sign, every body in the Sun's Leo or the Moon's Cancer, the division Parashara gives to wealth.
- D3 Drekkana ChartThe D3 drekkana — three ten-degree parts per sign, counted through the sign's own trine, read classically for brothers and sisters.
- D4 Chaturthamsa ChartThe D4 chaturthamsa — four quarters per sign, counted through the sign's kendras, read for fortune, residence and property.
- D16 Shodasamsa ChartThe D16 shodasamsa — sixteen narrow parts per sign, started from Aries, Leo or Sagittarius by sign type, read for conveyances and comforts.
- D30 Trimsamsa ChartThe D30 trimsamsa — five unequal bands per sign, each ruled by one of the five non-luminary planets, read classically for difficulties.
- D60 Shashtiamsa ChartThe D60 shashtiamsa: sixty half-degree parts per sign, each body's D60 sign and house, and the named deity of its part.
- Bhrigu BinduThe Moon–Rahu midpoint of the Nadi tradition: the arc, its half, the point's sign and house, and the other convention beside it.
- Indu LagnaThe sign counted from the Moon with the kalas of the ninth lords from the lagna and the Moon, traditionally consulted on wealth.
- Nadi DoshaCompares two birth nakshatras: Adi, Madhya or Antya nadi, the 8-point Nadi koota, and the traditional exceptions.
- Bhakoot DoshaCounts one Moon sign from the other: the 2-12, 5-9 and 6-8 doshas, the 7-point Bhakoot koota and the lord exceptions.
- Shani DhaiyaLists Saturn's two-and-a-half-year passages through the 4th and 8th signs from your Moon sign, with dates.