Vimshottari Dasha Calculator

How to read your result

• Running now. Your current mahadasha (main period), antardasha (sub-period) and pratyantar (sub-sub-period), each with its end date.
• Balance at birth. How many years of the first mahadasha were left when you were born. It comes from how far the Moon had moved through your birth nakshatra.
• Timeline. All nine mahadashas in order. Tap one to open its nine antardashas, and tap an antardasha to see its pratyantars.

What is Vimshottari dasha?

Dasha means a period of time. The Vimshottari system, explained by Parashara in BPHS, divides a 120-year life into nine planetary periods. Each period colours that stretch of life with the themes of its planet and of the houses that planet rules and sits in for your chart. It's the timing tool used most in Indian astrology: when someone says "Saturn's mahadasha started for me", this is the system they mean.

The nine periods and their lengths

Planet	Years	Planet	Years
Ketu	7	Rahu	18
Venus	20	Jupiter	16
Sun	6	Saturn	19
Moon	10	Mercury	17
Mars	7	Total 120 years

The order never changes. What changes from person to person is where you start.

Where your dasha starts

Your first mahadasha belongs to the lord of your birth nakshatra, the lunar mansion the Moon was in when you were born. Each nakshatra is 13°20' wide. If the Moon had covered, say, a quarter of its nakshatra at birth, a quarter of that planet's dasha was already "used up" and you were born with the remaining three quarters. That remainder is the dasha balance shown in your result.

Because the Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, a few hours' difference in birth time can shift your dasha dates by months. That's why an accurate birth time matters here more than for most calculators.

Antardasha and pratyantar

Each mahadasha is split into nine antardashas, starting with the mahadasha planet itself and then following the same order. The length of each one is proportional: antardasha length = mahadasha years x antardasha planet's years / 120. So in Venus mahadasha (20 years), the Venus-Sun antardasha lasts 20 x 6 / 120 = 1 year.

The same rule splits each antardasha into nine pratyantars. A pratyantar can be a few days to a few months long, and it's the level used to narrow an event down to the month.

How to read a dasha

• Check the planet's houses. A planet gives results of the houses it rules and occupies in your chart. Jupiter ruling your 9th and 12th acts differently from Jupiter ruling your 2nd and 5th.
• Check its strength. Exalted, own sign or well placed planets give smoother dashas. Debilitated or combust ones ask for more effort.
• Combine maha and antar. The mahadasha sets the background, the antardasha sets the current topic. Venus-Saturn feels very different from Venus-Jupiter.
• Add transits. Big events usually happen when the dasha and the transits (especially Jupiter and Saturn) point the same way.

Common questions people bring to their dasha

Most people check their dasha for marriage timing (Venus, 7th lord and Rahu periods), career moves (10th lord and Saturn periods), and to understand why a stretch of years felt the way it did. If you want that kind of reading, the AI astrologer can look at your running dasha, the houses involved and current transits together.

How we calculate it

We compute the Moon's sidereal position with the Lahiri ayanamsa, find your nakshatra and how far into it the Moon was, and build all periods with a 365.25-day year, the convention most Indian software uses. Pratyantars follow the same proportional rule. Dates may differ by a few days from software that uses a 360-day year.