What is a dasha?
A dasha is a planetary period. In the Vimshottari system, the one Parashara describes as the most widely applicable, a full cycle lasts 120 years and is shared among the nine grahas: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, the Sun 6, the Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17, always in that order.
Each mahadasha is divided into nine antardashas (also called bhuktis), beginning with the mahadasha lord itself and following the same order. Each antardasha is divided again into nine pratyantar dashas. Astrologers use these nested periods to time when the promises of a birth chart come to the surface.
How your first dasha is found
The starting point is the Moon. Each of the 27 nakshatras is ruled by one of the nine grahas, and you are born into the mahadasha of the lord of the Moon's nakshatra. How far the Moon had already travelled through that nakshatra decides how much of the period was used up before birth; the rest is the balance of dasha at birth.
That is why the birth time matters. The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, so a few hours change the balance, and every date after it moves with it. With an unknown birth time we use noon and say plainly that the dates may shift.
How to read the result
A dasha does not bring good or bad luck by itself. What a period brings depends on where its graha sits in your chart: the house it occupies, the houses it rules for your lagna, its sign and strength, and the planets that join or aspect it. The antardasha lord colours the period further, especially through its relationship with the mahadasha lord.
- Mahadasha: the broad theme of several years.
- Antardasha: the chapter within it, from a few months to about three years.
- Pratyantar: a finer division of weeks or months, used for closer timing.
- Transits (gochar), especially of Saturn and Jupiter, are read alongside the dasha, never instead of it.
How we calculate it
Planet positions come from our own astronomical engine with the Lahiri ayanamsa, tested against the Swiss Ephemeris. The dasha is computed in code from the Moon's exact longitude, with the Vimshottari year of 365.25 days; nothing is estimated by AI. The full kundli shows the same periods as a tree you can open, and also the Yogini dasha.
Our library explains each of the nine mahadashas: what the period classically signifies, how its graha's placement changes it, and the nine antardashas inside it. Each period in your result links to its page.