Which mahadasha am I in?

The short answer

Your mahadasha is the period you are in

Your mahadasha is the planetary period you are living through now. Vedic astrology divides a life into such periods, called dashas. In the Vimshottari system, used in almost every Indian Kundli, nine planets rule in a fixed order for a 120-year cycle: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17.

The long periods are mahadashas. Each is divided into nine antardashas (sub-periods) in the same order, starting with the mahadasha's own planet, each in proportion to its years. "Saturn–Mercury" means the Mercury antardasha of the Saturn mahadasha. The calculator shows the mahadasha and antardasha running today, with their dates.

The method

How your dasha dates are calculated

• The birth nakshatra. The Moon's sidereal position at birth (Lahiri ayanamsa) gives your janma nakshatra. Its ruling planet is the first mahadasha of your life.
• The balance at birth. The part of the nakshatra the Moon had already crossed is the part of that first mahadasha already used up before you were born. The rest is the balance you were born with.
• The sequence. From then on the mahadashas follow one another at full length in the Vimshottari order, with a year of 365.25 days.
• Today. The calculator finds the mahadasha and antardasha running on today's date.

These are the same periods as the dasha section of your free Kundli, from the same engine.

An approximation

If you do not know your birth time

The dasha dates depend on the exact position of the Moon, which moves about half a degree an hour. One hour of birth time can move every dasha date by several months, and a whole day can move them by years. Without a time the calculator uses 12:00 noon and says so: treat every date as approximate.

If the Moon changed nakshatra on your birth date, the whole sequence starts from a different planet before and after the change. The calculator checks the whole day, and if the running period could be different, it lists each possibility with the hours of birth it belongs to.

Your 120 years

How to read your dasha timeline

The bar under your result shows the nine mahadashas from your birth, each as wide as its length, with the running one in gold and a thin line for today. The list beside it gives each period's start and end date, and the antardashas of the running mahadasha are listed below it, with the current one marked.

The dates are the boundaries the system defines; they are not forecasts. What a period is said to bring depends on where its planet sits in your chart, by sign, house and strength, and that needs the full chart. Your free Kundli lists the periods down to the pratyantardasha, and the 84-page Janma Granth gives every mahadasha a chapter.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

• How do I know which mahadasha I am in?

  Enter your date, time and place of birth above. The calculator finds your birth nakshatra, works out the dasha balance at birth and counts forward to today, showing the running mahadasha and antardasha with their start and end dates.

• What is the difference between mahadasha and antardasha?

  A mahadasha is a main period of 6 to 20 years ruled by one planet. Each mahadasha is divided into nine antardashas, sub-periods ruled by each planet in turn, from a few months to about three years long.

• Why does my first mahadasha seem short?

  Because you were born part-way through it. The share of the birth nakshatra the Moon had already crossed is the share of that first period that ran before birth; only the balance is shown.

• How accurate are the dates without a birth time?

  Approximate. The calculator uses noon, and each hour of difference can move the dates by several months. If the Moon changed nakshatra that day, the whole sequence can differ, and the possibilities are listed.

• Which year length is used?

  A year of 365.25 days, the default of the ProperPandit Kundli. Some software uses a 360-day year, which makes the dates drift apart over a lifetime.

• Is this calculator free?

  Yes. It is free and nothing you enter is stored.