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In short
A bindu ("dot") is the unit of the Ashtakavarga. In this app a bindu is a benefic point: one of the eight reference points marking a sign as a good place for a planet. The word is used both ways in the sources: Saravali's dots are benefic, while the BPHS translation marks the inauspicious places with dots.
What the term means
Bindu is Sanskrit for "dot" or "point". In the Ashtakavarga it is the mark one reference point gives a sign. Counted for one planet, the bindus in a sign run from 0 to 8, since there are eight reference points; added across the seven planets they give the Sarvashtakavarga totals.
Where the term comes from
The two main texts use the word for opposite marks. BPHS Ch. 66 Sl. 13-15 says the inauspicious places "should be marked by dots (Bindus)" and the auspicious places by small vertical lines, Rekhas, and its later chapters count the Rekhas: Ch. 72 reads more than 30 Rekhas in a sign as favourable. Saravali Ch. 54 instead marks "benefic dots" and reads a planet by how many Bindus, from 8 down to 0, fall in the sign it occupies. This app follows Saravali's usage: a bindu is a good point. The arithmetic is the same either way.
How this app uses it
- Every bindu the engine reports is a benefic place from its table, so more bindus means more support. It never counts the malefic marks.
- The house ranking and the transit reading compare a house's bindus with the chart's own average, not with a fixed number.
- The totals are unreduced unless a page says otherwise; the reductions change a sign's count but not the meaning of the unit.
A small illustration
For 19 January 1985, 11:14 IST, New Delhi, the Sun's own table gives its 1st house a single bindu: only one of the eight reference points marks that sign as good for the Sun. In the combined table the 6th and 8th houses carry 33 bindus each, the most in the chart.
Pages that use this term
- Ashtakavarga calculator - the bindus in every sign for your chart.
- Sun in the 2nd house - reads a house's Sarvashtakavarga bindus against an average.
- Saturn in Vedic astrology - notes what BPHS calls the good marks.
- Jupiter in Vedic astrology and Sun in Vedic astrology - graha pages that count bindus.
- Career and money calculator - compares a house's bindus with an average of 28.
Related terms
- Bhinnashtakavarga - one planet's bindus.
- Trikona shodhana - the first reduction of the counts.
- BPHS and Saravali - the two sources that use the word differently.
Ashtakavarga calculator
Benefic bindus for all twelve houses, per graha and summed across the seven.
What it needs
Date, time and place
That is more than this article asks for - it only ever takes a date, and sometimes a time, and never a name or a birth place. So this one runs on its own page, which asks for exactly what it needs and stores none of it.
Run it on its own page