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In short
A mahadasha is the top-level period of a dasha system: a stretch of years assigned to one ruling graha. In Vimshottari, which this app uses, there are nine, lasting from 6 years (the Sun) to 20 years (Venus) and 120 years in all. The engine dates them from the Moon's birth nakshatra, the first one shortened by the part already spent.
What the term means
Maha means "great", so a mahadasha is the great or main period of a dasha system. Each mahadasha has one ruling graha, its lord, and lasts a fixed number of years set by the system. When people say "I am in my Saturn dasha" they mean the Saturn mahadasha. Every mahadasha is then cut into smaller periods, the antardashas, which share out its years among all the lords in turn.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-14 sets out the Vimshottari order counted from Krittika: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu and Venus, and takes 120 years as the natural span of a life. Sl. 15 gives the lengths in that order as 6, 10, 7, 18, 16, 19, 17, 7 and 20 years. Ch. 47 then turns to what the periods bring, and Sl. 2 separates two layers: general effects from the graha's own nature and distinctive effects from its placement in the chart. Ch. 48 continues with the distinctive effects of the nakshatra dasha.
How this app computes it
- The engine's sequence starts from Ketu (Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17). It is the BPHS cycle read from a different starting point, so the order and the lengths are the same.
- The first lord is the lord of the Moon's birth nakshatra (the nakshatra's index taken modulo nine), and its period is shortened by the share of the nakshatra the Moon had already crossed.
- A year is 365.2425 days. The engine lays out the nine periods once and does not repeat the cycle, so after the ninth ends no mahadasha is returned.
A small illustration
For 19 January 1985, 11:14 IST, New Delhi, the Moon is in Mula, a Ketu nakshatra, near its end. The engine opens with a short Ketu period ending 28 May 1985, then Venus to 2005, the Sun to 2011, the Moon to 2021, and Mars from 28 May 2021 to 28 May 2028, the mahadasha running in October 2026. Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury follow, the last ending in 2098.
Pages that use this term
- What is a Mahadasha? - the essay on how the period is dated and read.
- Vimshottari Dasha calculator - lists your nine mahadashas with dates.
- Saturn Mahadasha - the 19-year period in detail.
- Jupiter Mahadasha - the 16-year period in detail.
- Timing - the running mahadasha alongside transits.
Related terms
Vimshottari Dasha, Pratyantardasha, Dasha balance and Janma Nakshatra.
Vimshottari Dasha
The 120-year cycle of nine lords, dated from the nakshatra your Moon held at birth.
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