Antardasha

sanskrit: अन्तर्दशा (Antardaśā)

Definition

An antardasha — also called a bhukti — is a sub-period inside a planet's mahadasha (its major period). It sits at the second level of the Vedic timing ladder: below the dasa and above the finer pratyantardasha. In the Vimshottari and related dasa systems, each mahadasha splits into nine antardashas, one for each of the nine grahas (planets), running in the fixed Vimshottari order and starting with the mahadasha lord itself. Each lasts in proportion to its own lord's dasa, and during it the sub-period lord shapes the theme the major-period lord has set.

In Tradition

Across classical and modern Jyotish writing, the antardasha is read as the level where a second graha colours and reshapes what the major-period lord promised — the two are judged together, not apart. Several sources add that whether an antardasha turns out favourable or difficult depends on the antardasha lord's own condition: its dignity (exalted, in its own sign) and where it sits, counted both from the lagna (the rising sign) and from the mahadasha lord.

In Practice

A jyotishi (Vedic astrologer) reads each antardasha as a sub-period of the mahadasha, blending what the dasa lord and the sub-lord each indicate and weighing how the two relate in the birth chart. Classical texts such as BPHS and Saravali tabulate the result of every major-and-sub pairing; BPHS lays out the effects of all nine antardasha lords within each of the nine mahadasas. Charak holds an antardasha favourable when its lord is exalted, in its own sign, or in a kendra (angle) or trikona (trine), and adverse when it is debilitated, combust, or in the 6th, 8th, or 12th. Some authors, like Narasimha Rao, judge the results with reference to the Moon; others, like Rao, hold a planet gives its fullest results in its own antardasha. Lengths run from roughly eight months to a little over two years in the Vimshottari scheme.

Historical Origin

The antardasha runs deep through the classical Sanskrit corpus — Parasara's Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra (Kapoor translation, Chapters 53–60), Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka (Ch. VIII), Kalyana Varma's Saravali (Ch. 42), Kalidasa's Uttara Kalamrita (Ch. VI), and the Laghu Parashari — and modern authors carry it forward, among them Raman, Charak, Frawley, Levacy, Sutton, Rao, Murthy, Ponde, Narasimha Rao, and deFouw & Svoboda.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading