Drig Dasha

Definition

Drig Dasha (also Drig Dasa, Drigdasa) is a Jaimini dasha — a timing period — built on whole signs (rasi) rather than planets, and keyed to aspects; the Sanskrit drik means vision or sight. Rath notes that Parasara and Jaimini both treat it, and that it always begins from the ninth house, the dharma (spiritual) bhava. Narasimha Rao describes it as an aspect-based sign dasha that shows how your spiritual vision develops and steers your life, surfacing religious and spiritual activity wherever the chart promises that growth.

In Tradition

Across the Jaimini sign-dasha literature cited here, Drig Dasha is read as the sign-based timing system that speaks to a person's spiritual life. Rath uses it to time renunciation, while Narasimha Rao reads it for the development of spiritual vision and the evolution of the soul. Both anchor it in the ninth (dharma) house.

In Practice

Rath uses Drig Dasha to time renunciation. He reads renunciation as indicated when the dasha runs a sign whose third and sixth houses carry benefics (and whose related houses lack the marrying significations), and he times it from the Drig Dasha of the Arudha Lagna — the chart's visible image of the ascendant. The length of each sign's period matches the Narayana or Chara dasas, and the succeeding (aspecting) signs are counted forward from an odd-footed sign or in reverse from a Samapada (even-footed) sign such as Pisces. Narasimha Rao reads the dasha instead for spiritual and religious activity and the soul's evolution, and has its periods start from the ninth house in groups of four — those belonging to the ninth, tenth and eleventh houses and the three signs each of them aspects.

Historical Origin

What we have here is modern paraphrase rather than the classical text itself. Rath, in The Crux of Vedic Astrology, treats it as a Jaimini rasi dasha and cites Parasara, Jaimini and his own book on the Jaimini Upadesa Sutras. Narasimha Rao discusses it in Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach. All three source entries are modern, copyrighted treatments, not verbatim classical quotations.

Further Reading

• Rath, The Crux of Vedic Astrology
• Narasimha Rao, Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach