How the vimshottari dasha is actually calculated

Vimshottari runs a 120-year cycle of nine planetary periods: Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17 years. Your place in the cycle is set by one input: the Moon's exact sidereal longitude at birth.

The zodiac's 360° divide into 27 nakshatras of 13°20′ each, and the nine lords repeat in order across them. The nakshatra holding your Moon names your first dasha lord; how far the Moon has traveled through that nakshatra determines how much of the period is already spent. Moon 54% through a Ketu nakshatra → 46% of Ketu's 7 years remain at birth; the sequence then unrolls mechanically for life.

Each mahadasha subdivides into nine antardashas in the same order starting with its own lord, proportionally sized (maha years × sub years ÷ 120), and each antardasha subdivides again into pratyantardashas the same way.

The arithmetic is fully deterministic — the calculator shows your entire timeline from one birth detail set. Precision note: a 4-minute birth-time error moves the Moon ~2′, which shifts dasha boundaries by about a week.

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