ONE QUESTION · A WORKED CHART
How is dasha balance at birth calculated?
The first row of a planetary-period table often shows only part of a full period, and that remainder is the dasha balance at birth. In Vimshottari, the system used here, take the fraction of the Moon's nakshatra, or birth-star division, remaining beyond its birth position. Think of joining a film already in progress: you need its remaining running time.
Dasha simply means planetary period. First find the birth star and its period lord. Then measure how much of its 13°20′ span remains beyond the Moon. Divide that remaining arc by the full span and multiply by the lord's full period. A Moon near the start leaves more time; a Moon near the end leaves less. This starting balance also shifts every later boundary in the table.
See it in a chart
Example birth: 15 January 1990, 08:30 IST · New Delhi
The fictional Moon is at 139.074608°, within Venus-ruled Purva Phalguni. Its endpoint is 146°40′, leaving 7.592058° using the unrounded position. Divide the remaining arc by 13°20′ and multiply by Venus's twenty-year period: the result is 11.388088 dasha years. Adding the balance to the birth instant, 15 January 1990 at 08:30 IST, gives an end date of 5 June 2001 at 22:12:55 IST. Venus is in Capricorn in the first house with the Sun and Rahu and rules the fifth and tenth houses, associated here with learning and work. The balance gives the duration; the placements give themes for reflection.
- Moon longitude
- 139.074608°
- Remaining nakshatra arc
- 7.592058°
- Venus balance
- 11.388088 dasha years
- Balance ends
- 05 Jun 2001, 22:12:55 IST
For your own chart
When two period tables disagree, compare their first rows before examining later dates. Check the starting lord, the Moon's degree, the remaining balance and the year-length convention. A difference at the beginning carries through the rest of the sequence.
Keep full precision until the final display. A longer balance means more time in that period, not better fortune.
For astrologers: calculation details
Fictional Demo Chart A · 15 January 1990, 08:30 IST (UTC+05:30)
New Delhi, India; 28.6139° N, 77.2090° E
Lahiri sidereal zodiac; mean nodes; whole-sign houses; geocentric geometric positions; Vimshottari with a 365.25636-day year. UTC birth instant: 1990-01-15T03:00:00Z. Reference instant: 2026-09-28T06:30:00Z.
Angles are rounded to six decimal places; arithmetic uses the saved full values. Period boundaries are displayed to the nearest second in IST. These settings describe the calculation, not the precision of a birth record.
Follow the calculation
- Purva Phalguni ends at 146°40′. Subtract the demo Moon's unrounded longitude to obtain 7.592058° still to travel.
- Divide that by 13°20′, then multiply by Venus's 20-year period. The result is 11.388088 dasha years, not 20 years.
- Convert using 365.25636 days per year and add the result to the birth instant. The resulting boundary is 05 Jun 2001, 22:12:55 IST. Full-precision inputs are retained until display.