Your selected period
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Open Vimshottari periods →A period within the 120-year cycle
An antardasha is a subperiod within a mahadasha. Its length is proportional to its lord’s allocated Vimshottari years.
Read the pair together
Rao permits taking the mahadasha lord as temporary lagna when examining antardashas.
Display both lords and both natal positions before comparing them. The relative house must name its reference. It is additional context, and cannot decide an event or the overall quality of the period on its own.
Work through an example
A Venus/Mercury selection has Venus as the major lord and Mercury as the subperiod lord. In a synthetic example with Venus in Aries and Mercury in Virgo, Virgo is sixth from Aries and Aries is eighth from Virgo. The direction and reference matter.
Relative house six belongs to both upachaya and dusthana. These categories do not decide an overall outcome.
Rao: subdivision procedure (§16.3) and house categories (§7.4) ↗
Keep the convention and source visible
Review the calculation year and lunar starting point shown in the tool before comparing its dates with another program or a worked example.
The cited modern teaching supplies a reading procedure. It does not date the first historical use of the Sanskrit period names or establish that planetary periods cause life events. For a fuller reading, inspect dignity, strength, associations, relevant divisions and competing indications rather than inferring events from the period label.
Rao: year-length discussion, §16.2 ↗Rao, §16.5.1; physical p 226 / printed 214 ↗
Word origin · etymology
Sanskrit compound: antardaśā.
Sanskrit antar means within or between; daśā means period in Rao’s usage. Antardaśā thus suggests an inner period. The compound analysis does not date the technical term’s origin.
Lanman, Sanskrit Reader, vocabulary printed117 ↗Rao, Dasa Analysis introduction; physical p219 / printed207 ↗
How we know · epistemology
Nested period arithmetic and attributed chart interpretation
Arithmetic nesting and astrological interpretation answer different questions. The first locates a selected date in a timetable; the second proposes traditional meaning. Neither a shorter interval nor a more detailed display supplies evidence that a life event will occur. Missing natal positions prevent a placement reading. Missing chart conditions prevent a complete traditional judgment. Show these gaps explicitly, including when both period lords are the same.
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Connected concepts
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These links connect subjects and terminology. They do not establish a shared historical origin.
Sources & provenance
Use the citations beside each section to distinguish a calculation convention, a historical teaching and an editorial example.
Find these sources across the wiki →
- P. V. R. Narasimha Rao: Jyotish teaching notes, volume 1 ↗
- Lanman, Sanskrit Reader, vocabulary printed117 ↗
- Rao, Dasa Analysis introduction; physical p219 / printed207 ↗
- Rao, §16.5.1; physical p 226 / printed 214 ↗
- Rao, §16.3; physical p 224 / printed 212 ↗
- Rao: subdivision procedure (§16.3) and house categories (§7.4) ↗
- Rao: year-length discussion, §16.2 ↗