Ashtakavarga means the group of eight. For each of the seven planets there is a chart, and eight contributors, the seven planets and the lagna, each mark certain houses counted from where they stood at birth. A mark is a bindu: a point of support for that planet's transit through the sign. A sign can hold up to 8. Each planet's chart has a fixed total, and the seven add up to 337 in every horoscope.
☕ Eight voters for every sign
Picture each planet asking eight advisers about every sign it might pass through. The advisers are the seven planets and the lagna, each where it stood at your birth. Each gives a yes for some houses counted from itself and a no for the rest. The yeses for a sign are its bindus in that planet's chart, from none to 8 (Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (Santhanam–Kapoor ed.), ch. 66, pp. 844–845).
A word of warning on the word itself. In Jataka Parijata a bindu is the good mark (Jataka Parijata (tr. Subramanya Sastri), ch. X, p. 653). Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra draws the good mark as a line, a rekha, and calls the bad mark, a dot, a bindu (ch. 66, v. 69, p. 865 of that book). Nava's “bindu” is Parashara's rekha: a point of support.
Because each contributor marks a fixed number of houses, each planet's chart always holds the same total, whatever the horoscope (ch. X, vv. 1–2, p. 664 of Jataka Parijata), in the card “Bindus in each planet's chart” below. What changes from person to person is how those bindus spread over the twelve signs.
Jupiter's own bindus counted from the Moon fall in the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th houses. That is exactly the set the Guru Peyarchi card on the You tab treats as favourable. A panchangam's table of good transit houses is this column of each planet's chart, as Jataka Parijata's translator points out (ch. X, pp. 656–657); every column is in “Each planet's good houses from the Moon” further down.
What Nava follows: the lists Jataka Parijata prints, all 56 of them, which Brihat Jataka also gives (Brihat Jataka, ch. IX, vv. 1–7). Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra's plates read four of them differently: the Moon's chart, counted from the Moon: the 9th as well; the Moon's chart, counted from Mars: without the 9th; the Moon's chart, counted from Jupiter: the 2nd where Nava's lists have the 12th; Venus's chart, counted from Mars: the 4th where Nava's lists have the 5th (ch. 66, vv. 46–48, p. 856; ch. 66, vv. 56–58, pp. 861–862). Two of these are the variants Jataka Parijata's own footnotes record. Keeping the printed lists is Nava's choice; the chart totals come out the same either way.
Seven charts, fixed totals
- Sun: 48 bindus
- Moon: 49 bindus
- Mars: 39 bindus
- Mercury: 54 bindus
- Jupiter: 56 bindus
- Venus: 52 bindus
- Saturn: 39 bindus
- Mix-up: a horoscope with more bindus is luckier. Every horoscope has the same 337; only how they spread over the signs differs.
- Mix-up: a bindu is always the good mark. In Jataka Parijata it is; Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra calls the good mark a rekha and the bad one a bindu.
- Mix-up: Rahu and Ketu have charts of their own. The eight contributors are the seven planets and the lagna; the nodes neither give nor get bindus.
Frequently asked questions
Where does Nava show bindus?
In Your Period on the You tab, where they are called points. With a birth time, “Ashtakavarga support today” lists, for each planet, which of the eight contributors support it in the sign it is passing, out of 8. A transit read with few points is marked as softened, and a dasha lord's own points are part of how its period is judged.
Why does the lagna count as a contributor?
The books treat the rising sign as an eighth reference point beside the seven planets, so a chart has eight voices, not seven. That is where the name, the group of eight, comes from.
Is a sign with no bindus always bad?
It means none of the eight supports that planet there. The books read a planet's transit through such a sign as unhelpful; how much that matters depends on the chart and the dasha, which are read first.
Deep dive: the Moon's column, and the next steps
The table “Each planet's good houses from the Moon”, where the sign totals and the transit rule go next, and what this builds on.
🌙 Each planet's good houses from the Moon
| Planet | Houses from the Moon sign with a bindu |
|---|---|
| Sun | 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th |
| Moon | 1st, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th and 11th |
| Mars | 3rd, 6th and 11th |
| Mercury | 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 11th |
| Jupiter | 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th |
| Venus | 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th |
| Saturn | 3rd, 6th and 11th |
➕ Where it goes next
Adding the seven charts sign by sign gives the sarvashtakavarga sign totals; reading a planet's transit by its own bindus is on ashtakavarga and transits.
🧭 What this builds on
Transits counted from the Moon sign, and Jupiter's good houses, are introduced on Guru Peyarchi.