Every level below the mahadasha is cut by one rule. Take the span of the period above, multiply it by the Vimshottari years of the sub-period's lord, and divide by 120. The first sub-period always belongs to the parent's own lord; the other eight follow in the fixed dasha order. Done once, it gives the bhuktis; done again, the pratyantars; twice more, the sookshma and prana periods.
☕ The same cut, again and again
Picture a cake cut into nine slices of different widths, each slice as wide as its lord's share of the 120 years. Take one slice and cut it into nine the same way, and again. However small the piece, the shares are the same.
Parashara states the rule for the bhukti and for the pratyantar inside it (Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (Santhanam–Kapoor ed.), ch. 51, v. 1, p. 618), and says each level starts with its parent's own lord, the rest following in dasha order (ch. 51, v. 2, p. 619). The full Venus dasha, worked through, is in the card “The nine bhuktis of the Venus dasha” below. Cut the Sun bhukti of it once more and you get its nine pratyantars, in “The nine pratyantars of Venus–Sun” further down.
The book then gives the rule twice more: the sookshma inside a pratyantar and the prana inside a sookshma, each with the same multiplication and a worked example. Because the nine shares always add up to 120 out of 120, every level fills its parent exactly.
Nava cuts the bhuktis with this rule and cuts each bhukti again, by the same rule, for its pratyantars. The You tab shows your mahadasha, bhukti and pratyantar with their dates. Nava does not show the two levels below the pratyantar. The shortest pranas last minutes, finer than a birth time is usually known.
One mahadasha, cut into nine
- Venus–Venus: 20 × 20 ÷ 120 = 3 years 4 months
- Venus–Sun: 20 × 6 ÷ 120 = 1 year
- Venus–Moon: 20 × 10 ÷ 120 = 1 year 8 months
- Venus–Mars: 20 × 7 ÷ 120 = 1 year 2 months
- Venus–Rahu: 20 × 18 ÷ 120 = 3 years
- Venus–Jupiter: 20 × 16 ÷ 120 = 2 years 8 months
- Venus–Saturn: 20 × 19 ÷ 120 = 3 years 2 months
- Venus–Mercury: 20 × 17 ÷ 120 = 2 years 10 months
- Venus–Ketu: 20 × 7 ÷ 120 = 1 year 2 months
- Mix-up: the nine sub-periods are equal ninths. Each is as long as its lord's share of 120 years, so Venus's is the longest and the Sun's the shortest.
- Mix-up: every level starts again from Ketu. Each starts from its own parent's lord: a Venus bhukti's pratyantars open with Venus.
- Mix-up: the deeper levels need a new formula. The book gives the same multiplication for each of them; only the units shrink.
Frequently asked questions
Why do the sub-periods always add up to the whole period?
Because the nine lords' years add up to 120, and each share is its lord's years over 120. The nine shares are 120 out of 120, the whole parent, at every level.
Why do my bhukti dates differ by days from a table worked by hand?
The split is the same; the length of a year may not be. A table worked by hand in thirty-day months counts a 360-day year; Nava counts 365.25 days. How far apart that leaves the two is shown on the page about the 360- or 365-day year in this series.
Is there a shortcut for working a bhukti by hand?
Multiply the two lords' years; drop the last digit of the product and the rest is months; three times the dropped digit is days. The translator gives it as a hand method (Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (Santhanam–Kapoor ed.), ch. 51, pp. 618–619). It is exact only in a year of 360 days.
Deep dive: one bhukti cut again, and the chain to prana
The table “The nine pratyantars of Venus–Sun”, the book's own chain down to prana, and what this builds on.
🧩 The nine pratyantars of Venus–Sun
| Bhukti–pratyantar | Length |
|---|---|
| Sun–Sun | 18 days |
| Sun–Moon | 1 month |
| Sun–Mars | 21 days |
| Sun–Rahu | 1 month 24 days |
| Sun–Jupiter | 1 month 18 days |
| Sun–Saturn | 1 month 27 days |
| Sun–Mercury | 1 month 21 days |
| Sun–Ketu | 21 days |
| Sun–Venus | 2 months |
🔬 The Sun's chain, four levels down
Parashara's book works the Sun's own chain all the way down, in months of 30 days. The Sun dasha is 6 years; its Sun bhukti is 6 × 6 ÷ 120 of it, 108 days (ch. 51, v. 1, p. 618). Inside that, the Sun pratyantar is 108 × 6 ÷ 120 = 5.4 days (ch. 61, v. 1, p. 742). One level down, the Sun sookshma is 16.2 ghatikas (ch. 62, v. 1, p. 770), and the Sun prana inside it 48.6 palas (ch. 63, v. 1, p. 785). A ghatika is a sixtieth of a day and a pala a sixtieth of a ghatika. Each step is the same multiplication; only the unit gets smaller.
🧭 What this builds on
What a dasha, a bhukti and a pratyantar are, and how the first dasha's bhuktis run from before birth, is on dasha and bhukti. Which star each lord rules, and its years, are on how the star lords repeat.