A transit is where a planet is today; a dasha is the planet period running in your life. The books read them in order: first what the birth chart promises, then whether the running dasha opens that promise, and only then what the transits add. B. V. Raman puts it plainly: the chart and the dasha carry the main weight, the transits a secondary one. Nava's Your Period reads in the same order, with weights of its own.
☕ Promise, switch, weather
Think of the birth chart as the rooms a house was built with, the dasha as the light switched on in one room for some years, and the transits as the weather outside the window this month. Weather matters, but it cannot light a room that was never wired. That is the order B. V. Raman states: the natal positions and the dashas carry the primary weight in timing, and the transiting planets a secondary one (B. V. Raman, How to Judge a Horoscope, vol. 2, p. 19).
The older books tie the two together in their own ways. Jataka Parijata judges a dasa lord partly by its ashtakavarga: a lord holding more than the average bindus gives its good, and one holding few does not (Jataka Parijata (tr. Subramanya Sastri), ch. XVIII, vv. 4–5, p. 1006). So even the dasha is read with a transit tool in hand.
Nava's Your Period reads three layers, in that order, in the card “The three layers Your Period reads” below. An area's promise comes from its house, the house's lord and its occupants (ch. XI, vv. 1–11, pp. 709–713 of the same book), with the sign's ashtakavarga total read on that book's bands (ch. X, v. 53, p. 698). Then the mahadasha, bhukti and pratyantar lords say whether the area is switched on. Last, each transit's result in its house from your Moon sign comes from Kalaprakasika (1917 ed.), ch. XXXVI, pp. 207–208, checked for vedha and for the planet's own bindus in the sign it is passing. Kalaprakasika itself says more: a well-placed planet so obstructed gives the opposite of its good result, and a badly placed one loses its power for evil and gives good. The book's own glossary (Kalaprakasika (1917 ed.), p. 248) and Jataka Parijata's note (Jataka Parijata (tr. Subramanya Sastri), ch. XIII, p. 833) say the obstructing planet cancels the result, and Nava does that, good or bad; the note adds that the obstructing planet, if strong, can reverse it. Never reversing it is Nava's own reading.
The dasha layers get a larger share than the transits. No book gives numbers for this; the shares are Nava's own and are labelled so, and Raman's rule is one modern author's guidance, not a figure to copy. On the one-month view the dasha is held as it stands today, so only the transits move the line. On the whole-life view only the slow planets are placed: Saturn, Jupiter, Rahu and Ketu.
Reading in order
- The chart's promise: what the birth chart holds for an area of life, from its house, that house's lord and the sign's ashtakavarga total
- The running dasha: whether the mahadasha, bhukti and pratyantar lords switch that area on, and how able each lord is
- The transits: what each planet adds in its house from your Moon sign, after vedha and its own bindus are checked
- Mix-up: a good transit outweighs a hard dasha. In the books' order the dasha comes first; a transit adjusts what the dasha already allows.
- Mix-up: 7½ Shani alone decides a stretch of years. It is one transit; Your Period reads it beside the running dasha and the chart.
- Mix-up: Nava's weights come from a book. No book gives numbers for them; the shares are Nava's own, set so the dasha counts for more.
Frequently asked questions
Does Nava follow Raman's rule exactly?
It follows his order, not a number of his: the chart first, the dasha next, the transits last, with the dasha layers given a larger share than the transits. Raman gives no weights, so the shares Your Period uses are Nava's own choice.
Why does the one-month view hardly move with the dasha?
Inside thirty days the dasha is held as it stands today, so the line is moved by the transits alone. A change of bhukti in that month is shown as a turning point, not spread over the month.
Where do the transit cards fit in?
The 7½ Shani and Guru Peyarchi cards on the You tab read one transit each, on its own. Your Period reads the same transits under the running dasha, which is the order the books ask for.
Deep dive: an example of the order, and the pieces
One reading followed layer by layer, where each transit check is explained, and what this builds on.
🧩 One reading, layer by layer
An example of the method, not a forecast. Take the area of work, read from the 10th house. Suppose the 10th's sign has a good ashtakavarga total and its lord sits well: the promise is strong. Suppose the bhukti running is that lord's own: the switch is on. Now a slow planet passes a good house from the Moon sign, but another planet stands in the house that blocks it: that transit's good is cancelled, and the reading rests on the first two layers. Reverse the case, a weak promise and an unrelated dasha lord, and the same good transit lifts the reading only a little.
🔭 The transit checks, one page each
The blocking house is explained on gochara vedha, the bindus on ashtakavarga basics and ashtakavarga and transits, and Saturn's own cards on sade sati.
🧭 What this builds on
The mahadasha, bhukti and pratyantar this page leans on are explained on dasha and bhukti.