Ashtakavarga calculator

This ashtakavarga calculator works out the bhinnashtakavarga of each planet and the sarvashtakavarga of every sign from the date, time and place of birth: the bindus each of the eight contributors gives, by sign and by house from the Lagna, with the full breakdown for each planet.

What ashtakavarga is

Ashtakavarga (अष्टकवर्ग) means “eight-fold division”. Each of the seven planets, the Sun to Saturn, has its own table of the twelve signs. Eight contributors, the seven planets and the Lagna, each count certain places from where they stand as good for that planet, and give it a bindu (point) in each of those signs. A sign can therefore receive 0 to 8 bindus in one planet’s table: that table is the planet’s bhinnashtakavarga (BAV). Adding the seven tables sign by sign gives the sarvashtakavarga (SAV), the chart’s total score for each sign.

How it is counted

1. Find the sign of each contributor: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and the Lagna.
2. For one planet’s table, take each contributor in turn and count its benefic places (the table below) in whole signs from the contributor’s own sign, which is the 1st. Put a bindu in each sign reached.
3. Add the bindus in each sign: that is the planet’s bhinnashtakavarga. Its total is always the same for that planet.
4. Do the same for all seven planets and add them sign by sign: the sarvashtakavarga, always 337 in all.

Only the signs matter, not the degrees, so the answer changes only when a contributor changes sign: the Lagna about every two hours, the Moon about every two and a half days, the other planets much less often. That is why the time and place of birth are needed, and why the calculator warns when the Lagna or a planet is close to the edge of its sign.

The benefic places

Each cell lists the houses, counted from the contributor (its own sign is the 1st), in which that contributor gives the planet a bindu. These are the standard tables as published in the ashtakavarga literature; the totals are fixed for each planet.

Some programs read a few cells differently: in the Moon’s table, the 9th from the Moon in place of the 9th from Mars, and the 2nd from Jupiter in place of the 12th; in Venus’s table, the 4th from Mars in place of the 5th. Every total stays the same, but those two tables can then differ by a bindu in a few signs.

Worked example

For Delhi at 12:00 IST on 15 August 2004, the Lagna was Tula. The Sun was in Kark, so in the Sun’s own table the Sun gives bindus to the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th signs counted from Kark; the other seven contributors do the same from their signs. Adding all seven planets’ tables, the sarvashtakavarga is highest in Vrishabh (8th) with 35 bindus and lowest in Vrishchik (2nd) with 22; the Lagna sign has 27.

Reading the numbers

The 337 bindus average just over 28 a sign. Books on ashtakavarga commonly compare each sign’s sarvashtakavarga with that average, and read a planet’s own table for the sign it occupies or passes through in transit, where 4 of 8 is the middle. Some methods first reduce the tables (trikona and ekadhipatya sodhana) for further calculations; this calculator shows the tables before any reduction, as the sarvashtakavarga is normally read. It reports the counts and does not predict anything from them.

Related tools

• Lagna calculator: the rising sign (ascendant) and how long it holds around the birth time.
• D9 chart calculator (navamsa): the navamsa chart, with the D9 Lagna and each planet’s navamsa.
• D10 chart calculator (dasamsa): the dasamsa chart from the date, time and place of birth.
• Atmakaraka calculator: the chara karakas, from the planets’ degrees in their signs.
• Sade Sati calculator: Saturn’s seven-and-a-half-year transit by Moon sign.