Kumbha lagna · vimshottari
The Ketu Mahadasha for Aquarius Ascendant
7 years · Ketu rules no house
The Parashari way to read a mahadasha for a given ascendant starts with the houses its lord holds. For Aquarius ascendant Ketu holds none: the nodes rule no sign in whole-sign lordship, so the 7-year Ketu mahadasha for Aquarius is read through the lord of the sign Ketu occupies at birth, and through that sign’s house from Aquarius, which no table can supply without the chart.
Ketu is exalted on the commoner reckoning in Scorpio, the 10th from Aquarius, and debilitated by the same reckoning in Taurus, the 4th; planets.js records other signs as well. Ketu counts Saturn, Aquarius’s lagna lord, a friend; Saturn’s own row names no node, so the reverse has no entry. Ketu’s own nakshatras fall in Ashwini (the 3rd), Magha (the 7th) and Mula (the 11th) for Aquarius ascendant, which is where a birth that opens in the Ketu mahadasha has its Moon.
The Nine Sub-Periods, by Lordship for Aquarius
| # | Antardasha | Length (classical) | Its lord rules, for Aquarius |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ketu–Ketu | 4 months 27 days | no house |
| 2 | Ketu–Venus | 1 year 2 months | the 4th and the 9th |
| 3 | Ketu–Sun | 4 months 6 days | the 7th |
| 4 | Ketu–Moon | 7 months | the 6th |
| 5 | Ketu–Mars | 4 months 27 days | the 3rd and the 10th |
| 6 | Ketu–Rahu | 1 year 18 days | no house |
| 7 | Ketu–Jupiter | 11 months 6 days | the 2nd and the 11th |
| 8 | Ketu–Saturn | 1 year 1 month 9 days | the 1st and the 12th |
| 9 | Ketu–Mercury | 11 months 27 days | the 5th and the 8th |
For Aquarius ascendant, three of the Ketu mahadasha’s sub-periods belong to lords of a dusthana (the 6th, 8th or 12th): Ketu–Moon, Ketu–Saturn and Ketu–Mercury, and two to lords of a trikona other than the 1st: Ketu–Venus and Ketu–Mercury. The sub-period of Saturn, Aquarius’s lagna lord, is Ketu–Saturn, the eighth of nine, 1 year 1 month 9 days long. Counted in time, sub-periods whose lords hold a dusthana for Aquarius take 2 years 8 months 6 days (38%) of the Ketu mahadasha’s 7 years, and those whose lords hold a trikona other than the 1st take 2 years 1 month 27 days (31%); a lord holding both is counted in both. In the Ketu mahadasha for Aquarius, the Rahu and Ketu sub-periods are read through their dispositors in the chart, since neither node rules a house.
For an Aquarius-rising chart this is the frame of the Ketu mahadasha, not a forecast: where Ketu and each sub-period lord actually sit, and their dignity there, decide what it comes to, and this page cannot know either.
Related
For Aquarius or any other ascendant, the Ketu mahadasha’s sub-period arithmetic, with the nine pratyantars of each, is on the Ketu mahadasha table; the Aquarius chart house by house on the Aquarius ascendant page. How the Ketu mahadasha is read in general is in our Ketu mahadasha article, and the system in Vimshottari dasha explained.