Mesha lagna · vimshottari
The Ketu Mahadasha for Aries 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 Aries ascendant Ketu holds none: the nodes rule no sign in whole-sign lordship, so the 7-year Ketu mahadasha for Aries is read through the lord of the sign Ketu occupies at birth, and through that sign’s house from Aries, which no table can supply without the chart.
Ketu is exalted on the commoner reckoning in Scorpio, the 8th from Aries, and debilitated by the same reckoning in Taurus, the 2nd; planets.js records other signs as well. Ketu counts Mars, Aries’s lagna lord, a friend; Mars’s own row names no node, so the reverse has no entry. Ketu’s own nakshatras fall in Ashwini (the 1st), Magha (the 5th) and Mula (the 9th) for Aries ascendant, which is where a birth that opens in the Ketu mahadasha has its Moon.
The Nine Sub-Periods, by Lordship for Aries
| # | Antardasha | Length (classical) | Its lord rules, for Aries |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ketu–Ketu | 4 months 27 days | no house |
| 2 | Ketu–Venus | 1 year 2 months | the 2nd and the 7th |
| 3 | Ketu–Sun | 4 months 6 days | the 5th |
| 4 | Ketu–Moon | 7 months | the 4th |
| 5 | Ketu–Mars | 4 months 27 days | the 1st and the 8th |
| 6 | Ketu–Rahu | 1 year 18 days | no house |
| 7 | Ketu–Jupiter | 11 months 6 days | the 9th and the 12th |
| 8 | Ketu–Saturn | 1 year 1 month 9 days | the 10th and the 11th |
| 9 | Ketu–Mercury | 11 months 27 days | the 3rd and the 6th |
For Aries ascendant, three of the Ketu mahadasha’s sub-periods belong to lords of a dusthana (the 6th, 8th or 12th): Ketu–Mars, Ketu–Jupiter and Ketu–Mercury, and two to lords of a trikona other than the 1st: Ketu–Sun and Ketu–Jupiter. The sub-period of Mars, Aries’s lagna lord, is Ketu–Mars, the fifth of nine, 4 months 27 days long. Counted in time, sub-periods whose lords hold a dusthana for Aries take 2 years 4 months (33%) of the Ketu mahadasha’s 7 years, and those whose lords hold a trikona other than the 1st take 1 year 3 months 12 days (18%); a lord holding both is counted in both. In the Ketu mahadasha for Aries, the Rahu and Ketu sub-periods are read through their dispositors in the chart, since neither node rules a house.
For an Aries-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 Aries or any other ascendant, the Ketu mahadasha’s sub-period arithmetic, with the nine pratyantars of each, is on the Ketu mahadasha table; the Aries chart house by house on the Aries ascendant page. How the Ketu mahadasha is read in general is in our Ketu mahadasha article, and the system in Vimshottari dasha explained.