Mesha lagna · vimshottari
The Mars Mahadasha for Aries Ascendant
7 years · Mars rules the 1st and 8th
The Parashari way to read a mahadasha for a given ascendant starts with the houses its lord holds. For Aries ascendant Mars rules the 1st (Aries) and the 8th (Scorpio), so for Aries the 7-year Mars mahadasha carries both a kendra and a trikona house and a dusthana house.
Counted from Aries, Mars is exalted in the 10th (Capricorn) and debilitated in the 4th (Cancer). Mars is also Aries’s lagna lord, so for this ascendant the Mars mahadasha is the lagna lord’s own period. Mars’s own nakshatras fall in Mrigashira (the 2nd and 3rd), Chitra (the 6th and 7th) and Dhanishta (the 10th and 11th) for Aries ascendant, which is where a birth that opens in the Mars mahadasha has its Moon.
The Nine Sub-Periods, by Lordship for Aries
| # | Antardasha | Length (classical) | Its lord rules, for Aries |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mars–Mars | 4 months 27 days | the 1st and the 8th |
| 2 | Mars–Rahu | 1 year 18 days | no house |
| 3 | Mars–Jupiter | 11 months 6 days | the 9th and the 12th |
| 4 | Mars–Saturn | 1 year 1 month 9 days | the 10th and the 11th |
| 5 | Mars–Mercury | 11 months 27 days | the 3rd and the 6th |
| 6 | Mars–Ketu | 4 months 27 days | no house |
| 7 | Mars–Venus | 1 year 2 months | the 2nd and the 7th |
| 8 | Mars–Sun | 4 months 6 days | the 5th |
| 9 | Mars–Moon | 7 months | the 4th |
For Aries ascendant, three of the Mars mahadasha’s sub-periods belong to lords of a dusthana (the 6th, 8th or 12th): Mars–Mars, Mars–Jupiter and Mars–Mercury, and two to lords of a trikona other than the 1st: Mars–Jupiter and Mars–Sun. The sub-period of Mars, Aries’s lagna lord, is Mars–Mars, the first 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 Mars 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 Mars 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 Mars mahadasha, not a forecast: where Mars 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 Mars mahadasha’s sub-period arithmetic, with the nine pratyantars of each, is on the Mars mahadasha table; the Aries chart house by house on the Aries ascendant page. How the Mars mahadasha is read in general is in our Mars mahadasha article, and the system in Vimshottari dasha explained.