Yogini Dasha: The Eight Yoginis and Your Starting Yogini

Yogini Dasha Kya Hoti Hai (योगिनी दशा)

Yogini dasha is a second, shorter system of planetary periods that runs alongside the familiar Vimshottari dasha. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra describes it among its dasha systems, and the later dasha manuals give the same scheme: eight yoginis, each tied to one graha and each lasting a whole number of years, from 1 year for the first to 8 years for the last. The years are simply one to eight in order, so a full round of the eight comes to 36 years, against 120 for a round of Vimshottari. Like Vimshottari, it starts from the Moon’s nakshatra at birth, and the Moon’s degree inside that nakshatra fixes how much of the first period is left.

The Eight Yogini Names, Grahas and Years

The glosses in the third column are only what the Sanskrit words mean. They are not readings. Sankata translates as distress and Siddha as accomplished, but a word in a name is not a statement about the years that carry it, and this page does not attach an outcome to any yogini. Seven of the eight grahas are the seven classical ones, and the eighth is Rahu. Set against the nine Vimshottari lords, one is missing: Ketu has no yogini of its own.

Finding the Starting Yogini: Nakshatra Number Plus 3

The rule in the manuals is short. Number the janma nakshatras from Ashwini as 1 to Revati as 27, add 3, and divide by 8. The remainder names the starting yogini in the order of the table above, with a remainder of 0 standing for the 8th, Sankata. Ashwini gives 1 + 3 = 4, so it opens in the 4th yogini, Bhramari. Ardra, the 6th nakshatra, gives 9, remainder 1, and opens in Mangala, as do Chitra and Shravana. Mrigashira, Hasta and Uttara Ashadha leave a remainder of 0 and open in Sankata.

Because 27 nakshatras are shared out over eight yoginis, three yoginis receive four nakshatras each and the other five receive three. The extra three are Bhramari, Bhadrika and Ulka: the count begins at Bhramari with Ashwini, goes round the eight three times, and Revati lands on Ulka, the third step of a fourth round. A yogini that holds more nakshatras is not for that reason more frequent in any population; the share depends on how many births fall in each nakshatra, which this page has not counted.

All 27 Nakshatras: Starting Yogini Beside the Vimshottari Lord

The same janma nakshatra starts both systems, so the two opening periods can be read off together. Find your nakshatra with the nakshatra finder, then read across.

Vimshottari repeats its lords every nine nakshatras and Yogini every eight, so the two cycles line up again only after 72 steps and no pairing of opening yogini and Vimshottari lord occurs twice in the 27 rows. In only four rows do both systems open with the same graha: Vishakha (Jupiter), Jyeshtha (Mercury), Purva Ashadha (Venus) and Shravana (the Moon), every other nakshatra in one stretch of the zodiac. Only Krittika opens with periods of equal length, 6 years in each, though under different grahas: Ulka’s Saturn in Yogini and the Sun in Vimshottari. In three rows the opening yogini is the longer of the two: Mrigashira (Sankata, 8, against Mars, 7), Uttara Phalguni (Siddha, 7, against the Sun, 6) and Uttara Ashadha (Sankata, 8, against the Sun, 6). In the remaining 23 it is the shorter.

The Balance at Birth, Worked Through

The first yogini is not run in full. The portion still to run equals the fraction of the janma nakshatra the Moon has yet to cross, times that yogini’s years; this is the same proportion Vimshottari uses. Take a hypothetical Moon at Virgo 15°00′, a degree chosen for the arithmetic and not anyone’s chart. That is 165° of the sidereal zodiac, inside Hasta, which runs from 10°00′ of Virgo for 13°20′.

• Crossed so far: Virgo 15°00′ minus 10°00′ = 5°00′.
• Still to cross: 13°20′ minus 5°00′ = 8°20′, which is 0.625 of the nakshatra.
• Hasta is number 13; 13 + 3 = 16, remainder 0 on division by 8, so the opening yogini is Sankata, 8 years.
• Yogini balance: 0.625 × 8 = 5 years of Sankata left to run.
• Vimshottari balance for the same Moon: 0.625 × 10 (the Moon) = 6 years 3 months, counted on the 360-day year.

After the balance of Sankata, the count wraps round to the top of the list: Mangala’s full 1 year, then Pingala’s 2 years, and on through the order. The sequence returns to its opening yogini every 36 years, so in the span of one 120-year Vimshottari round the Yogini count completes three rounds and is 12 years into a fourth. The balance depends on the Moon’s degree, which a birth time fixes; a Moon a degree further on changes the figure by 7 months 6 days in this nakshatra.

Sub-Periods Inside One Yogini: Sankata as the Example

Each yogini dasha divides into eight antardashas, one for every yogini, beginning with the ruling yogini itself and continuing in order. An antardasha’s length is the maha yogini’s years times the antar yogini’s years, divided by 36. On the classical 360-day year that works out to exactly 10 days for each unit of the product, so every sub-period is a whole number of days. For Sankata, the longest at 8 years:

The eight rows add back to 8 years, because the antar years in the numerator sum to 36. The same pattern gives any other maha: Mangala’s single year splits into sub-periods from 10 days for Mangala–Mangala to 2 months 20 days for Mangala–Sankata. Software working on the 365.2425-day solar year prints slightly longer calendar spans for the same proportions, as it does for Vimshottari.

What This Page Does Not Say

It does not say what a yogini dasha brings, whether Ulka or Sankata is harder than Siddha or Mangala, or what to do during any of them. In Parashari practice a period is read with the house its graha rules and occupies, the aspects on it and the rest of the chart, none of which a table of names and years can supply, and a name’s dictionary meaning is no substitute. Nor does the page date any period or turn one into an age. The dasha hub covers each Vimshottari mahadasha lord, and nakshatra pages such as Hasta and Shravana set out what the tradition attaches to a birth star. In Hindi: योगिनी दशा: आठ योगिनियाँ और आपकी पहली योगिनी.