Ketu Mahadasha, Mars Antardasha (Ketu–Mangal)

The Mars antardasha is the fifth of the nine sub-periods inside the Ketu mahadasha. 7 × 7 ÷ 120 makes the Ketu–Mars sub-period 4 months 27 days on the classical year of twelve thirty-day months, which is how the texts state it, or 149 days on the solar year of 365.2425 days that the dasha calculator uses.

Mars’s turn in the Ketu mahadasha comes only after Ketu, Venus, the Sun and the Moon have run, which takes 2 years 6 months 3 days. When the Ketu–Mars sub-period gives way to Ketu–Rahu, 4 years 1 month of the Ketu mahadasha remains.

Mars’s 7 years make every Mars antardasha 7/120 of the mahadasha containing it, so inside Ketu’s 7 years the Ketu–Mars sub-period is the seventh-longest of the nine, level with Ketu–Ketu, because Ketu and Mars each run 7 years as mahadashas.

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Ketu–Mars

A pratyantardasha of Ketu–Mars is 7 × 7 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Mars. Venus’s is the longest inside Ketu–Mars at 25 days and the Sun’s the shortest at 7 days, on the classical year and rounded to the day.

How Ketu and Mars Stand to Each Other

Ketu’s row in the friendship lists counts Mars a friend. Mars’s row names no node, so the other direction of the Ketu–Mars relationship has no entry, and this page does not supply one. The nodes have no row in the seven-graha table that kundli matching uses; the node’s own entry is the one printed on its planet page.

Ketu owns no sign in the standard scheme, so the Ketu–Mars sub-period has no fixed distance between lordships. What stands in for it is the node’s dispositor — the lord of the sign Ketu occupies at birth — which differs from chart to chart.

Ketu is exalted in Scorpio, a sign Mars owns (on the commoner reckoning; planets.js gives another sign as well). In the Ketu–Mars sub-period, then, one lord's dignity is placed on the other’s ground.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Mars–Ketu

7 × 7 equals 7 × 7, so the Ketu antardasha of the Mars mahadasha is exactly as long as Ketu–Mars: 4 months 27 days. Nothing else about Mars–Ketu matches. It is the sixth sub-period of Mars’s 7 years rather than the fifth of Ketu’s 7; it opens after 4 years 5 months 27 days of the Mars mahadasha, against 2 years 6 months 3 days here; and its pratyantars start from Ketu instead of Mars.

What the Texts Assign to Ketu and Mars

The karaka list the tables give Ketu, the mahadasha lord, is moksha, past-life skill, renunciation, occult knowledge and flags and banners; for Mars, the lord of the Ketu–Mars sub-period, it is younger siblings, land and property, weapons, engineering and the armed forces. Parashari practice reads the sub-period through the houses each of the two owns and occupies in the birth chart (for Ketu, which owns none, the house it occupies and the lord of its sign), and through where Mars stands counted from Ketu there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Ketu–Mars is a length and a position, and the 4 months 27 days above is the whole of what can be said about it in general.

A birth with the Moon in Ashwini, Magha or Mula opens life inside the Ketu mahadasha itself, part-way through, and whether the Ketu–Mars sub-period is still ahead depends on how far the Moon had gone into the nakshatra. For a birth in Mrigashira, Chitra or Dhanishta, the Mars mahadasha comes first, and the Ketu mahadasha is the sixth in that sequence.

The Other Sub-Periods of the Ketu Mahadasha

The full table for the Ketu mahadasha, with where each sub-period opens and closes, is on the Ketu mahadasha page. How the Ketu mahadasha is read as a whole is in our Ketu mahadasha article, and the system itself in Vimshottari dasha explained. This page in Hindi: केतु महादशा में मंगल अंतर्दशा.