Ketu Mahadasha, Mercury Antardasha (Ketu–Budh)

The Mercury antardasha is the ninth of the nine sub-periods inside the Ketu mahadasha, and the last of them — it closes the Ketu mahadasha, which gives way to the Venus mahadasha. 7 × 17 ÷ 120 makes the Ketu–Mercury sub-period 11 months 27 days on the classical year of twelve thirty-day months, which is how the texts state it, or 362 days on the solar year of 365.2425 days that the dasha calculator uses.

Mercury’s turn in the Ketu mahadasha comes only after Ketu, Venus, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter and Saturn have run, which takes 6 years 3 days. Nothing of the Ketu mahadasha is left once the Ketu–Mercury sub-period ends.

Mercury’s 17 years make every Mercury antardasha 17/120 of the mahadasha containing it, so inside Ketu’s 7 years the Ketu–Mercury sub-period is the fourth-longest of the nine.

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Ketu–Mercury

A pratyantardasha of Ketu–Mercury is 7 × 17 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Mercury. Venus’s is the longest inside Ketu–Mercury at 60 days and the Sun’s the shortest at 18 days, on the classical year and rounded to the day.

How Ketu and Mercury Stand to Each Other

Ketu’s row in the friendship lists counts Mercury neutral. Mercury’s row names no node, so the other direction of the Ketu–Mercury 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–Mercury 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.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Mercury–Ketu

7 × 17 equals 17 × 7, so the Ketu antardasha of the Mercury mahadasha is exactly as long as Ketu–Mercury: 11 months 27 days. Nothing else about Mercury–Ketu matches. It is the second sub-period of Mercury’s 17 years rather than the ninth of Ketu’s 7; it opens after 2 years 4 months 27 days of the Mercury mahadasha, against 6 years 3 days here; and its pratyantars start from Ketu instead of Mercury.

What the Texts Assign to Ketu and Mercury

The karaka list the tables give Ketu, the mahadasha lord, is moksha, past-life skill, renunciation, occult knowledge and flags and banners; for Mercury, the lord of the Ketu–Mercury sub-period, it is speech, writing, trade, accounts, mathematics, maternal uncles and students. 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 Mercury stands counted from Ketu there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Ketu–Mercury is a length and a position, and the 11 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–Mercury sub-period is still ahead depends on how far the Moon had gone into the nakshatra. For a birth in Ashlesha, Jyeshtha or Revati, the Mercury mahadasha comes first, and the Ketu mahadasha is the next one.

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 बुध अंतर्दशा.