Ketu Mahadasha, Saturn Antardasha (Ketu–Shani)

The Saturn antardasha is the eighth of the nine sub-periods inside the Ketu mahadasha. 7 × 19 ÷ 120 makes the Ketu–Saturn sub-period 1 year 1 month 9 days on the classical year of twelve thirty-day months, which is how the texts state it, or 405 days on the solar year of 365.2425 days that the dasha calculator uses.

Saturn’s turn in the Ketu mahadasha comes only after Ketu, Venus, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Rahu and Jupiter have run, which takes 4 years 10 months 24 days. When the Ketu–Saturn sub-period gives way to Ketu–Mercury, 11 months 27 days of the Ketu mahadasha remains.

Saturn’s 19 years make every Saturn antardasha 19/120 of the mahadasha containing it, so inside Ketu’s 7 years the Ketu–Saturn sub-period is the second-longest of the nine.

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Ketu–Saturn

A pratyantardasha of Ketu–Saturn is 7 × 19 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Saturn. Venus’s is the longest inside Ketu–Saturn at 67 days and the Sun’s the shortest at 20 days, on the classical year and rounded to the day.

How Ketu and Saturn Stand to Each Other

Ketu’s row in the friendship lists counts Saturn a friend. Saturn’s row names no node, so the other direction of the Ketu–Saturn 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–Saturn 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: Saturn–Ketu

7 × 19 equals 19 × 7, so the Ketu antardasha of the Saturn mahadasha is exactly as long as Ketu–Saturn: 1 year 1 month 9 days. Nothing else about Saturn–Ketu matches. It is the third sub-period of Saturn’s 19 years rather than the eighth of Ketu’s 7; it opens after 5 years 8 months 12 days of the Saturn mahadasha, against 4 years 10 months 24 days here; and its pratyantars start from Ketu instead of Saturn.

What the Texts Assign to Ketu and Saturn

The karaka list the tables give Ketu, the mahadasha lord, is moksha, past-life skill, renunciation, occult knowledge and flags and banners; for Saturn, the lord of the Ketu–Saturn sub-period, it is karma, labour, servants, iron, coal and delay itself. 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 Saturn stands counted from Ketu there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Ketu–Saturn is a length and a position, and the 1 year 1 month 9 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–Saturn sub-period is still ahead depends on how far the Moon had gone into the nakshatra. For a birth in Pushya, Anuradha or Uttara Bhadrapada, the Saturn mahadasha comes first, and the Ketu mahadasha is the third 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 शनि अंतर्दशा.