Mars Mahadasha, Ketu Antardasha (Mangal–Ketu)

The Ketu antardasha is the sixth of the nine sub-periods inside the Mars mahadasha. 7 × 7 ÷ 120 makes the Mars–Ketu 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.

Ketu’s turn in the Mars mahadasha comes only after Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury have run, which takes 4 years 5 months 27 days. When the Mars–Ketu sub-period gives way to Mars–Venus, 2 years 1 month 6 days of the Mars mahadasha remains.

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

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Mars–Ketu

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

How Mars and Ketu 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 Mars–Ketu 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 Mars–Ketu 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 Mars–Ketu sub-period, then, one lord's dignity is placed on the other’s ground.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Ketu–Mars

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

What the Texts Assign to Mars and Ketu

The karaka list the tables give Mars, the mahadasha lord, is younger siblings, land and property, weapons, engineering and the armed forces; for Ketu, the lord of the Mars–Ketu sub-period, it is moksha, past-life skill, renunciation, occult knowledge and flags and banners. 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 Ketu stands counted from Mars there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Mars–Ketu 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 Mrigashira, Chitra or Dhanishta opens life inside the Mars mahadasha itself, part-way through, and whether the Mars–Ketu sub-period is still ahead depends on how far the Moon had gone into the nakshatra. For a birth in Ashwini, Magha or Mula, the Ketu mahadasha comes first, and the Mars mahadasha is the fifth in that sequence.

The Other Sub-Periods of the Mars Mahadasha

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