Sun Mahadasha, Ketu Antardasha (Surya–Ketu)

The Ketu antardasha is the eighth of the nine sub-periods inside the Sun mahadasha. 6 × 7 ÷ 120 makes the Sun–Ketu sub-period 4 months 6 days on the classical year of twelve thirty-day months, which is how the texts state it, or 128 days on the solar year of 365.2425 days that the dasha calculator uses.

Ketu’s turn in the Sun mahadasha comes only after the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury have run, which takes 4 years 7 months 24 days. When the Sun–Ketu sub-period gives way to Sun–Venus, 1 year of the Sun mahadasha remains.

Ketu’s 7 years make every Ketu antardasha 7/120 of the mahadasha containing it, so inside the Sun’s 6 years the Sun–Ketu sub-period is the seventh-longest of the nine, level with Sun–Mars, because Mars and Ketu each run 7 years as mahadashas.

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Sun–Ketu

A pratyantardasha of Sun–Ketu is 6 × 7 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Ketu. Venus’s is the longest inside Sun–Ketu at 21 days and the Sun’s the shortest at 6 days, on the classical year and rounded to the day.

How the Sun and Ketu Stand to Each Other

Ketu’s row in the friendship lists counts the Sun an enemy. The Sun’s row names no node, so the other direction of the Sun–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 Sun–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.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Ketu–Sun

6 × 7 equals 7 × 6, so the Sun antardasha of the Ketu mahadasha is exactly as long as Sun–Ketu: 4 months 6 days. Nothing else about Ketu–Sun matches. It is the third sub-period of Ketu’s 7 years rather than the eighth of the Sun’s 6; it opens after 1 year 6 months 27 days of the Ketu mahadasha, against 4 years 7 months 24 days here; and its pratyantars start from the Sun instead of Ketu.

What the Texts Assign to the Sun and Ketu

The karaka list the tables give the Sun, the mahadasha lord, is father, government, authority, the soul (atma) and administration; for Ketu, the lord of the Sun–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 the Sun there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Sun–Ketu is a length and a position, and the 4 months 6 days above is the whole of what can be said about it in general.

A birth with the Moon in Krittika, Uttara Phalguni or Uttara Ashadha opens life inside the Sun mahadasha itself, part-way through, and whether the Sun–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 Sun mahadasha is the third in that sequence.

The Other Sub-Periods of the Sun Mahadasha

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