Sun Mahadasha, Mars Antardasha (Surya–Mangal)

The Mars antardasha is the third of the nine sub-periods inside the Sun mahadasha. 6 × 7 ÷ 120 makes the Sun–Mars 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.

Mars’s turn in the Sun mahadasha comes only after the Sun and the Moon have run, which takes 9 months 18 days. When the Sun–Mars sub-period gives way to Sun–Rahu, 4 years 10 months 6 days of the Sun mahadasha remains.

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

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Sun–Mars

A pratyantardasha of Sun–Mars is 6 × 7 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Mars. Venus’s is the longest inside Sun–Mars 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 Mars Stand to Each Other

On the natural friendship table, the Sun and Mars each count the other a friend. The Sun–Marsrelationship is mutual, so it reads the same from either lord.

Counted between the signs they own, Aries is the 9th from the Sun’s Leo and Scorpio is the 4th from the Sun’s Leo. Whatever the ascendant, the houses the Sun rules and the houses Mars rules sit at those same distances from each other in the chart, so the Sun–Mars sub-period always joins lordships that far apart.

The Sun is exalted in Aries, a sign Mars owns. In the Sun–Mars sub-period, then, one lord's dignity is placed on the other’s ground.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Mars–Sun

6 × 7 equals 7 × 6, so the Sun antardasha of the Mars mahadasha is exactly as long as Sun–Mars: 4 months 6 days. Nothing else about Mars–Sun matches. It is the eighth sub-period of Mars’s 7 years rather than the third of the Sun’s 6; it opens after 6 years 24 days of the Mars mahadasha, against 9 months 18 days here; and its pratyantars start from the Sun instead of Mars.

What the Texts Assign to the Sun and Mars

The karaka list the tables give the Sun, the mahadasha lord, is father, government, authority, the soul (atma) and administration; for Mars, the lord of the Sun–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, and through where Mars stands counted from the Sun there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Sun–Mars 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–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 Sun mahadasha is the eighth 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 मंगल अंतर्दशा.