Sun Mahadasha, Rahu Antardasha (Surya–Rahu)

The Rahu antardasha is the fourth of the nine sub-periods inside the Sun mahadasha. 6 × 18 ÷ 120 makes the Sun–Rahu sub-period 10 months 24 days on the classical year of twelve thirty-day months, which is how the texts state it, or 329 days on the solar year of 365.2425 days that the dasha calculator uses.

Rahu’s turn in the Sun mahadasha comes only after the Sun, the Moon and Mars have run, which takes 1 year 1 month 24 days. When the Sun–Rahu sub-period gives way to Sun–Jupiter, 3 years 11 months 12 days of the Sun mahadasha remains.

Rahu’s 18 years make every Rahu antardasha 18/120 of the mahadasha containing it, so inside the Sun’s 6 years the Sun–Rahu sub-period is the third-longest of the nine.

The Nine Pratyantardashas of Sun–Rahu

A pratyantardasha of Sun–Rahu is 6 × 18 × its own lord’s years ÷ 14,400, and the nine run in cycle order starting from Rahu. Venus’s is the longest inside Sun–Rahu at 54 days and the Sun’s the shortest at 16 days, on the classical year and rounded to the day.

How the Sun and Rahu Stand to Each Other

Rahu’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–Rahu 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.

Rahu owns no sign in the standard scheme, so the Sun–Rahu sub-period has no fixed distance between lordships. What stands in for it is the node’s dispositor — the lord of the sign Rahu occupies at birth — which differs from chart to chart.

The Same Pair the Other Way Round: Rahu–Sun

6 × 18 equals 18 × 6, so the Sun antardasha of the Rahu mahadasha is exactly as long as Sun–Rahu: 10 months 24 days. Nothing else about Rahu–Sun matches. It is the seventh sub-period of Rahu’s 18 years rather than the fourth of the Sun’s 6; it opens after 14 years 6 months 18 days of the Rahu mahadasha, against 1 year 1 month 24 days here; and its pratyantars start from the Sun instead of Rahu.

What the Texts Assign to the Sun and Rahu

The karaka list the tables give the Sun, the mahadasha lord, is father, government, authority, the soul (atma) and administration; for Rahu, the lord of the Sun–Rahu sub-period, it is foreign lands and foreigners, technology, aviation and politics. Parashari practice reads the sub-period through the houses each of the two owns and occupies in the birth chart (for Rahu, which owns none, the house it occupies and the lord of its sign), and through where Rahu stands counted from the Sun there. None of that is a forecast, and this page makes none: without a chart, Sun–Rahu is a length and a position, and the 10 months 24 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–Rahu sub-period is still ahead depends on how far the Moon had gone into the nakshatra. For a birth in Ardra, Swati or Shatabhisha, the Rahu mahadasha comes first, and the Sun mahadasha is the seventh 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 राहु अंतर्दशा.