In the article comparing Vedic vs Western astrology, I made a list of techniques used for astrology predictions – in my opinion, the one based on time periods is the most accurate. The planetary time periods, calculated using Vimshottari Dasha system, have been used for thousands of years to predict life events such as marriage, progress in career, long-distance travel, and gain in wealth. I’ve used this method to predict the time of marriage of about 600 people, and I’ve found the accuracy to be 80% - take a look at my research. Also, this technique is very close to the “time lords” method used in ancient Egypt, and also extremely popular amongst Chinese and Arabic astrologers.

So, what’s the science behind it?

It’s based on the position of the Moon. Moon travels 13 degrees 20 minutes in a day, and the path it covers is called a Lunar Mansion or a Nakshatra. It takes Moon 27 days to travel across the entire zodiac (360 degrees) so there are 27 Nakshatras (click to read more), which play a pivotal role in Vedic astrology.

Each Nakshtra is ruled by a planet for a specific number of years (time period) based on the Vimshottari Dasha system. So depending on the degree of Moon in your birth chart, you go through the time period of the ruler of the Nakshatra - and that ruler (planet) affects your life the most. Take a look at this table.

Let's use an example to study this table

Let's say you were born 11th April 1990 at 18 30 in London, then as per your birth chart your Moon’s degree is 15 degrees Libra, so what that means is that Moon has travelled 6 signs (Aries to Virgo) of 30 degrees each, and another 15 degrees of Libra taking the Longitude of Moon, in your birth chart, to 195 degrees (6x30 + 15).

So looking up the table above, you could see you were born in the Nakshatra of Swati that is ruled by Rahu. But Moon has already traveled 8 degrees and 20 minutes (195 - 186.33) of the 13 degrees 20 minutes of the Nakshatra so you’ll go through the remaining years as per this formula.

Time period of Rahu left = (13.33 - 8.33)/ 13.33 * 18 years = 6 years and 9 months

After you have finished the remaining time period of Rahu, you'll enter the time period of the next ruling planet in the sequence (refer table above), which in this case is Jupiter for 16 years, followed by Saturn for 19 years and so on. You don't need to worry about the calculations they've already been done on this website.

Here's how to use it

The main time period is further broken down to a sub-time period and a sub-sub time period. For the sake of simplicity, I call them time period#1, #2, and #3. So how are they broken down? if you are starting a time period#1 of a new planet, then time period#2, and #3 are also of the same planet. Now time period#3 (ruling planet) first changes as per the sequence in the table above, and once it completes the cycle, only then does time period#2 changes, and after its cycle is over that is when time period#1 changes.

Let's say you starting a time period of Sun, so time period#1,#2, and #3 are all Sun. The next time period will be Sun-Sun-Moon, followed by Sun-Sun-Mars....all the way till Sun-Sun-Venus, and then it becomes Sun-Moon-Moon, and the same cycle follows, until time period #1 changes.

Another interesting question is how to calculate the duration of these time periods. Let's take Sun-Sun-Sun as an example, as per the table the duration of Sun's time period is 6 years, and as per vimshottari dasha system the life of a person is 120 years, for the purpose of calculations.

So, the duration of Sun-Sun will be = 6 x 6/120 = 109 days, and Sun-Sun-Sun = 109* 6/120 = 5 days.

I know it has a learning curve, so it has been done for you - the planetary time periods can be checked on farfaraway by clicking the right-arrow next to your birth chart, here’s how to do it.

Conclusion

This technique narrows down the time period to just a few days affected by a maximum of three planets. So it becomes easy to make a prediction based on the houses and signs ruled by only those 3 planets for that time period.