Ashtakavarga is a scoring system that gives every sign of the chart a number of bindus, benefic points, contributed by eight reference points: the seven planets and the lagna. Ashta means eight and varga means division. Each planet gets its own table of bindus across the twelve signs, and the tables add up to a single chart of totals, so that at a glance you can see which signs, and therefore which houses, are well supported and which are thin. Its most practical use is judging transits: a slow planet moving through a sign rich in its bindus tends to bring results with ease, and one moving through a sign poor in them tends to bring effort and delay. The kundali calculator shows the Ashtakavarga totals and a transit-strength panel. This article explains how the bindus are counted, each planet’s fixed total, what counts as a good score, why some houses score low in almost every chart, how to read a transit, kakshya timing, and the advanced reductions, and ends with two charts.
Ashtakavarga is one of two numerical strength systems on the chart page; the other, Shadbala, measures each planet’s own strength rather than each sign’s support. For one application in depth, see Ashtakavarga and the 10th house for career.
Conventions used. The standard Parashari Bhinnashtakavarga tables, with whole signs and the Lahiri ayanamsa as in Jagannatha Hora. The Sarvashtakavarga is the sum of the seven planets’ tables and always totals 337. The statistics below were produced by scoring 20,000 randomly timed Delhi births from 1950 to 2010, positions taken from the Swiss Ephemeris.
What your Ashtakavarga says about the transits ahead.
A consultation reads your Sarvashtakavarga and each planet's bindus together with the running dasha, and shows which of the coming Saturn and Jupiter transits are likely to help and which will ask for patience.
In this article
- What Ashtakavarga is
- Bhinnashtakavarga and Sarvashtakavarga
- Each planet’s bindus
- What a good Sarvashtakavarga score is
- Why some houses score low in almost every chart
- Reading transits through the bindus
- Kakshya: timing within a sign
- Dasha first, bindus second
- Reductions and advanced uses
- Ashtakavarga and Shadbala
- Two charts where the bindus explained a transit
- Frequently asked questions
What Ashtakavarga is
Each planet, in its own table, receives a bindu in certain houses counted from each of the eight reference points. The Sun, for example, receives a bindu in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th houses counted from itself, in the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th counted from the Moon, and so on through all eight. Where a reference point does not give a bindu, the sign is left empty for that source. A sign can therefore receive between none and eight bindus in any one planet’s table.
The logic is that of harmony between planets. A sign receives a bindu from a reference point when a planet transiting there would be well placed in relation to it, so a sign rich in ashtakavarga bindus is one where the chart’s planets collectively support activity, and a sign poor in them is one where they pull in different directions.
Bhinnashtakavarga and Sarvashtakavarga
The individual table for each planet is its bhinnashtakavarga, literally its separate eight-fold division: twelve numbers, one for each sign, each between 0 and 8. Adding the seven planets’ tables sign by sign gives the sarvashtakavarga, the combined table, whose twelve numbers are the sign totals most people mean when they talk about Ashtakavarga scores. The lagna contributes bindus to the planets’ tables but has no table of its own in the usual total.
Both are needed. The sarvashtakavarga shows how well supported each house is in general; the bhinnashtakavarga of a particular planet shows how well that planet will do when it transits each sign.
Each planet’s bindus
Because the tables are fixed, each planet always has the same total number of bindus to spread across the twelve signs, whatever the chart. What changes from chart to chart is how they are distributed. The table gives each planet’s total, its average per sign, and, from the sample, the share of signs in which it had four or more bindus, the usual threshold for a supportive transit.
| Table | Total bindus | Average per sign | Signs with 4 or more bindus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | 48 | 4.0 | 65 percent |
| Moon | 49 | 4.1 | 66 percent |
| Mars | 39 | 3.3 | 42 percent |
| Mercury | 54 | 4.5 | 77 percent |
| Jupiter | 56 | 4.7 | 81 percent |
| Venus | 52 | 4.3 | 74 percent |
| Saturn | 39 | 3.3 | 42 percent |
| Sarvashtakavarga (all seven) | 337 | 28.1 | 53 percent of signs at 28 or more |
The contrast between Jupiter and Saturn explains a great deal of lived experience. Jupiter has 56 bindus to spread and reaches four or more in four signs out of five, so most Jupiter transits are at least moderately supported. Saturn has only 39, reaching four in fewer than half the signs, so in a typical chart most of Saturn’s passage through the zodiac runs through signs where it is thinly supported. That is part of why Saturn transits feel heavy in general, and why the few signs where Saturn has five or more bindus are worth knowing in any chart.
What a good Sarvashtakavarga score is
The sarvashtakavarga always totals 337, an average of about 28 per sign, and 28 is the conventional dividing line. In the sample, 53 percent of signs scored 28 or more, 36 percent 30 or more, 31 percent 25 or less and 11 percent 22 or less. A typical chart’s strongest sign scored about 37 and its weakest about 21.
As a working guide, a sarvashtakavarga score above 30 marks a house whose matters are well supported and tend to flourish, especially when transiting planets pass through; 25 to 30 is ordinary; below 25 marks a house that needs support from its lord, aspects and dasha to give its best. None of those bands decides an outcome by itself, and the next section explains why a low score in some houses is simply normal.
Why some houses score low in almost every chart
The tables are built so that some houses, counted from the lagna, collect more bindus than others in nearly every chart. Averaged across the sample, the 11th house scored highest at 31.3, followed by the 10th at 30.4 and the 6th at 30.3, then the 1st, 3rd and 4th at about 29. The lowest were the 7th at 25.3 and the 12th at 25.4, with the 5th, 8th and 9th around 26. The pattern follows the upachaya houses, the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th, which the tables favour from almost every reference point.
So a 7th or 12th house below 28 is ordinary rather than a warning, and a score should be judged against that house’s usual level, not against 28 alone. A classical rule of prosperity asks for the 11th house to exceed the 10th, the 10th the 1st, and the 1st the 12th. In the sample the 11th beat the 12th in 83 percent of charts, but the full ordering held in only 11 percent, which makes it a genuine distinction when it appears.
Reading transits through the bindus
An ashtakavarga transit reading uses the transiting planet’s own table. When a planet passes through a sign where it has five or more bindus in its bhinnashtakavarga, the matters of that house tend to go well; four is middling; three or fewer tends to bring effort, delay or strain. The sign’s sarvashtakavarga total gives the background: a transit through a sign with a low planet score but a high overall score is cushioned, and one with both low is the hardest.
This is most useful for the slow planets. Saturn spends about two and a half years in each sign, and its bindus in the signs of Sade Sati go a long way toward explaining why the same transit is hard for one person and productive for another; the Saturn in Pisces guide shows the method applied to a current transit in Jagannatha Hora. Jupiter’s bindus do the same job for its one-year stays, for instance when it crosses the career house, as in Jupiter transiting the 10th house.
Kakshya: timing within a sign
Each sign is divided into eight kakshyas of 3 degrees 45 minutes, ruled in order by Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon and the lagna. A transiting planet tends to give its good results while it passes through a kakshya whose lord contributed a bindu to that sign in the transiting planet’s table, and quieter results in the others. For Saturn, which spends several months in each kakshya, this narrows a two-and-a-half-year transit down to the stretches most likely to bring movement.
Dasha first, bindus second
Ashtakavarga refines transits; it does not replace the dasha. A well-supported transit brings results mainly when the running Mahadasha and sub-period promise them, and a poorly supported one is felt most when the dasha already points to difficulty in the same area. The usual order of reading is the chart’s promise first, then the dasha that activates it, then the transit, with the bindus deciding how smoothly that transit is likely to go.
Reductions and advanced uses
Parashara describes two reductions applied to each planet’s table, Trikona shodhana and Ekadhipatya shodhana, which remove bindus shared between signs in a trine and between the two signs owned by the same planet. The reduced figures are multiplied by sign and planet factors to give the Shodhya pinda, which the classical texts use for several timing techniques, including longevity estimates. Those estimates depend on far more than a bindu count, and this site does not use Ashtakavarga to judge lifespan. For everyday reading, the unreduced tables shown on the chart page are the ones practitioners use.
Ashtakavarga and Shadbala
The two numerical systems answer different questions. Shadbala asks how strong each planet is, adding six kinds of strength into a figure for each of the seven planets, and the other strength measures in this series, Digbala and the planetary avasthas, describe parts of that picture. Ashtakavarga asks how much support each sign receives from all the planets together, and how each planet will fare as it moves through the signs. A planet can be strong by Shadbala and still transit a sign where it has few bindus, and a weak planet can pass through a sign rich in them. Reading both, with the dasha, gives a much clearer picture than either alone.
Two charts where the bindus explained a transit
A man with Aries rising, born in 1985, details altered. In his chart Saturn has six bindus in Capricorn, his 10th house, and the sign’s sarvashtakavarga score is 34, well above average. Saturn moved through Capricorn from January 2020 to April 2022. His Moon in Purva Ashadha put him in Rahu’s Mahadasha from the age of 31, and the Rahu-Saturn sub-period began in the second half of 2021. Late that year, with Saturn transiting his 10th house through a sign where it had six bindus and the sub-period lord and the transiting planet the same, he was made head of the plant where he had worked for nine years.
A woman with Gemini rising, born in 1990, details altered. Her Moon is in Aquarius, so Saturn’s Sade Sati ran from 2020 to 2027, with its middle phase over her natal Moon sign from early 2023 to March 2025. In her chart Saturn has five bindus in Aquarius, her 9th house, and the sign scores 32. She was also running Saturn’s own Mahadasha, and in 2023, in Saturn-Venus, at the centre of the Sade Sati people had warned her about, she completed her doctorate and took up her first permanent university post. The bindus had shown that Saturn would be supported in that sign.
In both charts the dasha set the stage and the transit timed the event; the bindus explained why a Saturn transit, which many people dread, brought steady rewards.
Frequently asked questions
What is Ashtakavarga?
Ashtakavarga is a system that scores every sign of the chart with bindus, benefic points contributed by the seven planets and the lagna. It shows which houses are well supported and is used especially for judging transits.
What is the difference between Bhinnashtakavarga and Sarvashtakavarga?
Bhinnashtakavarga is each planet’s own table, with 0 to 8 bindus in each sign. Sarvashtakavarga is the sum of the seven planets’ tables, giving each sign a total; across the chart it always adds up to 337.
What is a good Sarvashtakavarga score?
The average is about 28 per sign. Above 30 is strong, 25 to 30 ordinary, and below 25 weak, but some houses, especially the 7th and 12th, score low in most charts, so compare a house with its usual level.
How is Ashtakavarga used for transits?
Look at the transiting planet’s own bindus in the sign it is passing through: five or more tends to go well, four is middling, three or fewer brings effort. The sign’s total gives the background, and the running dasha decides how much the transit matters.
Does a low score in a house mean that area of life will fail?
No. A low score means the house needs support from its lord, aspects and dasha to give its best. Several houses score low in most charts by the structure of the tables, and plenty of people with low-scoring houses do well in those areas.
What is kakshya?
Kakshya divides each sign into eight parts of 3 degrees 45 minutes, ruled by Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon and the lagna. A transiting planet tends to give results while passing through a part whose lord contributed a bindu.
How is Ashtakavarga different from Shadbala?
Shadbala measures each planet’s own strength. Ashtakavarga measures the support each sign receives and how each planet fares in transit. They answer different questions and are best read together with the dasha.
Know which transits will carry you and which will test you.
A consultation reads your Sarvashtakavarga and each slow planet's bindus with the running dasha, and marks the Saturn and Jupiter transits ahead that are likely to bring movement and the ones that will ask for patience.