Antardasha
Also known as: Bhukti, Sub-period
An antardasha is a sub-period within a mahadasha in Vedic astrology, lasting from a few months to a few years, that fine-tunes the timing of life events.
Each Vimshottari mahadasha is divided into nine antardashas, one for each of the nine grahas (planets). The antardasha begins with the planet of the running mahadasha itself, then proceeds through the other eight planets in the standard Vimshottari sequence (Sun → Moon → Mars → Rahu → Jupiter → Saturn → Mercury → Ketu → Venus). The length of each antardasha is proportional to the planet's full mahadasha length, scaled into the parent period. So inside a 16-year Jupiter mahadasha, the Jupiter antardasha runs about 2 years 4 months, while the Saturn antardasha inside it runs about 2 years 6 months. Astrologers read the antardasha as the immediate planetary flavour acting on top of the bigger mahadasha — the mahadasha sets the decade, the antardasha sets the season.
Example
If you are running Saturn mahadasha and Jupiter antardasha, the long-term theme is Saturn (work, structure, slow grind) but the active sub-theme is Jupiter (growth, study, expansion).Related terms