D60 Shashtyamsa Chart: The Finest Varga and Its Careful Reading

Shashti means sixty. The Shashtyamsa is the sixtieth part of a sign, a slice only half a degree wide, and it is the last and finest of the sixteen charts of Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. In the usual accounts it also carries the largest weight of any chart in the Shodashavarga scheme, which makes it both important in theory and difficult in practice.

What the Shashtyamsa is read for

The tradition describes the D60 as the chart of the deeper background of a life: what is sometimes spoken of as karma, the inheritance from earlier circumstances that colours how the other charts play out. It is also called the chart that gives the final word on a planet’s real quality. Teachers who use it look at the Lagna, the Lagna lord and each planet’s sign and dignity, and in the classical lists each of the sixty parts has a name and a character of its own, regarded as benefic or malefic.

This is delicate territory. The ideas of karma and of earlier lives are religious and philosophical, held by many, and are not matters a chart can prove. The calm way to use the D60 is as a reflective instrument. It does not condemn or reward anyone, and it does not fix what a person can do. The site does not reproduce the sixty names with their good and bad labels, because the lists vary between manuscripts and printed editions, and because labels of that kind tend to create worry without adding insight.

How the Shashtyamsa is calculated

The Parashari rule used by the divisional charts calculator splits each sign into sixty parts of 30 minutes (half a degree). The count begins at the sign itself and runs round the zodiac, one sign for each part, and the rule is the same for odd and even signs. The first part of Aries is Aries, the second Taurus and so on, and because there are sixty parts and twelve signs, the zodiac is gone round exactly five times. The sixtieth part of every sign is therefore the sign just before it.

Take a planet at 13°38′ of Aquarius. Each part is 0°30′ long, so this position lies in part 28 (from 13°30′ to 14°00′). By the rule above, part 28 of Aquarius is Taurus, so the planet sits in Taurus in D60.

Since sixty is a multiple of twelve, the D60 sign of a planet depends only on its position within the sign, counted in half degrees, and on which sign it is in. The simple working: double the degrees within the sign (including the minutes), take the whole number, divide it by twelve, and keep the remainder as the number of signs to count forward from the sign.

Why the birth time must be exact

Half a degree is crossed by the ascendant in about two minutes. The D60 Lagna therefore changes sign every two minutes on average, and a birth time that is out by five minutes can give a completely different D60 chart. The planets are less affected, but not immune: the Sun moves only about a minute of arc in twenty-four minutes, so its D60 sign is safe in a five-minute window, while the Moon moves roughly a minute of arc every two minutes, so its D60 sign can shift if the time is off by a few minutes.

For this reason, most careful teachers say the D60 should only be read from a chart whose birth time is known to the minute and preferably recorded by a clock at birth. Where the time was estimated or remembered, a D60 reading says very little. If you are not sure of your time, treat the D60 on the site as a curiosity. The site’s method page is frank about the limits of sidereal calculation in general, and the D60 is where those limits show most.

Where schools differ

The rule above is the one most widely used, and it is the one the site follows. Some teachers use other counting schemes, and printed books attach the names of the sixty parts to them in different ways. Because the D60 is so sensitive, small differences in the ayanamsa also matter more here than for any other chart. Two competent programs using different ayanamsas can give different D60 charts for the same birth even if the rule is the same.

How much weight teachers give it

In the commonly quoted Vimshopaka weights the Shashtyamsa carries 4 out of 20 in the Shodashavarga, the largest share of all, ahead of even the D1 at 3.5 in that scheme, and it is in the Dashavarga too. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra is often quoted as stressing the importance of this chart. Practising astrologers, though, divide: some insist that no serious reading is complete without it, while many leave it out because they cannot trust a birth time to the minute.

A sensible middle position is the one most thoughtful teachers hold. If the birth time is reliable to the minute, the D60 is one more layer worth a look, read for the dignity of the Lagna lord and the Moon. If not, the Rashi chart, the Navamsa, the Dashamsa and the dasha will tell you more, with far less risk of reading detail that is not there.

Reading your own Shashtyamsa

Choose D60 in the calculator, enter your details and look at the D60 sign of each planet and the Lagna. Then change the birth time by two or three minutes and see how much moves: that is the best way to feel why exactness matters. For a paper copy of the main chart, use the printable kundali, and for the starting point of the whole series, read about the Rashi chart.

The preceding chart is the Akshavedamsa (D45). Return to the hub for all sixteen divisional charts.

Frequently asked questions