Enter your birth date, time and place above and this free calculator works out your Yogini dasha. It names the yogini running now and the date it ends, shows step by step how your first yogini was found from the Moon’s nakshatra at birth, and lists every period from birth onwards with its planet, its length, its start and end dates and your age at its start. Without the birth time it takes the Moon at midday and tells you how the time could change the answer.
How it works
Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra gives the rule in ch. 46, verses 195 to 199 (Santhanam’s edition). There are eight yoginis, each born with a planet and each ruling a fixed number of years:
| Yogini | Planet | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Mangala | Moon | 1 |
| Pingala | Sun | 2 |
| Dhanya | Jupiter | 3 |
| Bhramari | Mars | 4 |
| Bhadrika | Mercury | 5 |
| Ulka | Saturn | 6 |
| Siddha | Venus | 7 |
| Sankata | Rahu | 8 |
- Take the number of your birth nakshatra, counting Ashwini as 1.
- Add 3 and divide by 8. The remainder names the yogini running at birth: 1 is Mangala, 2 Pingala and so on, and a remainder of 0 is Sankata. The verses give the example of Mrigashira, nakshatra 5: 5 and 3 make 8, which leaves 0, so the birth falls in Sankata.
- Only part of the first period is left at birth. The share left is the share of the nakshatra the Moon still had to cover, the same rule the Vimshottari dasha uses on this site.
- The yoginis then follow in the order above, and the cycle of 36 years repeats.
The Moon comes from the NASA JPL DE440 tables with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and the years are of 365.2425 days, as in the Mahadasha calculator, so the method of dating is the same.
Reading the result
Each yogini is read through its planet: a period carries the themes of that planet in your chart, its sign, its house and its condition, much as a Vimshottari Mahadasha does. The free kundali shows the Yogini dasha beside the Vimshottari dasha as a second view of the same years. A period is a time to know your chart’s themes, not a forecast of events, and no yogini is to be feared.
Where traditions differ
The verses give the eight yoginis, their planets, their years and the starting rule, and every source we checked agrees on these. They give no rule for dividing a period into sub-periods. Later works and software divide them in different ways, so this page shows the main periods only. Some also reckon the dasha year differently, as a sidereal year or as 360 days; a 360-day year moves a date 36 years after birth by about six months.
What it does not do
It does not show sub-periods (antardashas), for the reason above. It does not judge whether a period will be good or bad, and it makes no prediction. For the Vimshottari dasha, the main dasha of the site, see the Mahadasha calculator and the Vimshottari dasha timeline.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is Yogini dasha?
It is a dasha of eight periods named after eight yoginis, each linked to a planet and lasting from 1 to 8 years, 36 years in all. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra describes it in ch. 46.
↳ How do I find my first yogini?
Take the number of your birth nakshatra, Ashwini being 1, add 3 and divide by 8. The remainder gives the yogini: 1 for Mangala up to 7 for Siddha, and 0 for Sankata. The calculator shows this working for your chart.
↳ Which planet rules each yogini?
Mangala the Moon, Pingala the Sun, Dhanya Jupiter, Bhramari Mars, Bhadrika Mercury, Ulka Saturn, Siddha Venus and Sankata Rahu.
↳ Is Sankata dasha bad?
No period is simply bad. Sankata is ruled by Rahu, so it is read through Rahu's place in your chart, its sign and its house, together with the rest of the chart. A dasha describes the themes of a time, not events.
↳ Why are there no antardashas?
The classical verses give no rule for sub-periods in Yogini dasha, and later works divide them differently. Rather than pick one without a source, this page shows the main periods only.
↳ Can I use it without a birth time?
Yes, with care. The tool takes the Moon at midday. If the Moon changed nakshatra that day, or the period running now would differ for a birth at another hour, the result says so, because the first yogini and all the dates follow the Moon.