Daśā · a planetary period

A daśā is a span of years handed to a single graha. Classically the whole of a life is parceled into these stretches, one after another, and each one carries the nature of the planet that rules it. The years take on the color of that graha and the parts of the chart it governs, so a Jupiter period reads unlike a Saturn one placed end to end in the same life.

The Vedic tradition treats the birth chart as potential and the daśā as the clock that releases it. A planet strong and well placed at birth is read as giving its better results when its period arrives; a planet afflicted gives its harder ones. The placement says what a planet can bring, the daśā says when it comes due.

The chart is the promise. The daśā is the day it comes due.

A major period, the mahādaśā, divides into sub-periods, the antardaśā, and finer still, so a life is read at several scales at once. Which system sets the lengths is a choice, and Vimśottarī is the common default; the codex names the system rather than treating one clock as the only one. Held as a map of timing, not a forecast of events.