Ashtakavarga is the Vedic astrological system for measuring planetary strength across the 12 zodiac signs. Each of the 7 planets (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn) receives binary scores from 8 donors (7 planets + Ascendant) for each of the 12 signs — giving up to 8 points per sign. The sum of all 7 planets across 12 signs forms the Sarvashtakavarga (total planetary strength). Cells with 4+ points are favorable for transits, 5+ are strong zones, 7–8 are exceptionally powerful. You receive numerical tables for each planet and the Sarvashtakavarga, with an analysis describing which signs are your strongest transit corridors and how this affects key life areas.
Where it comes from
Ashtakavarga is a numerical system from the Indian classical texts, treated in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra and given a whole chapter in Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka. It exists to answer a question the ordinary chart answers only impressionistically: how strong is a planet in a particular sign, expressed as a number that can be compared. It is the closest thing in traditional astrology to a scoring system.
How the method works
For each of the seven planets, eight contributors — the seven planets and the Ascendant — award a point or withhold it for each of the twelve signs, following fixed rules from the texts. That gives each sign a score from zero to eight in that planet's own bhinnashtakavarga. Adding all seven together gives the sarvashtakavarga, a total for each sign, and the totals across the chart always sum to 337. The reading is comparative: signs at four and above are read as supportive for transits, five and above as strong, seven and eight as unusually so, and low scores as the places where a transit finds little to work with. The practical use is transit timing — the same transit through a high-scoring sign and a low-scoring one is read quite differently.
What a reading covers
A reading gives the bhinnashtakavarga table for each of the seven planets, the sarvashtakavarga totals across all twelve signs, which signs are your strongest and weakest transit corridors, and what that means for the life areas those signs hold in your chart.
Common questions
- Do the totals always add to the same number?
- Yes, 337 across the twelve signs. It is a fixed property of the rules, and a total that comes out different means an error in the calculation.
- Does a low score mean a bad area of life?
- It means transits through that sign have less support, not that the house is afflicted. The birth chart still says what the area holds; this says how transits will land there.
- Do I need an exact birth time?
- Yes. The Ascendant is one of the eight contributors, so an unreliable time changes the scores throughout.