विंशोत्तरी Viṁśottarī

The Vimshottari dasha is Vedic astrology's master timing system: a 120-year cycle of planetary periods that says which planet is steering a life right now, and which will steer it next. Every FeelAstro timing reading runs on it. Where the birth chart is a map, the dasha is the clock laid over it. Life is divided into long stretches — mahadashas — each governed by one of the nine planets for a fixed span, from Ketu's 7 years to Venus's 20, always in the same order and adding to 120. Which planet you begin under, and how much of that first period remains, is set by exactly where the Moon sat among the nakshatras at your birth, so the whole timeline is anchored to that single point. A period does not invent new things; it activates what a planet already promises in the chart — the dasha of a strong, well-placed planet brings its gifts to the surface, while a troubled planet's dasha asks you to work through its themes. Each long period is divided again into sub-periods (antardashas, and finer still), so a reading can say not just which years but which months carry a given colour. It is the single most important tool for the question every chart eventually asks: not what, but when.