Ashtakavarga scores every sign of your chart out of eight. Each of the seven planets from the Sun to Saturn, plus the Lagna, awards a benefic point called a bindu to the signs it favours from its own position, and the totals show which houses are supported and which are not. This calculator returns each planet's Bhinnashtakavarga, the combined Sarvashtakavarga, both classical reductions and the Sodhya Pinda.
Ashtakavarga (literally 'eight sources') is a classical scoring system from Parashari astrology that measures the strength of each sign and house. Eight contributors - the seven planets from Sun to Saturn plus the Lagna - each award a benefic point, called a bindu or rekha, to the signs they favour from their own position.
Adding every contributor's points together gives the Sarvashtakavarga (SAV), the master strength map of the chart. The points of a single planet on its own form that planet's Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV). Across all seven planets the SAV always totals 337 bindus over the twelve signs.
The average SAV score for a sign is about 28 bindus (337 divided by 12). Signs that carry more points than average are the strong, productive areas of life, while those with fewer are the weaker areas that need support.
The bands are arithmetic rather than doctrine: 337 bindus spread over twelve signs give 28.08 per sign, and the 30-and-above and 25-and-below marks are the conventional rounding of that average. Read a house against its own chart as well as against the average, because a 30 in a chart whose best sign holds 31 is not the same finding as a 30 in a chart whose best sign holds 38.
Below the BAV and SAV grids the tool runs the two classical reductions in order. Trikona Shodhana works within each trine of signs, Aries-Leo-Sagittarius and the three sets like it, and subtracts the smallest of the three figures from all three. Ekadhipatya Shodhana then reduces the five pairs of signs that share a single lord; Cancer and Leo are never touched, because the Moon and the Sun own one sign each. This engine follows Phaladeepika XXIV.17 to XXIV.22, which state the cases more completely than the corresponding BPHS chapters do.
What survives the two reductions is multiplied out. Each sign carries a Rashi Gunakara and each planet a Graha Gunakara, from Phaladeepika XXIV.24 to XXIV.26, giving the Rashi Pinda and the Graha Pinda; adding the two gives that planet's Sodhya Pinda, the figure BPHS ch. 71 consumes in its Ashtakavarga reckoning of longevity. Every intermediate table is printed, so the chain from raw bindus to Sodhya Pinda can be checked step by step rather than taken on trust.
A bindu (also called a rekha) is a single benefic point that a planet or the Lagna awards to a sign it favours. The more bindus a sign collects, the stronger that house is.
The twelve signs share 337 bindus, so the average is about 28 per sign. A house with 30 or more is strong, while 25 or fewer is comparatively weak.
Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) combines the points of all planets in each sign for an overall strength map, while Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV) is the separate point table of a single planet. BAV is especially useful for judging a planet's transit results.
Because each planet has a fixed number of bindus to give away, whatever the chart: Sun 48, Moon 49, Mars 39, Mercury 54, Jupiter 56, Venus 52 and Saturn 39. Those seven totals add to 337 in every horoscope ever cast, which makes the figure a check on the calculation rather than a feature of the chart.
Trikona Shodhana operates within a trine of signs and subtracts the smallest of the three bindu figures from all three. Ekadhipatya Shodhana then operates on the five pairs of signs owned by one planet, reducing them against each other; Cancer and Leo are exempt because the Moon and the Sun each own a single sign. Both are applied to a planet's own BAV, in that order, before the Pindas are computed.
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For educational purposes. Astrological interpretations are traditional and not a substitute for professional advice.