Viṃśottarī and the conditional systems — how a chart's promise acquires a date
A chart states what is possible; a daśā states when. Everything in the other documents — a graha's dignity, a bhāva's condition, a yoga's presence — is latent until a period belonging to the relevant grahas arrives. This is why the tradition is described as a daśā and yoga approach rather than a chart-reading one, and why a yoga whose grahas never receive a period within the lifetime is a promise never called in.
Viṃśottarī is the default and covers most work. The conditional systems are exactly that: Parāśara specifies a chart condition under which each becomes applicable, and applying one to a chart that does not meet its condition produces confident nonsense.
Show
The Viṃśottarī cycle
One hundred and twenty years apportioned among the nine grahas in a fixed order. The bar below is drawn to scale — Śukra's twenty years are more than three times Sūrya's six, and the three longest periods between them account for more than half a notional lifetime.
