Yogini dasha periods: the eight-yogini timing cycle

Last updated 25 October 2026

Enter your date and time of birth and the UTC offset to see which of the eight yoginis you were born into, the balance left, 108 years of the cycle (three full rounds) with their sub-periods, and the period running today. Below the calculator: the rule, how astrologers set it beside Vimshottari, and what a birth-time error does to the dates.

How the Yogini periods are worked out

The Yogini dasha runs on a short cycle of 36 years shared among eight yoginis, each paired with a planet and given a fixed number of years, from one to eight. Like Vimshottari, it is anchored to the nakshatra the Moon occupied when you were born, so the calculator needs your date, the time on your birth record and the offset from UTC where you were born. It finds the Moon in the sidereal zodiac (Lahiri ayanamsa) and identifies its nakshatra.

The rule for the starting yogini is a small sum: take the number of the birth nakshatra (Ashwini is 1, Revati 27), add three, then divide the total by eight. A remainder of 1 to 7 names the yogini in that position, from Mangala to Siddha; a remainder of 0 names the eighth, Sankata. The result shows this sum worked out for your own nakshatra.

The balance at birth is found the same way as in Vimshottari: the part of the nakshatra still ahead of the Moon, multiplied by the starting yogini’s years. Every mahadasha is then split into eight sub-periods: the first belongs to the mahadasha’s own yogini and the rest follow the usual order, and a sub-period’s length is the mahadasha’s years times its own years, over 36. Years are converted to dates at 365.2425 days each. The tables cover 3 rounds, or 108 years, mark the period running today, and let you open any mahadasha to see its antardashas.

Using Yogini to cross-check Vimshottari

Few astrologers use the Yogini dasha alone. Its value is as an independent second timeline. Vimshottari gives long periods, up to twenty years, that can feel like broad seasons; Yogini periods are shorter and change more often, so they can sharpen a question such as “which of these three years is more likely for a move”.

The working method is to look for agreement. Suppose Vimshottari puts you in a Jupiter period, and for two of those years the Yogini sequence runs Dhanya, the yogini paired with Jupiter. An astrologer will treat those two years as the stronger window for whatever Jupiter promises in your chart. When the two systems point to different planets, a careful consultant says so and gives the conclusion less weight, rather than quietly choosing whichever suits the answer.

Agreement also has to make sense with the chart itself. The yogini’s planet is read from its house, sign and strength from your Lagna, and transits are checked as they would be for any dasha. Since the calculator does not ask for a place, it cannot tell you those houses; your astrologer reads them from your full birth chart.

How the birth time affects the dates

Because the starting point is the Moon’s position inside its nakshatra, an error in the birth time moves every date. The calculator includes a short table for errors of 10 minutes, 30 minutes and an hour, saying how far the dates move for your birth and whether a nakshatra edge falls within that range. It also compares the shift with what the same error would do to your Vimshottari dates; for most birth stars the Yogini dates move less, because the first period is shorter.

One edge behaves differently. At every nakshatra boundary but one, the next nakshatra simply starts the next yogini, so crossing it relabels only the short first period and the later dates run on almost unchanged. Between Revati and Ashwini, though, the order breaks (27 nakshatras do not divide evenly into an eight-yogini cycle), and a birth near that edge can have every later date change by years. The result flags this when it applies.

Questions to ask your astrologer about Yogini dasha

• Do you use Yogini dasha, and do you treat it as a main system or as a cross-check?
• Where do my Yogini and Vimshottari periods agree over the next few years?
• Which house does the planet of my current yogini rule and occupy in my chart?
• My Moon is near a nakshatra edge: which starting yogini are you using, and why?
• How would you read a stretch where the two systems disagree?

If you are comparing astrologers, the guide on how to choose an astrologer covers what to ask about the methods they use.

The eight yoginis

Computed from the calculator’s data. The Vimshottari column gives the same planet’s period in that system for comparison; the last column lists the birth nakshatras that start life in each yogini.