Ashtakavarga

Bindus & the BAV

Eight contributors, one graha, twelve scores.

A number per sign

Every technique so far has produced a judgement — supported, mixed, needs effort. Ashtakavarga produces a number.

The idea: for a given graha, walk the twelve signs and ask how much positional support each one has. Support is counted in bindus — points — and each sign ends up with a score you can compare directly against the others.

The result is a strength map you can read at a glance, and it is the closest thing classical Jyotish has to a quantitative measure.

The eight contributors

Ashta means eight, and the eight are the contributors:

Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn — and the Lagna.

Seven grahas plus the rising point. Rahu and Ketu do not contribute (nor do they get their own charts) in the standard Parashara scheme.

Each contributor either gives a sign a bindu or doesn't, so a sign's score for any one graha runs from 0 to 8.

How a bindu is awarded

For each subject graha, the classics give a table with one row per contributor. The row lists the house-distances, counted from that contributor's sign, at which the subject receives a bindu.

So: to score a sign for the Sun, take each of the eight contributors in turn, count how many signs that sign is from the contributor, and check whether that number is in the Sun's row for that contributor. If yes, one bindu.

Eight contributors, eight yes/no checks, a score out of eight. Do it for all twelve signs and you have the Sun's complete chart.

The tables themselves — seven subjects × eight contributors = 56 rows — are reference data. The app computes them; nobody memorises them.

That's a BAV

One subject graha, scored across all twelve signs, is a Bhinnashtakavarga — BAV, the "individual" ashtakavarga.

There are seven BAVs, one per sign-owning graha. Each is twelve numbers between 0 and 8.

A graha's own BAV is read for that graha's affairs. Jupiter's BAV says where Jupiter is well-supported; it says nothing about Saturn. This distinction is the one beginners collapse — a "high" sign is only high for a particular graha until you sum them.

Remember it

Eight contributors — seven grahas plus the lagna — vote on each sign, so each sign scores 0 to 8 for each graha. Seven grahas, seven BAVs.

Terms introduced here

What ashtakavarga is

A point system where each sign accumulates bindus from eight contributors, per graha and in total.

The eight contributors

The seven sign-owning grahas plus the lagna — hence ashta (eight) varga.

The bindu

One point, awarded when a contributor stands at a house-distance the classical table lists as favourable.

BAV — one graha's chart

Bhinnashtakavarga: the 8-contributor score for one subject graha across all twelve signs, 0 to 8 per sign.