--- title: "Khavedamsha Chart (D40): The Maternal Line and What It Carries" slug: "khavedamsha-chart-d40" canonical_url: "https://mahadasha.com/khavedamsha-chart-d40" description: "The Khavedamsha chart (D40) reads what came down the mother's side. How its forty divisions are counted, and why it is always read beside the D45." published_date: "2026-08-07 10:18:00" modified_date: "2026-08-07 10:18:00" author: "Pawan Acharya" keywords: "khavedamsha chart d40, d40 chart, chatvarimsamsa chart, d40 maternal line, khavedamsha calculator, matrilineal astrology, d40 chart reading, divisional charts" locale: "en" --- # Khavedamsha Chart (D40): The Maternal Line and What It Carries > Forty divisions of forty five minutes, counted from Aries or from Libra. It reads the inheritance that came down the mother's side, and it has a twin that reads the father's. # Khavedamsha Chart (D40): The Maternal Line and What It Carries The Khavedamsha chart (D40) reads matrilineal inheritance: the traits, tendencies and auspiciousness that arrive through the mother's side of a family. Some sources call it Chatvarimsamsa, which simply means the fortieth part. It belongs to a pair, and reading it without the other half is the commonest way to get less out of it than it offers. ## How the Khavedamsha chart (D40) is derived Each sign divides into forty parts of 0 degrees 45 minutes. The count begins from Aries for an odd sign and from Libra for an even sign. Those two starts are opposite each other in the zodiac, the equinoctial pair, and the rule is one of the simplest in the system: odd signs from the first sign, even signs from the seventh. A planet at 20 degrees Leo falls in the twenty seventh part, since 20 divided by 0.75 gives 26 with nothing left over and counting from zero makes that part twenty seven. Leo is odd, so the count begins at Aries. Twenty seven signs on from Aries wraps twice around and lands in Gemini. The start is an absolute sign rather than an offset from the natal sign, which is the rule this class of varga is most often implemented wrongly against. A program that counts from the natal sign instead of from Aries produces a chart that looks entirely normal and is not the Khavedamsha. ## The pair it belongs to The D40 and the [Akshavedamsha chart (D45)](https://mahadasha.com/akshavedamsha-chart-d45) arrived in the scheme together and behave as a set. One reads the mother's line, one reads the father's. Both were added at the outer edge of the Shodashavarga, both carry half a Vimshopaka point, and neither appears in any of the smaller strength groups. Read as a pair they answer a question neither answers alone: which side of a family a person actually resembles. Charts where the D40 is strong and the D45 is not tend to belong to people whose temperament came from their mother's family whatever the surname says, and the reverse pattern is just as common and just as recognisable to anybody who has met the relatives. The [Dwadashamsha chart (D12)](https://mahadasha.com/dwadashamsha-chart-d12) reads both parents together and one generation back. These two go further back and separate the lines, which is the practical difference between them. ## What the Khavedamsha chart (D40) shows Inherited traits from the maternal side: temperament, aptitude, the recognisable family resemblances that are not physical. This is the core reading and the one the chart supports best. Physical resemblance belongs to the birth chart and the D12, which handle the constitution directly, so a D40 that seems to describe somebody you look nothing like is not a contradiction. Auspicious and inauspicious effects descending through that line. The older sources frame this as the good and bad karma of a family reaching a person, and the frame works whether or not you take it literally, because families do transmit advantage and disadvantage in perfectly observable ways. The mother's own circumstances, indirectly. The [Chaturthamsa chart (D4)](https://mahadasha.com/chaturthamsa-chart-d4) and the fourth house handle the mother as a person and this chart handles her line, so a difficult D40 with a strong fourth house is a coherent result describing a good relationship with a mother whose family history was hard. Read the Moon first, as karaka for the mother, then the fourth lord of the birth chart wherever it has landed here. If your D1 places [the Moon in the 4th house](https://mahadasha.com/moon-in-4th-house) , the D40 says whether that maternal support arrived with a legacy behind it or was built from scratch. ## What a family actually transmits The classical language here is about karma descending a line, and it is worth translating into something checkable, because families transmit a great deal and most of it is not mysterious. Temperament runs in families. So do occupations, attitudes to money, tolerance for risk, health tendencies, and the unspoken rules about what is discussed and what is not. A person absorbs all of it before they are old enough to evaluate any of it. When the D40 describes an inheritance from the mother's line, that is the material it is describing, whatever metaphysics you attach to the mechanism. This makes the chart genuinely useful in one specific way: it points at patterns a person has never questioned because they were never presented as choices. A strong indication here about caution with money, or about how conflict is handled, is often a description of a family habit rather than of a personal trait. Those are the things that respond to being noticed. It also explains why the reading so often lands with people who know their family history and falls flat with people who do not. The chart is describing something they can either recognise or not, and recognition is most of the value. ## How far to take it Not far, and this is worth being honest about. The interpretive literature on the D40 is thin compared with the Navamsa or the Dashamsha, and most of what circulates is recent. It has a proper BPHS derivation, which the D5 and D6 do not, and that puts it on firmer ground than the extras. What it lacks is centuries of accumulated practice. The half point Vimshopaka weight reflects that. So does the fact that it enters no strength group smaller than sixteen charts. Use it as a supplementary reading, treat it as descriptive of a family rather than predictive of a person, and do not let it override anything the birth chart has said. A 45 minute division takes the ascendant three minutes to cross, so the D40 ascendant needs a birth time recorded to the minute. Below that standard, read the planetary placements and leave the lagna alone. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does the Khavedamsha chart (D40) show? What came down the maternal line: temperament, aptitude and the auspicious or difficult inheritance attached to that side of a family. ### Why is it read with the D45? Because the two split the inheritance between the mother's line and the father's. Read together they show which side a person takes after, which neither shows on its own. ### Is Chatvarimsamsa the same chart? Yes. Both names refer to the fortieth division, and different sources prefer different words. ### Is the D40 classical? Yes, it is one of Parashara's sixteen and carries half a Vimshopaka point. Its derivation is well defined even though the interpretive tradition around it is comparatively thin. Cast it with the [Khavedamsha calculator](https://mahadasha.com/khavedamsha-calculator) , and read the [4th house in astrology](https://mahadasha.com/4th-house-astrology) first so you know what the varga is refining.