D60 Chart Calculator — Shashtiamsa (Shashtyamsha) Chart

Take the planet’s degree inside its sign, double it, and drop the fraction. That gives the number of half-degree parts already completed. Count that many signs forward from the planet’s own sign, counting the sign itself as zero, and you have its D60 sign. A planet at 4°10′ in any sign has completed eight parts and moves eight signs on.

Unlike most vargas there is no odd and even rule for the sign: every sign starts the count from itself, and over thirty degrees the count runs round the zodiac five times. The odd and even distinction appears only in the order of the deities, below.

Some programs apply the Khavedamsa (D40) style odd and even start to D60 by mistake, which produces a different chart. This calculator follows the rule as Parashara states it.

Each half-degree part has a named deity, and each deity is classed as benefic or malefic. In odd signs the list runs from Ghora in the first part to Chandrarekha in the sixtieth. In even signs it runs the other way, so the first half degree of Taurus belongs to Chandrarekha and the last to Ghora.

The deity is read from the birth-chart degree, not from the D60 sign. That is why two planets can share a D60 sign and still carry very different deities. A planet in a benefic Shashtiamsa is said to give its results with grace even when it looks weak elsewhere; one in a malefic part such as Ghora, Yama or Kala can spoil an otherwise good placement.

The full list is below, with the degree ranges for odd and even signs side by side.

Begin with the D60 ascendant, but only if you trust the birth time to about a minute (see the next section). Then look at the D1 ascendant lord and the Moon. Many astrologers start the deity reading with these two, because between them they describe the body and the mind that every other placement works through.

Next, count how many planets sit in benefic parts. A chart with most planets in benefic Shashtiamsas tends to show protection and support that cannot be explained from the birth chart alone. Many malefic parts point to recurring obstacles in the areas those planets rule.

In the Vimshopaka scheme for the sixteen vargas, the D60 carries 4 of the 20 points, more than the D1 (3.5) or the D9 (3). That is the classical basis for the saying that the final judgement on a planet is made in the Shashtiamsa.

Over one full day at New Delhi the D60 ascendant changed 722 times, on average every 2.0 minutes, never staying longer than 2.4 minutes and sometimes moving on after 1.4.

Hospital records are usually rounded to five minutes, and family memory to a quarter hour. Either is enough to put the D60 ascendant two or more signs away. The planets are much steadier: the Moon moves about half a degree an hour, so even the Moon usually keeps its Shashtiamsa for close to an hour.

So read the D60 planets and their deities with confidence, and the D60 houses only after the birth time has been checked. Astrologers often use the D60 the other way round, testing candidate birth times against known events; the birth time rectification tool does exactly that.

In the sample chart below Jupiter is at 9°42′ Gemini. Doubling the degree gives 19.4, so 19 parts are complete and Jupiter sits in part 20. Counting 19 signs on from Gemini lands in Capricorn. Gemini is an odd sign, so the deity is number 20 in the list: Komala, a benefic deity.

Venus at 7°16′ Capricorn gives 14.5 when doubled, so it is in part 15 and its D60 sign is Pisces. Capricorn is an even sign, so the list is read from the bottom: part 15 takes name number 46, Komala, a benefic deity. The Moon falls in part 35 of Leo, an odd sign, which belongs to Yama, a malefic deity; a reader would weigh that before trusting the Moon’s promise elsewhere in the chart.