# Ashtakavarga: The Bindu Point System That Grades Every House and Transit Ashtakavarga explained in depth: the bindu point system, the Sarvashtakavarga and seven Bhinnashtakavarga, the transit strength formula, kakshya timing, reductions, and Sade Sati mitigation. Author: Sandesh · Published: 2026-08-02 · Updated: 2026-08-11 · Section: Guides · Category: Timing · Reading time: 5 min · Publisher: Supastro (Quantum Karma), Bangalore, India Strength in a chart has two halves. Shadbala grades how strong each planet is. Ashtakavarga does the other job: it grades how strong each house is, and how a transit through it will actually land, in plain, countable numbers called bindus. It is the closest thing classical Jyotisha has to a scoreboard. The Sarvashtakavarga and the seven planetary maps are in the cards above. Tap any one for its deep-dive. First, here is how the system works, end to end. ## What Ashtakavarga is Every planet awards points to the twelve signs based on its relationship to the other planets and the Ascendant. A single planet's map is its Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV), scored from zero to eight bindus per sign. Add all seven planetary maps together and you get the Sarvashtakavarga (SAV), the master strength map of your houses. The seven planetary totals add up to exactly 337 bindus, the total spread across your SAV. | Map | Total bindus | What it grades | | --- | --- | --- | | Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) | 337 | The overall strength of each house | | Jupiter BAV | 56 | Wisdom, wealth, fortune, children | | Mercury BAV | 54 | Intellect, commerce, communication | | Venus BAV | 52 | Love, comfort, art, relationships | | Moon BAV | 49 | Mind, comfort, mother, the public | | Sun BAV | 48 | Vitality, authority, status, father | | Mars BAV | 39 | Drive, property, courage, conflict | | Saturn BAV | 39 | Discipline, endurance, career, longevity | ## How the bindus grade a house Because the SAV spreads 337 bindus across twelve houses, the average is about 28 per house. A house well above that, roughly 30 or more, is well supported and tends to give good results. A house well below it, around 25 or fewer, is weaker and asks for more effort. This single number gives you a fast, honest read on which areas of life are strong before you interpret a word. ## How Ashtakavarga times transits This is where Ashtakavarga becomes a timing tool. When a planet transits a sign, you count its bindus in that sign in its own BAV. A transit through a high-bindu sign supports that planet's significations; a transit through a low-bindu sign struggles. A quick gauge is to divide the bindus by eight for a strength percentage, where four bindus is a balanced fifty percent and eight is full strength. For fine timing, each sign is further divided into eight parts called kakshyas, ruled in a fixed order by Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and the Ascendant. A transiting planet gives its good results only while it crosses the kakshyas whose rulers contributed a bindu, which narrows a favourable month down to a specific window of days. Here is why this matters in practice. Two friends both have Saturn transiting their tenth house of career at the same time, so a generic forecast hands them the same prediction. But one has eight bindus in that sign and the other has two. The first friend gets a slow, heavy, but genuinely building career phase, while the second grinds through the same years with far less to show for it. Same transit, opposite outcome, and only the Ashtakavarga count explains the gap. This is exactly why a real reading never quotes a transit without first checking the bindus behind it. > **Ashtakavarga can soften Sade Sati** > > The classical rule is explicit and refreshingly un-scary: the intensity of the seven-and-a-half-year Saturn passage is greatly reduced if the 12th, 1st, and 2nd houses from your Moon each hold more than 30 bindus in the Sarvashtakavarga. Strong houses turn a dreaded transit into a demanding but manageable rebuild. ## Reductions and pindas For deeper predictive work, Ashtakavarga uses reduction steps, Trikona Sodhana and Ekadhipatya Sodhana, which strip out redundant counting to produce refined totals and weighted values called pindas. The tradition uses these for longevity estimation, which we do not publish. As a strength tool, they sharpen exactly which houses carry real, non-redundant support. ## How to use this guide Each card above opens a full page: the Sarvashtakavarga master map, and each planet's own Bhinnashtakavarga with its total and how to read its transits. Start with the SAV to see your strong and weak houses, then read the BAV of whichever planet is transiting a house you care about. ## FAQ ### What is Ashtakavarga in Vedic astrology? Ashtakavarga is a point system that scores each sign with bindus based on planetary relationships. It grades the strength of your houses and the quality of transits, giving a numerical layer to a reading. ### What is the difference between BAV and SAV? A Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV) is a single planet's point map. The Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) is the sum of all seven planetary BAVs, giving the total strength of each house. The seven BAV totals add up to the 337 bindus of the SAV. ### How is Ashtakavarga used for transits? When a planet transits a sign, you count its bindus there in its own BAV. More bindus mean a more favourable transit, and dividing by eight gives a strength percentage. The kakshya subdivisions refine the timing to specific windows. ### Can Ashtakavarga soften Sade Sati? Yes. If the 12th, 1st, and 2nd houses from your Moon each hold more than 30 SAV bindus, the classical rule says the seven-and-a-half-year Saturn passage is significantly eased. **See your Ashtakavarga, house by house** Build your chart and get your SAV and every planetary BAV computed, so you can see which houses are strong and which transits actually help. [Open Supastro](https://supastro.com/dashboard) ### Keep reading - [The Sarvashtakavarga master map](https://supastro.com/ashtakavarga/sarvashtakavarga-sav) — All seven maps combined - [How AI reasons across dashas and transits](https://supastro.com/founder-notes/how-ai-reasons-across-dashas-and-transits) — Timing done right - [Why planetary strength matters](https://supastro.com/founder-notes/why-planetary-strength-matters-in-ai-astrology) — Shadbala, the other half - [The divisional charts guide](https://supastro.com/guides/divisional-charts-shodasavarga) — The other strength layer --- > **Read this in context** > > No single house, sign, planet, nakshatra, or placement should ever be read in isolation. Authentic Vedic astrology (Jyotisha) is a deep, multi-layered system that weighs hundreds of interacting data points for real accuracy: the Lagna and its lord, the Moon and its nakshatra, the natural and Jaimini Chara karakas, the Arudha padas, planetary strength (Shadbala and Dig Bala), dignity, house ownership, conjunctions and aspects, combustion and retrogression, the avasthas, and Ashtakavarga, all cross-checked across the sixteen divisional charts (Shodasavarga) and timed with the Vimshottari dasha and the current transits. Any one factor only hints at a tendency; the real verdict emerges from how every layer agrees or disagrees with the others. Treat this guide as education, not a personal prediction. For a reading grounded in your exact chart, build it on Supastro. --- Canonical: https://supastro.com/guides/ashtakavarga-explained · Supastro is an AI astrology platform for Vedic astrology (Jyotish), built as Vedic Super Intelligence (SI), by Quantum Karma, Bangalore, India. Chart positions are computed from NASA JPL ephemeris data on the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa. 40 instruments are free to use.