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Where Shadbala scores the planets, Ashtakavarga scores the signs — and by extension the houses and the transits that pass through them. It is a benefic-point system: each planet distributes “good points” (called bindus) to certain signs, counted from itself and from the other planets and the Lagna. Tally them up across all contributors and you get a map of where in the zodiac a chart is richly supported and where it runs thin. This page explains how to read every section of the Ashtakavarga panel; the technique is treated in full in P. V. R. Narasimha Rao’s Integrated Approach (ch. 12).

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Bindus, BAV, and SAV

Before diving into the panel, three terms are worth anchoring:
  • A bindu is one benefic point. Classical rules specify which signs from a given reference (the contributing planet or the Lagna) receive a bindu from each planet.
  • The Bhinnāṣṭakavarga (BAV) is a single planet’s own map — its bindus spread across the twelve signs. Each planet’s BAV total falls somewhere between 0 and 56.
  • The Sarvāṣṭakavarga (SAV) is the grand total: for every sign, sum the bindus contributed by all seven grahas. In practice the SAV total across all twelve signs comes to around 337 (the theoretical maximum is 392).

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Reading the panel

A summary line at the top of the panel gives you the headline numbers immediately:
Sarvāṣṭakavarga total: 337 · Strongest sign: Aries (39) · Weakest sign: Gemini (20) · Average per sign ≈ 28. Signs with ≥ 30 are auspicious; < 25 are weak.
The CHAKRA selector beneath the summary switches the visual diagram between the combined Sarvāṣṭakavarga and each individual planet’s Bhinnāṣṭakavarga. The chakra positions each sign’s bindu count in the house it occupies (Lagna = house 1), so you can see at a glance which life areas carry strong support. Below the chakra, the full grid shows every planet’s contribution to every sign, with per-planet column totals and per-sign row totals: 
Sign         Sun  Moo  Mar  Mer  Jup  Ven  Sat   SAV
Aries          6    5    6    8    5    4    5     39
Taurus         5    5    4    4    5    2    6     31
Gemini         3    3    1    4    3    4    2     20
Cancer (Lag)   1    2    3    3    8    4    2     23
…
Total         48   49   39   54   56   52   39    337
The bottom row shows each planet’s BAV total (Sun 48, Moon 49, Mars 39, Mercury 54, Jupiter 56, Venus 52, Saturn 39). The SAV column on the right gives each sign’s combined score — the number most commonly used in interpretation.

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Auspicious thresholds

The two boundary values to keep in mind are:
  • ≥ 30 bindus — the sign is auspicious and well-supported.
  • < 25 bindus — the sign is weak; matters ruled by that house face more friction.
Signs between 25 and 29 are middling. In the sample chart, Aries (39) is the standout strong house, while Gemini (20) is clearly the most challenged area.

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Three ways to use Ashtakavarga

1 — Judge a house. A house sitting on a high-bindu sign has more underlying support than one on a low-bindu sign, independent of the planets placed there. In the sample, the 10th house on Aries (39 bindus) is strongly supported; the 12th on Gemini (20) is the weakest life area in the chart. 2 — Sharpen transits. This is Ashtakavarga’s most practical everyday use, and the app wires it in automatically. When a planet transits a sign with many bindus, that transit tends to produce good results; through a low-bindu sign, the same planet underwhelms. The Gochara transits panel displays each transiting planet’s bindu count for its current sign, so you can weight transits without switching between panels. 3 — Compare signs for timing or direction. When weighing options that map to different houses — two career moves, two cities, two periods — the relative bindu counts of those houses give you an objective strength comparison to factor into your reading.
Advanced Ashtakavarga adds reductions (trikoṇa śodhana and ekādhipatya śodhana) to produce the śodhya piṇḍa used in longevity analysis and finer transit work. This panel focuses on the BAV and SAV maps that carry the most day-to-day interpretive weight. For the full reduction procedures, see Rao’s Integrated Approach, ch. 12.

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Ashtakavarga vs. Shadbala

The two systems are complementary rather than competing — each answers a question the other cannot:
What it measuresBest for
ShadbalaThe strength of each planet.Judging whether a planet can deliver on its promise.
AshtakavargaThe support of each sign / house, and of transits passing through them.Judging life areas and timing transits.
Using both together gives you a full picture: Shadbala tells you how much energy a planet has, and Ashtakavarga tells you what kind of terrain it is moving through.