The Sixty Names Hidden Inside Every Sign - Secret of D60

Every sign of the zodiac is thirty degrees wide. Divide that into sixty parts and each part is half a degree. Parashara gives every one of those sixty half-degrees a name.

Not a number. A name. Ghora, the violent one. Kubera, the celestial treasurer. Garala, venom. Amrita, nectar. Mrityu. Purna Chandra, the full moon. Kalapavaka, the fire that burns at the end of the world. Indu Rekha, a single streak of moonlight.

Your Moon does not simply sit in Taurus. It sits in a specific half-degree of Taurus that carries a name, and that name has been carrying its meaning for as long as the text has been transmitted. Most people never learn this about their own chart, because the D-60 is usually mentioned in passing and then skipped. This post is an attempt to not skip it.

Where this comes from

The shashtiamsha is the sixteenth and last of the divisional charts Parashara describes in chapter six of the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. He lists all sixty names in slokas 33 to 41, marks each as benefic or malefic, and gives the method for finding the ruling planet.

Two separate things are happening in that passage, and confusing them is the single most common error I see when students first approach this chart.

The first is the sixty names. These run by degree, in order, from the beginning of the sign. Ghora occupies 0 degrees to 0 degrees 30 minutes, Rakshasa the next half degree, and so on to Chandra Rekha in the final half degree. In an even sign the order runs backward, so Ghora sits at the end of the sign and Chandra Rekha at the beginning.

The second is the shashtiamsha lord, which is a sign and therefore a planet. For this, Parashara gives a calculation: ignore the sign a planet occupies, take only the degrees and minutes it has travelled within that sign, multiply by two, divide the degrees by twelve, add one to the remainder, and count that many signs forward from the sign the planet occupies.

Santhanam works an example. Venus at 13 degrees 25 minutes of Capricorn. Doubled, that is 26 degrees 50 minutes. Take 26, divide by twelve, and the remainder is two. Add one and you get three. Count three signs from Capricorn and you arrive at Pisces, so Jupiter is the shashtiamsha lord of that Venus.

So one planet gives you two pieces of information here: the name of the half-degree it occupies, and the sign and lord that half-degree resolves to. They are read together.

The sixty names

Below is Parashara's list as it stands in the text, with Santhanam's rendering of the meanings, and the benefic or malefic marking the sloka gives. Degrees shown are for odd signs. Reverse the order for even signs.

• Ghora (M). 0° to 0°30'. Awful, violent.

• Rakshasa (M). 0°30' to 1°. Demoniacal.

• Deva (B). 1° to 1°30'. Divine, the spiritual side.

• Kubera (B). 1°30' to 2°. Celestial treasurer.

• Yaksha (B). 2° to 2°30'. Celestial singer.

• Kinnara (B). 2°30' to 3°. A mythical being, human head on a horse's form.

• Bhrashta (M). 3° to 3°30'. Fallen, vicious.

• Kulaghna (M). 3°30' to 4°. Ruining a family.

• Garala (M). 4° to 4°30'. Poison, venom.

• Vahni (M). 4°30' to 5°. Fire, gastric fluid, digestive faculty, appetite.

• Maya (M). 5° to 5°30'. Deceit, jugglery.

• Purishaka (M). 5°30' to 6°. Dirt.

• Apampathi (B). 6° to 6°30'. The ocean, Varuna, the rain god.

• Marutwan (B). 6°30' to 7°. The wind god.

• Kala (M). 7° to 7°30'. Time, the destructive principle, Shiva, Saturn.

• Sarpa (M). 7°30' to 8°. Snake.

• Amrita (B). 8° to 8°30'. Immortal, nectar.

• Indu (B). 8°30' to 9°. Moon, the number one, camphor.

• Mridu (B). 9° to 9°30'. Moderate, soft.

• Komala (B). 9°30' to 10°. Tender, agreeable.

• Heramba (B). 10° to 10°30'. Ganesha, a boastful hero.

• Brahma (B). 10°30' to 11°. The universal father, sacred knowledge.

• Vishnu (B). 11° to 11°30'. The second of the sacred triad, a pious man.

• Maheswara (B). 11°30' to 12°. The third of the triad, the great lord.

• Deva (B). 12° to 12°30'. As no. 3.

• Ardra (B). 12°30' to 13°. Moist.

• Kalinasa (B). 13° to 13°30'. Destruction of strife.

• Kshiteesa (B). 13°30' to 14°. Ruler of the earth.

• Kamalakara (B). 14° to 14°30'. A lake full of lotuses.

• Gulika (M). 14°30' to 15°. Saturn's son.

• Mrityu (M). 15° to 15°30'. Son of Mars, death.

• Kaala (M). 15°30' to 16°. As no. 15.

• Davagni (M). 16° to 16°30'. A forest conflagration.

• Ghora (M). 16°30' to 17°. As no. 1.

• Yama (M). 17° to 17°30'. Death personified.

• Kantaka (M). 17°30' to 18°. A thorn, a troublesome fellow.

• Sudha (B). 18° to 18°30'. Nectar, ambrosia, a name of the Ganges.

• Amrita (B). 18°30' to 19°. As no. 17.

• Poornachandra (B). 19° to 19°30'. Full moon.

• Vishadagdha (M). 19°30' to 20°. Destroyed by venom, consumed by grief.

• Kulanasa (M). 20° to 20°30'. As no. 8.

• Vamsakshaya (M). 20°30' to 21°. Descent not growing further.

• Utpata (M). 21° to 21°30'. A portentous phenomenon boding calamity.

• Kaala (M). 21°30' to 22°. As no. 15.

• Saumya (B). 22° to 22°30'. Sacred to the Moon, handsome, auspicious.

• Komala (B). 22°30' to 23°. As no. 20.

• Seetala (B). 23° to 23°30'. Cold, moon, camphor, sandal.

• Karala Damshtra (M). 23°30' to 24°. Frightful teethed.

• Chandramukhi (B). 24° to 24°30'. Having the beauty of the moon.

• Praveena (B). 24°30' to 25°. Clever, versed in.

• Kalapavaka (M). 25° to 25°30'. The destructive fire at the end of the world.

• Dandayudha (M). 25°30' to 26°. The staff held by an ascetic.

• Nirmala (B). 26° to 26°30'. Resplendent, sinless, stainless, virtuous.

• Saumya (B). 26°30' to 27°. As no. 45.

• Kroora (M). 27° to 27°30'. Pitiless, terrible.

• Atiseetala (B). 27°30' to 28°. Very cold.

• Amrita (B). 28° to 28°30'. As no. 17.

• Payodhi (B). 28°30' to 29°. Ocean.

• Bhramana (M). 29° to 29°30'. Wandering.

• Chandra Rekha (B). 29°30' to 30°. The digit or streak of the moon.

Look at what sits in the middle of every sign. Brahma at 22, Vishnu at 23, Maheswara at 24, occupying the half-degrees from 10 degrees 30 minutes to 12 degrees. The trimurti is embedded in the belly of each rashi, with Ganesha immediately before them and Deva immediately after. Whether or not a planet of yours lands there, the structure itself is worth sitting with.

Why Parashara treats this chart as heavy

Here is the part that surprises people.

In chapter seven, Parashara assigns each divisional chart a share of the twenty-point vimshopaka strength. In the ten-chart scheme, the rashi chart receives three points, each of the other eight divisions receives one and a half, and the shashtiamsha receives five. In the sixteen-chart scheme, the rashi chart receives three and a half and the shashtiamsha receives four, with the navamsha receiving three.

Read that again. In the classical weighting, the D-60 carries more weight than the navamsha, and in the ten-chart scheme it carries the single largest share of any division. This is not a modern enthusiasm for fine divisions. It is in the text.

Parashara also states in the same chapter that the D-60, along with the D-45, is read for all general indications rather than for one department of life. Every other varga has a jurisdiction. The D-12 shows parents, the D-9 shows spouse, the D-10 shows position and livelihood. The D-60 shows everything, which is another way of saying it shows the underlying quality of the promise rather than the subject matter of it.

And then there is the sentence that gives the sixty names their teeth. Parashara says that the bhava whose lord falls in a malefic shashtiamsha will diminish, and he attributes this specifically to Garga and others. He is citing an authority rather than declaring it himself, which is worth noticing rather than smoothing over.

Santhanam offers four illustrations of how this reads in practice: a benefic in the third house in Yaksha shashtiamsha inclining toward high musical achievement, Jupiter or the second lord in Kubera toward affluence, a planet in the eighth in Payodhi toward fear from water, the tenth lord in Bhrashta toward a wretched professional life. These are his illustrations of the principle, not verses of the text, and I would hold them as demonstrations of method rather than as rules to apply directly.

Krishna Kumar, in Secret of Vargas, compares the D-60 to a CT scan set beside the ordinary photograph of the rashi chart. It is a good image. The rashi chart tells you the organ. The shashtiamsha tells you its condition.

Where the sources do not agree

Two things worth stating plainly rather than tidying away.

Krishna Kumar's table of the sixty divisions differs from BPHS at position 46. Where Parashara has Komala, marked benefic, Krishna Kumar prints Drinshta Karal, marked malefic, which duplicates the entry at position 48. His degree column is also inconsistent across positions 45 to 48. This looks like a printing problem rather than a genuine variant tradition, and where the two disagree I follow BPHS.

Second, Krishna Kumar reports that some scholars read disease, litigation, debt and enmity from the sixth, eighth and twelfth houses of the D-60 on the reasoning that ten multiplied by six gives sixty. He presents this as the view of others and so do I. It is analogical reasoning about the number, not a rule from a sutra, and it should not be taught as though Parashara said it.

There is also a genuine ambiguity in the text itself. Parashara states that the order of the sixty names reverses in even signs. He gives only one formula for the shashtiamsha lord and does not say that it reverses. Different teachers handle this differently. I am flagging it rather than resolving it, because the text does not resolve it.

Why this chart demands your birth time to the minute

This is arithmetic rather than doctrine, but it is the most practical thing in the post.

The ascendant moves through roughly one degree every four minutes of clock time. A shashtiamsha is half a degree wide. So the shashtiamsha of your lagna changes about every two minutes. If your birth time is recorded to the nearest five minutes, which is how most of us have it, your lagna's shashtiamsha is already uncertain across two or three divisions.

The Moon crosses half a degree in roughly fifty-five minutes. The Sun takes about twelve hours. The slower planets are stable across a whole day. So in a chart with an approximate birth time, the outer structure of the D-60 may still be readable while the lagna position is not, and a responsible reading says so out loud instead of quietly proceeding.

This is why rectification matters, and it is also why I will not deliver D-60 conclusions to anyone whose birth time is recorded as "around seven in the morning." The chart is not wrong in those cases. It is simply not knowable at that resolution, and pretending otherwise is where astrology loses its nerve.

How to hold a name like Ghora

Someone reading the table above will find a planet of theirs in Mrityu or Kalapavaka and feel their stomach drop. So let me be direct about this.

A name is a quality, not a verdict. Parashara's own method makes that unmistakable. In the same volume he grades every planet by avastha, by dignity, by aspect, by combustion, by strength, and he says explicitly, in the chapter on the avasthas, that no constant evaluation should be made just from the name of a state. A planet sitting in Ghora that is exalted, aspected by a benefic, strong in its own varga and running a supportive dasha is not the same planet as one in Ghora that is debilitated, combust and afflicted. The name is one thread. It is never the whole cloth.

There is also the matter of what the D-60 is measuring. It measures the fineness of the promise, the condition of the thing, the texture of the karma underneath the event. It is not a schedule of what will happen to you. In a chart, the shashtiamsha explains why two people with the same exalted Jupiter live very different lives. It does not sentence either of them.

And beyond all of it, the shastra measures prarabdha. It measures what was set in motion before this birth and is now unspooling. It has no instrument for anugraha. Grace does not appear in any of the sixty divisions, because grace does not come from the divisions. When Maheswara occupies the eleventh half-degree of a sign, that is a beautiful thing to find in a chart. But Shiva is not confined to it, and He was never subject to the calculation in the first place.

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