Rahu's eighteen years are the years of wanting. Rahu is the north node, the head without a body, and it brings hunger, novelty, foreignness and excess: ambition that will not be satisfied, travel and foreign connections, technology and the unconventional, sudden rises and sudden falls. People in a Rahu mahadasha reinvent themselves, often more than once, and reach for things their family did not have.
For those born with the Moon in Ardra, Swati or Shatabhisha the Rahu period is the first eighteen years of life — a childhood the texts read as unusual, unsettled or touched by foreign influence — and Jupiter's ordering period follows at about eighteen. For everyone else it comes after Mars's short push, and the eighteen years are the long middle of a career: the person climbs, moves, changes fields, goes abroad, and is rarely still.
Rahu gives the results of the lord of its sign and of the planets with it, in its own exaggerated way. In the 10th, 11th, 3rd or 6th the period brings worldly success, often through unconventional means; in the 4th, 7th or 8th it unsettles home, partnership or health with hidden causes. The Rahu–Jupiter and Rahu–Venus antardashas are the fortunate ones; Rahu–Saturn and Rahu–Mars the hardest; Rahu–Rahu, the first two years and eight months, sets the tone.
What Rahu brings
Traditionally, Rahu brings hunger, novelty, foreignness, excess. A mahadasha is that graha's turn to colour the years: the house it holds from the lagna, the houses it rules and the planets it sits with all say what its 18 years are spent on. The antardasha inside it — each of the nine grahas in turn — sets the shorter weather.
Rahu mahadasha by house
The tradition reads the period first from the house the lord holds in the birth chart, counted from the lagna in whole signs:
- 1st house. A Rahu period from the 1st brings ambition, reinvention and an outsider's rise.
- 2nd house. A Rahu period from the 2nd brings sudden money and unusual speech and food.
- 3rd house. A Rahu period from the 3rd brings bold ventures and skill with media.
- 4th house. A Rahu period from the 4th unsettles the home — foreign residence, unusual property.
- 5th house. A Rahu period from the 5th brings unconventional study and irregularities around children.
- 6th house. A Rahu period from the 6th eats enemies, debt and disease, though hidden ailments appear.
- 7th house. A Rahu period from the 7th brings unusual partners and foreign ties.
- 8th house. A Rahu period from the 8th brings sudden hidden turns and the occult.
- 9th house. A Rahu period from the 9th brings unorthodox faith and foreign teachers.
- 10th house. A Rahu period from the 10th brings sudden career rises and unconventional work.
- 11th house. A Rahu period from the 11th brings large, sudden gains and unusual friends.
- 12th house. A Rahu period from the 12th brings foreign residence, strange expenses and vivid dreams.
The antardashas of Rahu
Each mahadasha is divided among the nine lords in the Vimshottari order, beginning with its own; the length of each is the mahadasha's years times the antardasha lord's, divided by 120:
| Antardasha | Length |
|---|---|
| Rahu–Rahu | 2 years 8 months 12 days |
| Rahu–Jupiter | 2 years 4 months 24 days |
| Rahu–Saturn | 2 years 10 months 6 days |
| Rahu–Mercury | 2 years 6 months 18 days |
| Rahu–Ketu | 1 year 18 days |
| Rahu–Venus | 3 years |
| Rahu–Sun | 10 months 24 days |
| Rahu–Moon | 1 year 6 months |
| Rahu–Mars | 1 year 18 days |
Who begins life in the Rahu mahadasha
Rahu rules three nakshatras. A natal Moon in any of them starts the cycle in the Rahu mahadasha, with the balance set by how far into the nakshatra the Moon stood:
- Ardra — 6°40′–20°00′ Gemini
- Swati — 6°40′–20°00′ Libra
- Shatabhisha — 6°40′–20°00′ Aquarius