D60 Chart Calculator (Shashtiamsa)
A free D60 shashtiamsa chart calculator — each sign cut into sixty parts of exactly half a degree, every planet placed by its precise longitude.
The shashtiamsa is the sixty-fold division: each 30-degree sign split into sixty parts of 0 degrees 30 minutes. Half a degree divides a degree exactly twice, so no division is needed: double the degrees a body has travelled in its sign, drop the fraction, add one, and that is the part. Kundli Studio computes it from astronomical longitudes, under the in-app label D-60 shastiamsa.
Sources differ on where the sixty parts are counted from; this calculator counts from the occupied sign, as PVR Narasimha Rao reads it. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra chapter 6 — double, divide by twelve, add one to the remainder — reads literally as counting from Aries. The D60 is the finest chart of the sixteen-fold Shodasavarga, though this engine draws the D81, D108 and D144 too.
Six D60 signs from one sample chart
Sixty rows per sign is too many to print, so here is the arithmetic instead, for a sample chart cast 1 January 1990, noon IST at Chennai — a fabricated date, nobody's birth. Each part comes from the doubling rule above; the sign is counted that many places on. Eight bodies, six distinct D60 signs.
| # | Body (D1 longitude) | Part -> D60 sign |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ascendant, Pisces 16.4685 deg | 33rd part -> Scorpio |
| 2 | Sun, Sagittarius 16.8657 deg | 34th part -> Virgo |
| 3 | Moon, Aquarius 6.4655 deg | 13th part -> Aquarius |
| 4 | Mars, Scorpio 16.1275 deg | 33rd part -> Cancer |
| 5 | Mercury, Capricorn 2.0133 deg | 5th part -> Taurus |
| 6 | Jupiter, Gemini 11.4557 deg | 23rd part -> Aries |
| Parts per sign | 60 | |
Mercury shows the method: 2.0133 doubled is 4.0266 — 4, plus one, is the 5th part, and the 5th sign from Capricorn is Taurus. The Moon wraps: its 13th part is the 13th sign from Aquarius, which is Aquarius again. Venus and Saturn take the 26th and 44th parts, into Aquarius and Cancer.
How to read the result
Every cell's menu lists the D60 near its foot as D-60_shastiamsa, after D-45_akshavedamsa and before D-81_nava_navamsa. Narasimha Rao's lesson notes place it last in the reading order as well: read the D-60 after the other divisions, and when the birth time is held with high confidence. His textbook advises readers to leave the D40, D45 and D60 until they can learn them directly from a competent guru.
Hover over a body to read its D60 sign and degree. Here the degree decodes neatly: sixty times the in-sign degree, less whole thirties, leaves the arcminutes the body has covered inside its half-degree part. For the sample chart above, the ascendant's tooltip would read 28:06:25 — 28 arcminutes into its part, under 2 arcminutes short of the next.
Rahu and Ketu face each other from opposite signs in every D60, because each is counted on from its own occupied sign. 'Crux of Vedic Astrology' sets the D60 alone in a fifth cycle of divisions that reaches into past births, and gives that as the reason for its top weighting in the Vimsopaka scheme.
Key terms
- Karmic plane
- Narasimha Rao's label for the plane of the D40, D45 and D60, which he sets above the physical self, the mind and the sub-conscious self.
- Dasavarga
- BPHS's ten-chart Vimshopak scheme — the Saptavarga seven plus D10, D16 and D60 — where the D60 weighs 5 points, the D1 3, every other chart 1.5.
- Shashtians
- BPHS's spelling for the D60; chapter 6 names each of the sixty half-degree parts and reverses the order of the names in even signs.
- Arcminute
- One sixtieth of a degree. A D60 part spans 30, and the whole-degree figure in a D60 tooltip counts the arcminutes a body has covered inside its part.
- Part boundary
- The edge between two half-degree parts. A tooltip figure near 0 or 30 puts a body close to one, where a small birth-time change can carry it across.
The heaviest weight in Shodasavarga
In Shodasavarga the D60 carries 4 of the 20 Vimsopaka points — ahead of the Rasi's 3.5 and the navamsa's 3, and eight times the 0.5 given to nine of the sixteen.
720 cells, against 108
Sixty parts across twelve signs make 720 distinct D60 cells around the zodiac, against the navamsa's 108 and the drekkana's 36. Charts minutes apart in birth time can fall in different shashtyamsas.
Every placement re-derivable
Counting from Aries and from the occupied sign give different signs for one longitude. This one counts from the occupied sign and shows the D60 sign with the degree inside the part, so placements can be checked by hand.
Common questions
What is the D60 chart in astrology?
The D60, or shashtiamsa, is the sixty-fold divisional chart: each sign split into sixty parts of half a degree, each planet re-placed into the sign its part points to. Classically it is the varga consulted for past-life karma and the fine-tuning of all matters.
How is the D60 chart calculated?
Double the degrees a planet has travelled in its sign, drop the fraction, add one — that is the part, 1 to 60. Count that many signs from the occupied sign, dropping twelves. At 2.0133 degrees of Capricorn that is the 5th part, and Taurus.
Is the D60 counted from Aries or from the occupied sign?
Both readings circulate. PVR Narasimha Rao counts from the sign the planet occupies, the convention used here; Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra chapter 6 reads literally as counting from Aries. The two coincide only for a planet in Aries.
Do I need my exact birth time?
Yes, more than for any coarser chart. One shashtiamsa spans half a degree, which the ascendant crosses in roughly two minutes on average — faster or slower with latitude and the rising sign — so a time rounded to five minutes can move the D60 ascendant two or three parts.
What does the lagna of the D60 chart show?
In Narasimha Rao's lesson notes the D60 is read from its own lagna for the karma left over from previous lives that is to be experienced in this one, set beside the D1, which shows the physical level. On this screen the ascendant's tooltip degree also shows how near that lagna sits to the next half-degree part.