Sarva Ashtakavarga, the 337-bindu chart-wide aggregate that integrates all 7 planetary Bhinnas into one per-sign reading.

Sarva Ashtakavarga is the chart-wide aggregate. Sum the 7 planetary Bhinna Ashtakavargas sign-by-sign and you get the Sarva: a per-sign score that totals exactly 337 bindus across the 12 signs on any chart. The Sarva tells you which signs on your chart are constructively loaded across multiple planetary themes simultaneously. It also tells you which signs are structurally challenged across the same. The classical 30-bindu threshold rule (signs above 30 are strong, signs below 25 are weak) makes Sarva the primary chart-side filter for muhurta selection, life-axis reading and slow-transit prediction. The Sarva sits above the Bhinnas in the reading hierarchy: read Sarva first for the broad signal, then drop to Bhinna level when you need to refine the reading to a specific planetary register. Sources: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Chapter 67, Phaladeepika, Sarvartha Chintamani.

How the Sarva is constructed

Each of the 7 planets has its own Bhinna Ashtakavarga, a per-sign score derived from the 8 contributors (the 7 planets plus the ascendant) by the fixed Parashari rules. The Bhinna totals across the 12 signs are: Sun 48, Moon 49, Mars 39, Mercury 54, Jupiter 56, Venus 52, Saturn 39. The Sarva for a sign is the simple sum of all 7 Bhinnas at that sign. Across the 12 signs on any chart, the Sarva totals always sum to exactly 337 bindus (48 + 49 + 39 + 54 + 56 + 52 + 39).

The 337 total is invariant. What varies between charts is how those 337 bindus distribute across the 12 signs based on the positions of the 8 contributors. A sign with many contributors donating bindus to it receives a high Sarva score. A sign with few contributors donating receives a low Sarva. The chart's specific Sarva distribution is the chart-side baseline the rest of the reading hierarchy builds on.

The 30-bindu threshold rule and the classical bands

The mathematical average Sarva per sign is 337 divided by 12 = 28.08 bindus. The classical reading bands sit around this average:

• 30 bindus or more. Strong sign. Slow transits read constructively across multiple planetary themes. Muhurta selections that land the Moon here on the date are supported.
• 25-29 bindus. Moderate. The middle band. The sign neither strongly supports nor structurally undercuts the activations it carries.
• Fewer than 25 bindus. Weak sign. Slow transits read with friction across multiple planetary themes. Muhurta selections should avoid landing on dates when the Moon transits here.

The 30-bindu threshold is the most consistently used in the classical and post-classical literature. Some sources use 28 instead (treating signs above the chart-average as strong), but Tempora's framework follows the 30/25 split because it produces cleaner separation between the three reading tiers and aligns with the muhurta tradition's practice.

How to read the Sarva by house

The Sarva of a sign reads through whichever house that sign occupies on the chart. A sign with 35 Sarva bindus that falls in the 10th house (career) supports career across the life. The same 35 Sarva bindus in the 12th house (expenses, foreign places, withdrawal) instead supports outflow themes constructively. The house position is the lens through which the Sarva strength operates.

The classical practice is to walk through the 12 houses of the chart and note the Sarva of the sign in each house. The high-Sarva houses are the constructive axes of the life. The low-Sarva houses are the structurally challenged axes. The reading produces a per-house life-axis map that the dasha and transit overlays then refine into timing.

Houses not listed (3rd, 6th, 8th, 12th) are the classically difficult houses (upachaya, dushthana). High Sarva in these houses produces different readings: 3rd house high Sarva supports communication and short-distance work, 6th house high Sarva supports service and adversary-management, 8th house high Sarva supports transformation and inheritance, 12th house high Sarva supports foreign engagement and spiritual practice. Low Sarva in these houses produces the corresponding under-firing of these axes.

Slow-transit reading with Sarva

The most operational use of Sarva is slow-transit prediction. When Saturn, Jupiter, Rahu or Ketu transits a sign on your chart, the Sarva of that sign tells you whether the multi-year transit phase reads broadly constructive or broadly challenging.

Worked example. Saturn currently transits Pisces from March 2025 to May 2027. On a chart where Pisces has 35 Sarva bindus, the Saturn-Pisces transit reads as broadly constructive across the life-themes Pisces carries on that chart (whichever house Pisces falls in receives constructive Saturn structuring). On a chart where Pisces has 20 Sarva bindus, the same transit reads as broadly challenging across the same themes. The dates are universal. The Sarva count is what produces the divergent multi-year experience.

Jupiter at 35 Sarva on a sign reads as the chart owner's expansion year for whichever house that sign occupies. Jupiter at 20 Sarva on the same sign reads as the year where the natural Jupiter expansion does not materialise constructively on the chart-specific house.

Muhurta selection using Sarva

The classical muhurta tradition uses Sarva as the primary chart-side filter for date selection. When planning a major activity (business launch, vehicle purchase, real-estate transaction, contract signing, surgery, foreign travel start), pick a date when the Moon will transit a sign with 30 or more Sarva bindus on the chart owner's chart. The Moon transits roughly 2.25 days per sign, so any given Moon-in-sign window is a 2-3 day muhurta candidate.

Avoid dates when the Moon will transit a sign with fewer than 25 Sarva bindus on the chart. The classical reading is that activities started under such Moon-transits face structural under-firing across the multiple planetary themes the low Sarva integrates.

Reduced Sarva for transit prediction

The classical literature uses raw Sarva for life-axis reading and house-by-house analysis. For transit prediction, the practice is to apply the two reduction techniques (Trikona Shodhana for trinal-axis baseline removal and Ekadhipatya Shodhana for single-rulership reduction) to each Bhinna first, then sum the reduced Bhinnas to get the reduced Sarva. The reduced Sarva is the version used in the operational prediction sequence.

The reductions remove structural baselines that do not carry chart-specific predictive information. They preserve the per-sign relative ordering of the Sarva but remove the shared baseline noise. Classical practice prefers reduced Sarva over raw Sarva for transit prediction, while preserving raw Sarva for the broader life-axis house reading.

Sarva versus Bhinna: when to read which

Read Sarva first for the broad signal. A sign with high Sarva is constructive across multiple themes; a sign with low Sarva is challenged across multiple themes. The Sarva reading produces the chart's house-axis strength map and the muhurta candidate windows.

Drop to the specific Bhinna when you need to refine the reading to a single planetary theme. For example, a sign might show high Sarva (30+ bindus total) but the Sun Bhinna on that sign might be only 3 bindus. In that case, the sign is broadly constructive but Sun-related themes (authority, recognition, father) specifically under-fire when activated on that sign. The Sarva tells you the broad strength; the Bhinna tells you which specific planetary themes are carrying the broad signal versus which are dragging on it.

The reading hierarchy: house position determines life-domain → Sarva determines broad strength → individual Bhinna determines which planetary themes are responsible. Together the three layers produce the operational reading.

Calibration status

The article documents the classical methodology and the per-sign reading framework. The Tempora calibrated signature library (Note 005, 9 transit signatures) does not currently include Sarva-threshold-based signatures. The 30-bindu rule and the per-house reading are presented as the tradition's own framework rather than as Tempora's calibrated output. Calibrating Sarva-threshold signatures against the historical event corpus is open work scheduled after the existing signature library is stable.

FAQ

This article was prepared by Tempora Research as an informational piece in the Ashtakavarga cluster. Methodology is documented in Tempora's research-publishing standards and reproducible against the public engine. Internal audit log maintained. This article does not constitute medical, financial, legal or professional advice. First published 2026-05-30 by Tempora Research.