The Combined View

Each planet's grid is one window onto the chart. Stack all seven on top of each other, sum them sign by sign, and you get a single combined view. Brihat Jataka calls it the sarvashtakavarga, abbreviated SAV.

The numbers

A single sign can pick up to 8 from each of the seven planet grids. When all seven cooperate, that sign earns the maximum SAV count of 56. When none of them do, the count is 0. Most signs in a real chart land somewhere in the middle.

Across all twelve signs, the SAV scores sum to 337. That number isn't arbitrary; the arithmetic of seven grids combining produces it as a constant in every chart. Per-sign counts are where the reading happens.

The interpretation rule is straightforward. Brihat Jataka 9.8 calls a sign with a SAV count above 30 a strong transit zone, and a sign with a count below 25 a difficult one. Counts in the 25 to 30 band are mixed; weigh them alongside the planet's dignity and any aspects on it BJ 9.8.

Why the raw numbers need a touch-up

Two structural symmetries inflate certain SAV scores in every chart, and Brihat Jataka chapter 9 gives two corrections in its commentary on verse 8 that fix them. The Chart Explorer applies both corrections automatically; the SAV figure you see in your panel is already corrected. But it's worth knowing what's happening underneath.

The Trikona reduction works inside each trine group of signs (Aries-Leo-Sagittarius, then Taurus-Virgo-Capricorn, and so on through the four element groups). Across the three signs of a group, you find the smallest score and subtract that score from all three. If two signs in the group are empty, the third drops too. If all three are equal, all three drop.

The Ekadhipatya reduction works inside each rulership pair (Aries and Scorpio for Mars, Taurus and Libra for Venus, and the rest). The procedure depends on which sign carries planets and which scores higher. Cancer and Leo are exempt because the Moon and Sun rule one sign each.

Both corrections do the same job from different angles. They pull back inflated scores so the numbers you read describe the chart's actual structural response, not an artifact of how the grids combine.

What the corrected numbers tell you

After both corrections, the SAV count earns its meaning. A high count is genuinely a strong transit zone in your chart. A low count is genuinely demanding. The numbers, once corrected, are trustworthy.

The SAV count works alongside the planet's natural condition. A high SAV in a sign where the planet is also exalted or in own sign reads as exceptionally favorable: two layers of support pointing the same way. A low SAV in a sign where the planet is also debilitated reads as the most stressed: two layers of friction. Most placements sit between the poles, where the SAV either reinforces or qualifies what dignity alone would suggest.

A note on the longer life-span method

Brihat Jataka chapter 9 also references a more elaborate use of ashtakavarga that scales the per-planet grids by zodiacal and planetary factors and produces a final figure of years. That's the classical ashtakavarga ayurdaya, one of three life-span calculations the text recognizes. We're not teaching it. The method depends on chapter 7's length-of-life framework, which we skip BPHS 66.1.

Try this

List the SAV counts across all twelve signs of your chart. Mark the highest and the lowest. Then check where the slow planets are transiting right now: Saturn, Jupiter, Rahu, and Ketu. For each, ask whether the transit is in a high-SAV or low-SAV sign. The answers describe the year ahead in unusually concrete terms.