Ashtakavarga: what SAV and BAV bindus mean in your chart

Updated October 2026

Ashtakavarga is a scoring system inside Vedic astrology. It gives every sign of your chart a count of benefic points, called bindus, and those counts are used to judge which areas of the chart are well supported and how a planet is likely to behave as it moves through each sign. You will usually meet it as two sets of numbers. The Bhinnashtakavarga, or BAV, is one planet's own score for each sign, from 0 to 8. The Sarvashtakavarga, or SAV, adds those planet scores together into one total per sign. This guide explains where the points come from, why the SAV total never changes from chart to chart, what counts as a strong or weak sign, and how the tradition uses the scores to read transits.

What Ashtakavarga means

The word joins two Sanskrit roots: ashta, meaning eight, and varga, meaning a division or group. The eight are the reference points that give out the bindus. Seven of them are the visible planets of Jyotish, the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The eighth is the ascendant, the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth.

The method is laid out in the classical Parashari texts, and the standard version works with those seven planets only. Rahu and Ketu, the two lunar nodes, are left out of the scoring. A few later authors have proposed tables for the nodes as well, but they are not part of the mainstream system.

The idea behind it is simple. Each of the eight reference points is said to support certain houses counted from where it sits. When a reference point supports a sign, that sign receives one bindu. Add up the support from all eight and you have a measure of how much help a sign gets from the whole chart, rather than from any single planet.

Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV): each planet's own score

The Bhinnashtakavarga is calculated one planet at a time. For the Sun, for example, the tradition lists which houses from the Sun itself, from the Moon, from Mars and so on through the ascendant are favourable for the Sun. Each of the eight reference points either gives the Sun a bindu in a given sign or does not, so every sign in the Sun's table ends up with a score between 0 and 8.

The same is done for the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, which gives seven separate tables. Because the lists of favourable houses are fixed in the texts, each planet's total across all twelve signs is also fixed. The Sun always totals 48, the Moon 49, Mars 39, Mercury 54, Jupiter 56, Venus 52 and Saturn 39, whatever the chart. What changes from person to person is how those points are spread across the signs.

A planet's own table is read mainly for that planet's matters. A sign where Saturn has 5 or 6 of its own bindus is read as a place where Saturn's themes of work, patience and structure find more support, and a sign where it has 1 or 2 as a place where they meet more friction.

Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) and the fixed total of 337

The Sarvashtakavarga is the seven BAV tables added together, sign by sign. It is the number most people mean when they say a sign has, say, 31 bindus.

Since each planet's total is fixed, the grand total is fixed too. Add 48, 49, 39, 54, 56, 52 and 39 and you get 337, and every chart's twelve SAV values add up to exactly that. The average sign therefore sits at about 28.

This matters for reading the numbers correctly. In theory a single sign could hold 56 bindus, seven planets times eight, but no real chart comes anywhere near that. Values in the twenties and low thirties are normal. A sign with 31 is comfortably above average, and the number means most when you compare it with the other eleven signs of the same chart.

What counts as a strong or weak sign

Because the average is about 28, many practitioners treat 28 as the dividing line: signs above it are read as supportive, signs below it as needing more care. Others use a band rather than a single line, and the exact cut-offs vary between teachers.

Ask My Astro uses a three-step band when it reads a sign's SAV during a transit: 30 or more is strong, 25 to 29 is average, and below 25 is weak. That is one reasonable convention among several, and you may see slightly different cut-offs elsewhere.

For life areas, the tradition reads each sign as the house it occupies counted from your ascendant. A high score in the sign holding your 10th house is read as support for work and public standing; a high score in the 4th, for home and inner comfort; and so on around the chart. A low score is a reason to look at that area with more care, not a forecast of trouble. Tradition always weighs the bindus alongside the rest of the chart, the house lord, the planets placed there and the running dasha.

Ashtakavarga and transits

The best known use of Ashtakavarga is in reading transits, the current movement of the planets through the signs. The principle is that a planet passing through a sign rich in bindus tends to give fuller, easier results, and one passing through a sparse sign gives thinner ones.

The classical rule works with the moving planet's own BAV. A score of 4 is the midpoint of the 0 to 8 range, so a transit through a sign where that planet has more than 4 bindus is read as favourable, and fewer than 4 as less so. The SAV of the sign is often read alongside it as a broader measure of how well supported that part of the chart is.

When you ask Ask My Astro about the current sky or about a particular date, the answer is worked out with the natal SAV of the sign each transiting planet is moving through, labelled strong, average or weak as described above. That is how a question like "how does Saturn's transit look for me this year" gets weighed against your own chart, and not a generic reading for everyone born under the same sign.

How to see your own Ashtakavarga

Ask My Astro reads Ashtakavarga from your birth chart in chat. There is no separate Ashtakavarga screen; you ask, and the answer is built from your chart's computed scores.

A question such as "which signs are strongest in my Ashtakavarga?" returns the SAV for all twelve signs, the three strongest and three weakest, and the highest and lowest scores in your own chart, so a sign is always compared against the rest of your chart. If you name a planet from the Sun through Saturn, for example "show me Jupiter's bindus", you also get that planet's own BAV for each sign on its 0 to 8 scale.

Since the ascendant is one of the eight reference points, an accurate birth time matters. The rising sign moves roughly every two hours, and a different ascendant shifts where its bindus fall. Birth details with the time taken from a birth certificate or hospital record give the most dependable scores.

A calm way to hold the numbers

Bindus are a weighting, a way of asking how much support a sign receives from the whole chart. They are not a grade on a person, and a low sign is not a warning. Every chart has signs above and below the average, because the total is fixed and has to be shared out somehow.

The useful habit is comparison. Look at where your own chart runs high and low, read those signs as the houses they occupy, and weigh a transit by the score of the sign it is crossing. Then read that alongside the rest of the chart rather than on its own.

If you want to see where your own chart's support is concentrated, ask about your Ashtakavarga in chat and the scores come straight from your birth chart.

Frequently asked

What is Ashtakavarga in astrology?

It is a Vedic scoring system that gives each sign of a birth chart a count of benefic points, called bindus, from eight reference points: the seven planets from the Sun to Saturn and the ascendant. The scores are used to judge how well supported each area of the chart is and how transits through each sign are likely to work.

What is the difference between SAV and BAV?

BAV, the Bhinnashtakavarga, is one planet's own score for each sign, from 0 to 8. SAV, the Sarvashtakavarga, adds the seven planets' BAV scores together to give one total per sign. BAV is read for a single planet's matters; SAV gives the overall picture.

What is a good SAV score?

Every chart's twelve SAV values add up to 337, so the average sign has about 28 bindus. Many practitioners read signs above 28 as supportive and below it as needing more care. Ask My Astro labels 30 or more strong, 25 to 29 average and below 25 weak. Cut-offs vary between teachers, so compare a sign with the rest of your own chart.

Why is the Sarvashtakavarga total always 337?

Each planet's favourable houses are fixed in the classical tables, so each planet's BAV always totals the same: Sun 48, Moon 49, Mars 39, Mercury 54, Jupiter 56, Venus 52 and Saturn 39. Those seven totals add up to 337 in every chart. Only the spread across the signs changes.

How is Ashtakavarga used for transits?

A planet moving through a sign where it has more than 4 of its own bindus is traditionally read as favourable, and fewer than 4 as weaker. The sign's SAV is often read with it as a wider measure of support. The bindus are weighed with the rest of the chart and never read alone.

See it for your own chart

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