Shashtiamsa (D60 chart)
The Shashtiamsa (D60) divides each sign into sixty parts of just half a degree. Parashara gives it the greatest weight of all the divisional charts, and it is traditionally read for the karma you carry from past lives.
Also known as: shashtiamsha, shastiamsa, d60 kundli, shashtiamsa chart
Each of the sixty parts has a name and nature in Parashara’s text, some gentle, such as Amrita (nectar), and some harsh, such as Ghora (fearsome), with the order reversed in even signs. A planet in a gentle shashtiamsa is said to give kinder results, and one in a harsh shashtiamsa more testing ones.
In the Shodashavarga scheme the D60 carries 4 of 20 points, more than the Rashi chart (3½) or the Navamsa (3). Astrologers use it to confirm the deeper promise of a chart, and sometimes to tell apart the charts of twins born minutes apart.
It needs a very precise birth time. The D60 ascendant changes about every two minutes, and a planet’s D60 sign every half degree. Without a carefully rectified birth time its finer readings are unreliable, so most astrologers use it only to confirm what the other charts already show.