How Long a Gemstone Takes to Work

A gemstone does not take a fixed number of days to work, because the only clock Jyotish already uses for a graha is Vimshottari. The mahadashas run Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, and Mercury 17. An antardasha is a slice of those. If someone puts on yellow sapphire in the middle of a Saturn mahadasha, Jupiter is not the lord of the years being lived, and no 40-day rule promotes Jupiter over Saturn. If someone puts on blue sapphire at the start of Saturn's antardasha, the relevant window is that antardasha, not a jeweller's trial month. Day counts sold with the stone are commercial. They are not calculated from the Moon's nakshatra.

At birth the Moon is somewhere inside one nakshatra. The remaining portion of that nakshatra sets the balance of the first mahadasha. Two people can both be 'Saturn dasha' with twelve years left or with one year left. A gem started in the last months of a mahadasha has almost no period left in which its graha is the main timer. A gem started as the mahadasha opens has the full span, 16 years for Jupiter or 6 for the Sun. That is why 'how long' cannot be printed on a card. The birth time, which fixes the Moon's position in the nakshatra, is the missing number. Without it, even a correct stone has an unknown window.

Working means the houses of that graha are a little better supported, not that a wish arrives on a date. A diamond does not deliver a spouse on day 48. Marriage waits on the 7th lord and on D9, and it ripens in the dasha that signifies the 7th. A ruby does not deliver a post in the government because Sunday has repeated six times. If the graha is a functional malefic, the thing that 'works' may be the difficult house it rules, which is a reason to take the stone off, not a reason to wait out a magic interval. Stop when the life gets tighter. Continue only when the graha was welcome and the period is actually its period. Patience here is Saturn's virtue, not a 90-day product promise.