Open a kundli for the first time and it can look like a puzzle: a square full of diamonds or boxes, numbers and two-letter planet names. You don’t need to read it all at once. Astrologers start with three things, and once you know them, the rest of the chart begins to make sense: your lagna, your rashi and your nakshatra.
You can find all three in a minute with our free kundli. Here is what they mean.
What a kundli is
A kundli, or janam kundli, is a map of the sky at the moment and place you were born. It shows where the nine grahas were: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the two lunar nodes, Rahu and Ketu. It places each graha in one of the twelve rashis (signs), and arranges the rashis into twelve houses, each of which stands for a part of life.
Vedic astrology measures the signs against the fixed stars. This is the sidereal zodiac. Our tools use the Lahiri ayanamsa, the standard in India, which today puts the Vedic zodiac about 24 degrees behind the Western one. That is why your Vedic sun sign is often the sign before the one you read in magazines.
Lagna: the sign that was rising
As the Earth turns, the twelve signs rise over the eastern horizon one after another. The sign rising at the moment of your birth is your lagna, or ascendant. It becomes the first house of your chart, and every other house follows from it: the next sign is the second house, the one after that the third, and so on round the chart.
The lagna stands for you: your body, your temperament and the way you meet the world. Because it sets the houses, it also decides which part of life each planet speaks about. Mars in the tenth house speaks about career; the same Mars in the fourth speaks about home.
A new sign rises about every two hours on average, so the lagna depends on your birth time. A few minutes rarely matter, but near the edge of a sign they can. Use the time on your birth certificate or hospital record if you have it. If you don’t know your time, the free kundli draws a Moon chart instead, and the founders can help estimate a birth time in a consultation.
The twelve houses in brief
- 1st: you, your body and temperament
- 2nd: family, money and speech
- 3rd: courage, effort, brothers and sisters, short journeys
- 4th: home, mother, property and peace of mind
- 5th: children, study, creativity and romance
- 6th: daily work, service, debts and rivals
- 7th: marriage and partnerships
- 8th: sudden change, inheritance and hidden matters
- 9th: luck, faith, father and teachers
- 10th: career and standing
- 11th: gains, income and friends
- 12th: expenses, rest, travel abroad and letting go
North Indian and South Indian charts
The same chart can be drawn two ways. In the North Indian style the houses stay put: the top centre diamond is always the first house, and the number in each house tells you which rashi it holds, from 1 for Mesh to 12 for Meen. In the South Indian style the signs stay put: Meen is always the top-left box and Mesh the one beside it, running clockwise, and a diagonal line marks the lagna. Our free kundli draws both.
Rashi: where the Moon was
Your rashi is the sign the Moon was in when you were born, which is why it is also called your moon sign. In Vedic astrology the Moon stands for the mind and the emotions, and your rashi is the reference point for most everyday readings. Daily horoscopes, including ours on the horoscope pages, are read from your rashi rather than your sun sign. So are Sade Sati and kundli matching.
The Moon spends about two and a quarter days in each sign, so most people can find their rashi even without a birth time. The exception is when the Moon changed sign on the day you were born. Our moon sign calculator tells you if that happened, and at what time.
Nakshatra: your birth star
The zodiac is also divided into 27 nakshatras, lunar mansions of 13°20′ each, from Ashwini to Revati. Each nakshatra is divided again into four padas (quarters) of 3°20′. The nakshatra the Moon was in at your birth is your janma nakshatra, or birth star.
The Moon crosses a nakshatra in about a day, so your nakshatra gives a finer picture than your rashi. It matters in three practical ways:
- It sets your dashas. Each nakshatra has a ruling planet, and that planet rules the first period (mahadasha) of your life in the Vimshottari dasha system. How far the Moon had travelled through the nakshatra decides how much of that first period was left when you were born.
- It is used in kundli matching. Four of the eight kootas of guna milan, namely tara, yoni, gana and nadi, come from the two birth stars.
- It is used for names. Each pada has a traditional starting syllable, the namakshar, that many families use when they name a baby.
An example
Say the Moon was at 16°40′ of Vrishabh when you were born. Rohini runs from 10°00′ to 23°20′ of Vrishabh, so you were born halfway through Rohini. Rohini is ruled by the Moon, whose mahadasha lasts ten years, so your life began in Moon mahadasha with about five years of it left. After it come Mars (7 years), Rahu (18), Jupiter (16) and the rest, in a fixed order that adds up to 120 years.
The nakshatra calculator shows your own birth star with its lord, deity, gana and nadi, and the free kundli lists your full dasha timeline.
Putting the three together
The lagna, rashi and nakshatra answer different questions. The lagna frames the chart and describes you and the shape of your life. The rashi describes your mind and feelings, and is the reference for transits. The nakshatra adds detail to both and sets the timing of your dashas. Two people with the same rashi can have different lagnas and nakshatras, and their charts can read very differently.
That is why a reading looks at far more than these three: the strength of each planet, the lords of the houses, divisional charts such as the navamsa (D9) and dashamsa (D10), and the dasha you are in now. The free kundli shows you the positions; a kundli reading is where the founders put them together.
Astrology is traditional guidance. A chart describes tendencies and timing as the tradition reads them. It is not a certain prediction, and it doesn’t replace medical, legal or financial advice.