Your Vedic chart
The birth chart as Indian astrology draws it: the planets measured against the stars rather than the seasons, the houses counted in whole signs from the rising sign, and the square layouts of the north and the south.
The positions
A chart measured against the stars
Western astrology counts the signs from the March equinox, which slides backwards against the stars by a degree about every seventy-two years. Indian astrology counts them from a fixed point among the stars instead. The gap between the two, the ayanamsa, is now a little over 24 degrees, so most planets sit one sign earlier here than in a Western chart. The chart uses the seven planets visible to the eye and the two lunar nodes, Rahu and Ketu, and leaves out Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which were found long after the tradition had taken its shape and have no place in its rules.
How it is worked out here
Positions come from the same astronomy as the rest of the site, with Lahiri’s ayanamsa taken off, which agrees with the published tables to within a few minutes of arc. Rahu is the true node, where the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic at that minute, and Ketu is the point opposite; many Indian almanacs use the mean node, which can differ by a degree or more. The lagna is the sidereal degree rising in the east, so it needs the birth time. Without one, the Moon’s sign is used as the first house, which the tradition calls Chandra lagna. The houses are whole signs: the rising sign is the first house, the next sign the second, and so on round. The drawing is the rasi chart, the chart of the signs.
Reading the chart, with an example
Suppose a Western chart has 4° Virgo rising. With an ayanamsa of about 24° taken off, the lagna is about 10° sidereal Leo, so Leo is the first house, Virgo the second, Libra the third and Scorpio the fourth. A Moon at 18° sidereal Scorpio therefore stands in the fourth house, and the table gives it as Scorpio, in the nakshatra Jyeshtha, pada 1, house 4. In the North Indian drawing the first house is the top diamond, numbered 5 for Leo, and the fourth is the diamond on the left, numbered 8 for Scorpio, with the Moon in it. In the South Indian drawing the signs keep their boxes: Leo, on the right-hand side, carries the diagonal that marks the lagna, and the Moon sits in Scorpio’s box along the bottom. The arrow keys step through the houses, and the line under the drawing reads each one in words.
Common confusions
Most planets change sign between the two systems, but not all: one more than about 24° into its Western sign keeps the same sign here. House numbers can differ from a Western chart for a second reason. The birth chart on this site uses Placidus houses by default, which are unequal and can begin partway through a sign, while jyotish counts whole signs; how the systems differ is set out under the houses. This page draws only the rasi chart. Divisional charts such as the navamsa are not worked out, and the Vimshottari dashas are on the nakshatra page, counted from the Moon’s nakshatra shown in the table.
The lagna needs the birth time as much as a Western ascendant does: it moves on average a degree every four minutes. The time is turned into universal time with the time-zone rules of the birthplace on that date, summer time included, so enter the clock time as it was written down where you were born.
What it claims
In jyotish each house is read as a part of life and each graha as a set of meanings, coloured by the sign and nakshatra it stands in. The page draws the chart and lists the positions in that vocabulary. It measures the sky at a moment and predicts nothing about the person it belongs to.
Questions people ask
Why is my Vedic sign different from my Western sign?
Western astrology counts the signs from the March equinox, which drifts slowly against the stars; Vedic astrology counts them from a fixed point among the stars. The gap between the two, the ayanamsa, is about 24° by Lahiri’s reckoning today. A planet less than about 24° into a Western sign therefore falls in the sign before it in a Vedic chart, and only one in the last few degrees of a sign keeps it.
What is the lagna in a Vedic chart?
The lagna is the sign and degree rising on the eastern horizon at the birth, measured in the sidereal zodiac. It is the Western ascendant with the ayanamsa taken off, so it needs an accurate birth time and place. The lagna’s sign is the first house, and every other house is a whole sign counted on from it. Without a birth time this page uses the Moon’s sign as the first house, which the tradition calls Chandra lagna.
What is the difference between North Indian and South Indian charts?
They show the same chart in two layouts. The North Indian chart keeps the houses in place: the first house is always the top diamond, and the number in each house is its sign, Aries 1 to Pisces 12. The South Indian chart keeps the signs in place, Pisces in the top left corner and the rest running clockwise, and marks the lagna’s box with a diagonal line. Which one people read is mostly a matter of where they learned.
Which ayanamsa does this Vedic chart use?
Lahiri’s, also called Chitrapaksha, the value adopted for the Indian national calendar in the 1950s and the default in most Indian software. The one used here agrees with the published tables to within a few minutes of arc. Other ayanamsas, such as Raman’s or Krishnamurti’s, differ from it by a few minutes to over a degree, which can move a planet or the lagna across a boundary when it sits close to one.