Vedic astrology glossary

Kundli

Also called: kundali, janam kundali, janma kundali, janampatri, kosthi, kushti, birth chart, natal chart, horoscope

A kundli is the map of where the planets stood at the moment and place someone was born, drawn as a diagram of twelve houses. It is the Vedic equivalent of what Western astrology calls a natal chart or birth chart. The same document goes by different names by region: janam kundali or janampatri across much of North India, kosthi in Bengali, and it is spelled both kundli and kundali. Building one needs a date, a place and a time, and the time is the part most people are missing.

Lagna

Also called: ascendant, rising sign, lagno, laghno, laghno rashi

The lagna is the zodiac sign that was climbing over the eastern horizon at the moment of birth, known in English as the ascendant or rising sign. It sets where the first house begins, and therefore where all twelve houses begin. Because the Earth turns, it moves to the next sign roughly every two hours, which makes it the part of a chart most sensitive to a wrong birth time.

Rasi

Also called: rashi, moon sign, janma rashi

Rasi means a zodiac sign, and on its own the word usually refers to the sign the Moon occupied at birth, the janma rashi or moon sign. Vedic astrology leans on the moon sign where Western astrology leans on the sun sign. The Moon changes sign every two and a bit days, so a birth date alone sometimes leaves even this undecided.

Bhava

Also called: house, ghar, bhav, bhavan

A bhava is one of the twelve houses of a chart, each covering an area of life: the first for the self and body, the seventh for marriage and partnership, the tenth for career and standing. Houses are measured from the lagna, so an error in the birth time slides every planet toward a neighbouring house.

Graha

Also called: planet, surya, chandra, mangal, budh, guru, brihaspati, shukra, shani, rahu, ketu

A graha is one of the nine bodies a Vedic chart reads: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu, the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. In Hindi they are usually named Surya, Chandra, Mangal, Budh, Guru or Brihaspati, Shukra and Shani. Rahu and Ketu are always exactly opposite each other and are calculated points rather than physical objects.

Nakshatra

Also called: lunar mansion, birth star, janma nakshatra, janma tara, janam nakshatra, janam tara, tara

A nakshatra is one of twenty seven segments the sky is divided into along the Moon's path, each about 13 degrees 20 minutes wide and each with its own ruling planet. The nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth names your birth star and, more practically, decides where your Vimshottari dasha sequence starts.

Varga

Also called: divisional chart, amsa

A varga is a chart built by cutting each sign into equal parts and rebuilding the zodiac from those parts, so that a small movement in the original chart becomes a large one in the derived chart. Each varga is read for a different subject. They magnify birth time error in the same proportion, which is why they demand an accurate time.

Navamsa

Also called: D9 chart, navamsha

The navamsa, or D9, divides each sign into nine parts and is the chart most astrologers read for marriage, partnership and the underlying strength of a planet. It is the reason birth time precision matters so much in practice: the navamsa sign changes roughly every thirteen minutes, so a time rounded to the nearest half hour is often simply the wrong chart.

Dasamsa

Also called: D10 chart, dashamsha

The dasamsa, or D10, divides each sign into ten parts and is read for career, profession and public standing. It is the chart consulted about work rather than relationships, and like every varga it inherits and multiplies any error in the birth time it was drawn from.

Shashtiamsha

Also called: D60 chart, shashtyamsha

The shashtiamsha, or D60, divides each sign into sixty parts, making it the finest division in common use. It is traditionally read for inherited and deep-seated matters. Because each part spans only half a degree of the original sign, the D60 changes with a birth time shift of well under a minute, and it is worth reading only when the time is genuinely precise.

Vimshottari dasha

Also called: dasha system, dasa

Vimshottari dasha is the main Vedic system for timing events, a fixed 120 year cycle that hands each of the nine grahas a period of set length. Where your cycle starts is decided by the Moon's exact position at birth, so a birth time wrong by minutes shifts every period start and end date by months or more.

Mahadasha and antardasha

Also called: major period, sub-period, bhukti, pratyantardasha

A mahadasha is one of the nine major periods of the Vimshottari cycle, running from six to twenty years. Each is subdivided into antardashas, also called bhuktis, and each of those into pratyantardashas. An astrologer timing an event reads the combination running on that date rather than the mahadasha alone.

Gochara

Also called: transit

Gochara is the movement of the planets now, read against their positions in your birth chart. Transits are the other half of timing alongside dasha: the dasha says which planet has the floor in a given period, and the transit says where that planet currently is relative to your chart.

Sade Sati

Also called: shani sade sati, seven and a half year Saturn

Sade Sati is the roughly seven and a half year stretch when Saturn transits the sign before your moon sign, your moon sign itself, and the sign after it, in three phases of about two and a half years each. It is the transit people ask about most often, and it depends on the moon sign rather than on the ascendant.

Janam samay

Also called: janma samay, jonmo somoy, birth time

Janam samay is the Hindi term for birth time, the clock time of a birth as opposed to its date. The Bengali equivalent is jonmo somoy. It is the single input a kundli cannot be drawn without, and the one most often missing, rounded to the nearest hour, or remembered differently by different relatives.

Birth time rectification

Also called: birth time correction, birth time estimation, janam samay nikalna

Birth time rectification is the process of working out a birth time that was never recorded accurately, by testing possible times against events that have already happened in a life. A chart is built for each possible time in a window, each is scored against dated events such as a marriage or a move, and the times that fit survive.

Ayanamsa

Also called: ayanamsha

Ayanamsa is the angle between the sidereal zodiac and the tropical zodiac, currently around 24 degrees and growing by roughly one degree every 72 years. It is the correction that converts a Western planetary position into a Vedic one. Different schools use slightly different values, and this site uses the Lahiri ayanamsa, the Indian government standard.

Sidereal and tropical zodiacs

The sidereal zodiac measures signs against the fixed stars and is what Vedic astrology uses. The tropical zodiac measures them against the equinox and is what Western astrology uses. They have drifted about 24 degrees apart, which is why a Western sun sign and an Indian one usually differ by roughly one sign.

Panchang

Also called: panchanga, tithi, yoga, karana

The panchang is the five part Vedic almanac for a moment in time: the tithi or lunar day, the vara or weekday, the nakshatra, the yoga and the karana. It is calculated from the positions of the Sun and Moon, and it is what a traditional astrologer reads alongside the chart itself.

Ephemeris

Also called: DE440

An ephemeris is a table or model giving the position of each celestial body at a given instant, and it is the raw astronomy every chart is built on before any astrology is applied. This site computes positions from NASA JPL DE440, the planetary model used for professional astronomy and spacecraft navigation.

KP system

Also called: Krishnamurti Paddhati

The KP system, short for Krishnamurti Paddhati, is a twentieth century Indian method that subdivides each nakshatra into unequal sub-lord segments to make predictions more specific. Its finer divisions demand a correspondingly precise birth time, which is why KP practitioners tend to take rectification more seriously than most.

Guna Milan

Also called: gun milan, ashtakoota, ashtakuta, kundli matching, horoscope matching

Guna Milan is the eight-part compatibility check run between two charts before a marriage, scored out of 36 points. The eight kootas are Varna, Vashya, Tara, Yoni, Graha Maitri, Gana, Bhakoot and Nadi, and each is worth a different number of points. Almost all of it is computed from the two birth nakshatras and moon signs.

Nadi dosha

Nadi dosha is the case where both people fall in the same nadi group, which costs the full 8 points of the Nadi koota, the most heavily weighted of the eight. Nadi is read from the birth nakshatra, so an unreliable birth time can put a couple in the wrong nadi and change this result outright.

Bhakoot dosha

Also called: rashi koot

Bhakoot dosha is the case where the two moon signs sit in an unfavourable count from each other, specifically 6/8 or 2/12, which costs the 7 points of the Bhakoot koota. It depends only on the two moon signs, so it is the koota least sensitive to a birth time unless one birth falls near a moon sign boundary.

Mangal dosha

Also called: manglik, mangalik, kuja dosha, chevvai dosham, mangal dosh

Mangal dosha is the condition where Mars occupies the first, second, fourth, seventh, eighth or twelfth house, traditionally counted from the lagna and often also checked from the Moon and from Venus. Because it is counted in houses, and houses are set by the lagna, it depends directly on the birth time: an error of an hour or two can create or remove the dosha entirely.