Kundli matching
Ashtakoota Guna Milan scores two charts against each other across eight kootas, out of 36 points. This works out all eight from the two birth nakshatras and moon signs, shows what decided each one, and reports Mangal dosha for both people. It does not tell you whether to marry: see below for why.
What the eight kootas actually measure
They are not equally weighted, and the weighting is the thing most summaries leave out. Nadi carries 8 points and Bhakoot 7, so those two hold 15 of the 36 between them. Varna carries 1. Two couples on the same total can be in completely different positions depending on which koota gave way, which is why the table above lists them individually rather than only adding them up.
Six of the eight are read from the birth nakshatra or the moon sign: Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi from the nakshatra, Varna, Vashya, Graha Maitri and Bhakoot from the moon sign. The glossary defines each koota.
How much the birth time matters here
Honestly, less than it does elsewhere on this site, and it would be easy to overstate it. Nothing in Guna Milan is counted in houses, so the ascendant does not enter into it, and the ascendant is the part that moves fastest.
What does move is the Moon. It crosses a nakshatra in roughly a day and a sign in about two and a quarter days, so a birth in the last hours of a nakshatra can sit either side of the boundary depending on a time nobody wrote down. When that happens, Yoni, Gana, Nadi and Tara can all change at once, which is 21 of the 36 points. For most births the date settles it. For a boundary birth it does not, and narrowing the time is what resolves it.
About that 18 out of 36
It is the number nearly everyone is looking for, so it is named above rather than hidden. What it is not is a result. It is a convention, and different families and astrologers use different minimums and weigh the failures differently, so the same total can be read as fine by one and as a problem by another.
That is why this page stops at naming it. There is no pass, no fail and no colour on the total, because printing one would turn a widely repeated custom into a computed fact. A score of 17 with every heavy koota intact and a score of 19 with Nadi at zero are not the same situation, and no single threshold can tell them apart.
What the calculation genuinely gives you is eight numbers and the placements behind them. Reading those against two full charts, and against the people involved, is an astrologer's work. The mangal dosha calculator covers the other check usually run alongside this one.
Takes about 10 minutes.
Kundli matching, answered
What is Guna Milan?
Guna Milan, also called Ashtakoota or kundli matching, 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 they carry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 points respectively.
How many gunas are needed for a match?
The figure usually quoted is 18 out of 36, but it is a rule of thumb rather than a calculation, and this page deliberately does not print a pass or a fail. Which koota failed matters more than the total: Nadi and Bhakoot carry 15 of the 36 points between them, so two matches on the same score can be very different situations.
Does kundli matching need an exact birth time?
Less than a full chart reading does, but more than people assume. Six of the eight kootas are read from the birth nakshatra or the moon sign, and the Moon crosses a nakshatra in roughly a day and a sign in about two and a quarter days. So for most births the date settles it, and for a birth near a boundary the time decides it and the score moves.
What is Nadi dosha?
Nadi dosha is when both people fall in the same nadi group, which costs the whole 8 points of the Nadi koota, the most heavily weighted of the eight. It is read from the birth nakshatra. Several traditions hold that it is cancelled in specific cases, and those cancellation rules are not applied here because they differ too much between schools to state as fact.
Why does this not give me a yes or no?
Because the calculation does not contain one. Guna Milan produces eight numbers from two nakshatras and two moon signs. Turning those into advice about a marriage is an interpretive judgement that depends on both full charts and on the people involved, and a form on a website is not in a position to make it.