What a Kundli actually is

A Kundli is a map of the sky drawn for one moment: the moment you were born, seen from the place you were born in. Everything in it comes from two things — the date and time, and the latitude and longitude of the place. Change either and the map changes.

The Lagna, and why the time matters

The sign rising on the eastern horizon at your birth is the Lagna (ascendant). It changes about every two hours, so a birth time that is wrong by half an hour can change the whole chart. The Lagna becomes the first house, and the other eleven follow it in order around the zodiac.

The twelve houses

Each house stands for a part of life: the first for the self and health, the second for money and family, the fourth for home and mother, the seventh for marriage and partnerships, the tenth for work and standing, the eleventh for gains and friends. When an astrologer says "your tenth is strong", they mean the planets and the lord of that house are well placed.

The nine grahas

Vedic astrology uses the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and the two lunar nodes, Rahu and Ketu. It does not use Uranus, Neptune or Pluto for the main reading. Each planet rules certain signs, so every house has a lord, and where that lord sits says as much as what is in the house itself.

Rashi, not sun sign

Your Rashi is the sign the Moon was in at birth — not the Sun sign a newspaper horoscope uses. This is why your Vedic sign is often different from the Western one, and why Panchang, Rashifal and Milan all work from the Moon.

Dashas: the timing

A chart shows what is possible; the Vimshottari dasha shows when. The Moon's nakshatra at birth fixes which planet's period you start life in, and the 120-year cycle runs from there. When people say "Saturn's period has begun", this is what they mean.

Make your own chart free on kundli.ratnayog.com — the charts, dashas, yogas and doshas are all computed from the Swiss Ephemeris, not from a lookup table.