Free Vedic astrology reading

What this chart is built from

Vedic astrology reads the sky sidereally: positions are measured against the fixed stars rather than against the equinox, which is what Western astrology uses. The gap between the two has widened to roughly 24 degrees, so a chart calculated this way will often place your Sun in the sign before the one you are used to. We apply the Lahiri ayanamsa, the standard correction in Indian practice, on positions from the Swiss Ephemeris. The difference is explained at length in Vedic vs Western astrology.

Houses are whole-sign: the sign rising at your birth moment becomes the entire first house, the next sign the second, and so on around the chart. That rising sign is the Lagna, and it is why birth time matters to the minute — the Lagna moves a full sign roughly every two hours, and every house placement in the chart moves with it.

The pieces you are looking at

The nine grahas — the Sun and Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus the lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu — each carry a natural signification and a dignity that depends on the sign they occupy. A guide to all nine covers what each one governs. The twelve houses they fall into are the areas of life those significations play out in, set out in the twelve bhavas.

The Moon’s position also fixes your nakshatra, one of 27 lunar mansions, and that in turn starts the Vimshottari dasha — the 120-year cycle of planetary periods that gives Jyotish its timing. The dasha table above is that cycle laid out from your birth moment, with the period you are currently in marked.

Where this stops

A free reading names the three things that anchor a chart — your Lagna, your Moon nakshatra and the period you are currently in. What it does not do is weigh them against each other, which is where an actual reading begins. Our full reports do that in prose, and every conclusion in them names the placements it rests on. You can read how we work first, or look up any unfamiliar term in the Jyotish glossary.