Navamsa D9 Chart

What this page adds to the calculator above

The calculator above returns the Navamsa sign of your Ascendant and nine grahas, a twelve-house D9 layout and a list of the points that are Vargottama. The notes beside it explain the arithmetic in two paragraphs and answer three questions. This longer section covers the rest: where the rule comes from in the classical texts, a table of all 108 Navamsas, a point-by-point walk through one real chart, what each field of the result means, what the old authors actually did with this division, how much birth-time error it tolerates, and which classical uses this app leaves alone.

The material comes from Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS), Kalyana Varma's Saravali, one modern casebook, and the engine code that runs when you press the button. Chapter and sloka numbers are given so each statement can be checked against the sources page. A shorter, less technical introduction is in the article The Navamsa (D9): the second chart.

Where the Navamsa rule comes from

BPHS Ch. 6 lists sixteen ways of dividing a rashi (Sl. 2-4), and the Navamsa is the sixth name in that list. Its rule takes one sloka. Ch. 6 Sl. 12 says the Navamsa count is 'for a Movable Rasi from there itself, for a Fixed Rasi from the 9th thereof and for a Dual Rasi from the 5th thereof'. Nine equal parts of a 30-degree sign are 3 degrees 20 minutes each, and the parts are assigned to consecutive signs starting from the sign the rule names.

Saravali gives the same rule in different words. Ch. 3 Sl. 11 says the Navamsas of the twelve signs 'are calculated from Aries, Capricorn, Libra and Cancer in their order'. Read as a repeating cycle, that means Aries starts from Aries, Taurus from Capricorn, Gemini from Libra, Cancer from Cancer, and then the four starting signs repeat for Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, and again for the last four. Check it against Parashara: Taurus is fixed and its ninth sign is Capricorn; Gemini is dual and its fifth sign is Libra; Leo is fixed and its ninth sign is Aries. The two texts in this app's library describe one and the same table, which is why the engine's header calls the method standard and undisputed. The engine itself cites Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, Ch. II, for the rule, as the method note above already says.

Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 17 counts the result: 108 Navamsas in the whole zodiac, twelve signs times nine. That number is also 27 times 4, and the match is not a coincidence. A nakshatra spans 13 degrees 20 minutes and each of its four padas spans 3 degrees 20 minutes, exactly one Navamsa. BPHS uses the two words interchangeably in its Kaal Chakr working in Ch. 46, where it says 'there are 200 Kalas in one Pad (Navamsa)' - 200 minutes of arc being 3 degrees 20 minutes - and speaks of the '12 Padas of 3 Nakshatras' that fill a set of signs. So a graha's Navamsa sign and its nakshatra pada are two labels for the same slice of sky.

BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 12 also gives the nine parts designations: Deva, Manushya and Rakshasa, repeating in that order for a movable sign, in the order Manushya, Rakshasa, Deva for a fixed sign, and Rakshasa, Manushya, Deva for a dual sign. This calculator does not print those names. They are mentioned because the text gives them; nothing in the engine reads them.

All 108 Navamsas in one table

Because the nine parts always run through consecutive signs, each row only needs the first and last sign. The last column shows which part returns to the Rasi sign itself. Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 13 states that pattern directly: 'the first Navamsa of a Movable Rasi, the 5th one in a Fixed Rasi and the 9th one in a Common (Dual) Rasi are called Vargothamamsa'.

Two things are visible in the table. First, only four signs ever start a row - Aries, Capricorn, Libra and Cancer, the movable signs - exactly as Saravali says. Second, each row ends on the sign just before the next row's start: Aries ends in Sagittarius and Taurus begins in Capricorn. The 108 parts therefore form one unbroken chain that walks from Aries to Pisces nine times as you travel once round the zodiac. That gives a second way to find any Navamsa sign without the modality rule: take the full sidereal longitude from 0 degrees Aries, divide by 3 degrees 20 minutes, drop the fraction, and count that many signs from Aries, wrapping every twelve. It is the same chain BPHS has in mind in Ch. 43 Sl. 18-19, where a longevity method counts 'the number of Navamsas, counted from Mesh'.

How this calculator computes your D9 chart

The request goes through the same path as every divisional chart on this site. The server builds your natal chart first - sidereal longitudes for the Ascendant and nine grahas using the Lahiri ayanamsa, the same positions the birth chart tool and the Lagna calculator show. Each point is stored as a sign and a degree within that sign, rounded to two decimals. The Navamsa function then reads only those two values. It never looks at latitude, time or house again; everything about your birth moment has already been compressed into ten sign-and-degree pairs.

1. 1.Part number. The degree within the sign is divided by 30/9 (3.3333 degrees) and rounded down, giving 0 to 8. The result is capped at 8, so a stored degree of exactly 30.00 could not spill into a tenth part.
2. 2.Starting sign. A fixed twelve-entry table gives each sign's type in the order movable, fixed, dual from Aries onward. A movable sign starts from its own index, a fixed sign from its index plus 8 (the ninth sign counted inclusively), a dual sign from its index plus 4 (the fifth sign).
3. 3.D9 sign. Starting index plus part number, wrapped at twelve.
4. 4.Vargottama. The point is flagged when the D9 sign index equals the Rasi sign index, and its name is added to the Vargottama list. The Ascendant is tested exactly like a graha.
5. 5.Houses. If a D9 Ascendant exists, twelve houses are laid out in whole signs from it, and each graha's house is the distance of its D9 sign from the D9 Lagna sign, counted inclusively.

Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 18 offers an independent check on step 1. It says that for any varga you convert the position to minutes of arc, multiply by the varga figure and divide by 1800, the minutes in a sign. For the sample Moon at 24.64 degrees of Libra that is 1478.4 minutes times 9, divided by 1800, which is 7.39 - seven parts completed, so the Moon is in the eighth. The engine's division gives 24.64 / 3.3333 = 7.39 as well. The two procedures are the same sum arranged differently.

What the function does not do is as important. It assigns no degree inside the D9 sign, no D9 nakshatra, no aspects and no dignity. A point's entry is a sign, a yes/no flag and, when a Lagna exists, a house number. Dignity in the Navamsa is computed elsewhere, by the Vimshopaka Bala calculator, which is described further down.

A worked chart, point by point

The example on this page is a birth on 14 August 1994 at 06:42 in Ahmedabad. The table below is the engine's output for that moment, with the part number and nakshatra pada added so the reasoning can be followed by hand.

• Ascendant. Leo is fixed, so the count starts from its ninth sign, Aries. At 2.33 degrees the Lagna is in the first part, so the D9 Lagna is Aries. A fixed sign is Vargottama only in its fifth part, which is why a Lagna this early in Leo is not flagged.
• Venus. Virgo is dual, so the count starts from its fifth sign, Capricorn. 12.92 degrees is in the fourth part (10° to 13°20'), and the fourth sign from Capricorn is Aries. Venus therefore sits in the D9 Lagna sign, house 1.
• Saturn. Aquarius is fixed and starts from Libra. 16.50 degrees is in the fifth part (13°20' to 16°40'), and the fifth sign from Libra is Aquarius again. Saturn is the chart's one Vargottama point.
• Sun and Mercury. Both are late in movable Cancer, in the ninth part, and the ninth sign from Cancer is Pisces. They share a Rasi sign, a Navamsa sign and a pada, Ashlesha 4.
• Moon and Rahu. Both are in the eighth part of movable Libra, which is Taurus. Rahu's partner Ketu is in the eighth part of Aries, which is Scorpio, six signs away - the short FAQ above explains why the nodes always stay opposite.
• Mars. Gemini is dual and starts from Libra; 4.42 degrees is in the second part, so Mars goes to Scorpio, house 8 from the Aries Lagna.

The pada column confirms the link described earlier. Count padas from Ashwini 1 as Aries and keep walking through the signs: Hasta 1 and Magha 1 both land on Aries, Vishakha 2 on Taurus, Ashlesha 4 on Pisces. If you already know your Moon's pada from the nakshatra calculator, you already know its Navamsa sign, and the two pages should never disagree for the same birth details.

How to read each part of your result

The D9 sign of each point

This is the core of the result and the only part that the classical rules quoted below actually refer to. When BPHS says a graha is 'in its own Navamsa', 'in its exalted Navamsa' or 'in the Navamsa of Saturn', it is describing this sign and its lord. The sign is fixed by the Rasi sign and degree alone, so for the grahas it does not depend on your birth place and depends on the time only as far as the graha moved that day.

The D9 Lagna and the houses

The houses list gives twelve signs in order from the D9 Lagna, and each graha carries a house number counted from it. These are whole-sign houses: the entire D9 Lagna sign is house 1, the next sign house 2, and so on. In the sample, Aries is house 1 and holds Venus, Taurus is house 2 and holds the Moon and Rahu, and Aquarius is house 11 and holds Jupiter and Saturn. The house numbers are a layout so that a chart wheel can be drawn; the page attaches no reading to them. They are also the most time-sensitive numbers on the page, because every one of them moves when the D9 Lagna moves.

The Vargottama flag and list

A point is Vargottama when its D9 sign equals its Rasi sign. BPHS defines the word the same way in a note to Ch. 36 Sl. 38-39 - a graha 'occupying the same Rasi and the same Navamsa' - and, for the Lagna, in Ch. 46 Sl. 31-32: 'when Lagn in the Rasi Kundali and the Navamsa Lagn are in the same Rasi'. Because only one of the nine parts of any sign qualifies, a point has a one-in-nine chance of the flag from position alone. An empty list is the common case for any single point and is not a defect in the chart; a list with one or two names is ordinary.

A message instead of a chart

This calculator is registered as needing an Ascendant. Without a birth time, or with a place that cannot be resolved to coordinates, the server returns a short message naming the missing detail and no partial result. The underlying function could place the nine grahas without a time, but that output would mislead, and the measurements below show why: on the sample date the Moon passes through five Navamsa signs between midnight and midnight. If you do not have a time, the article on unknown birth times lists what can still be read reliably.

What the classical texts do with the Navamsa

The texts use this division in several distinct ways. They are separated here because they are often blurred together, and because this app implements some and deliberately not others.

A named subject: the spouse

BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 1-8 assigns each of the sixteen divisions a subject: 'the physique from Lagn, wealth from Hora, happiness through co-born from Dreshkan, fortunes from Chaturthamsa, sons and grandsons from Saptamsa, spouse from Navamsa, power (and position) from Dashamsa, parents from Dvadashamsa'. That single phrase is the classical basis for reading D9 alongside the seventh house and Venus in questions of marriage. The chapter on the seventh house then uses Navamsa positions as conditions inside larger rules - Ch. 18 Sl. 31, for instance, combines the seventh lord in the twelfth with the Lagna lord in the seventh 'in Navamsa', and Sl. 32 uses 'Venus in Navamsa Lagna' as one half of another. Each rule needs every one of its conditions and names specific ages, which is exactly the kind of statement this app does not turn into a prediction. The neighbouring subjects have their own pages: Saptamsa (D7), Dashamsa (D10) and Dwadasamsa (D12).

A measure of strength

The heavier classical use has nothing to do with marriage. The Navamsa is one of the divisions in which a graha's dignity is weighed. BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 2-4 includes it among the seven divisions of Sapt Vargaj Bal, where a graha earns points according to whether it sits in its own, a friendly or an inimical sign in each. Sl. 4.5 adds a small separate strength for sitting in an odd or even Rasi and Navamsa. And Ch. 7 Sl. 17-25 gives the Navamsa a share in every Vimshopaka scheme: 5 points out of 20 in the six-division scheme, second only to the Rasi's 6; 1.5 in the ten-division scheme; and 3 in the sixteen-division scheme, behind only the Rasi at 3.5 and the Shashtiamsa at 4.

Saravali reads the same idea qualitatively. Ch. 5 Sl. 31-33 says a planet in its own decanate confers virtues 'while the one in own Navamsa makes one famous'. BPHS's dasha chapters repeat the condition constantly: favourable results are listed for a period lord 'in his exaltation, in his own Rasi, in his own Navamsa'. In those passages the Navamsa works as a second opinion on the Rasi placement, not as a separate chart with houses.

BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 13-16 adds a refinement: effects are 'full, medium and nil' at the beginning, middle and end of a Hora, and 'similar applications be made for a Dreshkan, Turyamsa, Navamsa etc.'. This calculator reports which part a point is in, not how far through that part, so it does not apply this gradation.

Vargottama

The texts treat a Vargottama Lagna, and sometimes a Vargottama Moon, as a notable condition. Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 13 says that with the natal Lagna in a Vargottama Navamsa 'the native becomes an important person in his circle'. Ch. 35 Sl. 6 builds a royal combination on the Ascendant or Moon being Vargottama and aspected by five or six planets. But Ch. 39 Sl. 5, in the chapter on combinations that fail, says a Vargottama Ascendant 'without aspect to any planet' leaves the Raja Yogas a failure. So even within one text the flag is a starting condition that needs support, not a verdict. BPHS Ch. 36 Sl. 38-39 lists Vargottama first among the Lagna lord's division dignities. None of these effects is scored by this page; it reports the flag and stops.

The Moon's Navamsa and the rising Navamsa

Saravali gives the Moon's Navamsa a full chapter. Ch. 24 describes the Moon in the Navamsas of each lord under the aspect of each other planet, and Sl. 22-24 states the scope: effects are full in a Vargottama Navamsa, medium in the Moon's own Navamsa and minor in another's, and 'if the Navamsa Lord is stronger than the Rasi Lord, then only the effects due to Navamsa Lord will come to pass' - an opinion it attributes to the Vriddha Yavanas. BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 2-4 uses the Moon 'in its own Navamsa, or in a friendly Navamsa' with an aspect from Jupiter by day or Venus by night as a combination for wealth and happiness. For the rising Navamsa, Saravali Ch. 51 Sl. 1 says complexion, disposition and appearance 'can be deduced based on the rising Navamsa at birth', and goes on to describe all 108. Those descriptions are physical portraits in the idiom of their time and are not reproduced in this app.

Karakamsa and Raja Yoga conditions

BPHS Ch. 33 Sl. 1 defines the Karakamsa as 'the Navamsa, occupied by the Atma Karak Grah' and builds a chapter on it; Sl. 9-11 adds the condition that 'the Navamsa of Lagn receives a Drishti from a benefic'. Ch. 39 Sl. 15 names a Raja Yoga when 'the natal Lagn, the Dreshkan Lagn and the Navamsa Lagn have exalted Grahas'. The first of these is implemented on this site as the Karakamsa calculator, fed by the Char Karakas ranking; the background is in the Karakamsa article.

A modern working rule, labelled as such

The modern casebook in this app's library, Advanced Predictive Astrology, collects dasha working rules that lean on D9 houses, which the classical passages above do not. It records that the dasha of a planet in its own Navamsa is held to give excellent results; that a planet is said to act auspiciously in houses 1, 4, 7, 10, 5 and 9 of the Navamsa, indifferently in the 2nd and inauspiciously in the 3rd, 6th, 8th and 12th; and that a sub-period lord badly placed in the Rasi chart is said to prove beneficial if exalted or Vargottama in the Navamsa. The book attributes these to magazine articles of the 1990s, not to a classical verse. They are reported here as that author's practice. Read against them, the sample's Venus in D9 house 1 and Mars in house 8 would fall on opposite sides of the rule - an observation about a rule, not a forecast, and not something this calculator outputs.

Birth-time sensitivity, measured

The limit note above says the rising degree crosses a Navamsa boundary nine times as often as a sign boundary. To put numbers on that, the engine was run every ten seconds across the sample birth date at Ahmedabad.

• The D9 Lagna changed 108 times in the 24 hours - once per Navamsa of the whole zodiac, as expected.
• The shortest stay was 10 minutes 00 seconds (Aquarius rising, 20:29:50 to 20:39:50). The longest was 15 minutes 20 seconds (Scorpio rising, 13:38:50 to 13:54:10). Signs rise at different speeds at this latitude, so the window is not constant.
• Around the sample birth the sequence was: Pisces from 06:16:40, Aries from 06:31:40, Taurus from 06:46:30, Gemini from 07:01:20. The recorded time of 06:42 is ten minutes into a window of under fifteen.

The practical reading is direct. Had the sample birth been recorded five minutes late, the true D9 Lagna would still be Aries. Had the clock been five minutes fast in the other direction - a true birth at 06:47 - the D9 Lagna would be Taurus, Venus would move from house 1 to house 12, and every other house number would shift by one. A birth time rounded to the nearest quarter hour therefore cannot fix a D9 Lagna by itself. The D9 signs of the grahas in this chart would not change at all in either case.

The grahas are far steadier, but not equally so. In a minute-by-minute run across the same date, the Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and the nodes each kept one Navamsa sign all day. Venus changed once, from Aries to Taurus at 16:31, because it crossed the 13°20' boundary of Virgo that afternoon. The Moon changed four times: Aries at midnight, Taurus from 04:29, Gemini from 10:09, Cancer from 15:49 (as it entered Scorpio) and Leo from 21:30. Each lunar window lasted about five hours forty minutes. So with an uncertain time, trust the slow grahas' D9 signs first, the Moon's only if its window comfortably contains your likely time, and the Lagna and houses last.

Limits worth knowing before you rely on it

• Boundary cases depend on the positions underneath. The sample's Saturn is at 16.50 degrees of Aquarius and the fifth part ends at 16°40' (16.67). Its Vargottama flag rests on a margin of about seventeen hundredths of a degree. The methodology page is explicit that this site's planetary formulas are not a full ephemeris, and the choice of ayanamsa shifts every longitude by the same amount; either could move a point this close to the line. The ayanamsa calculator shows the value used.
• Degrees are rounded before the division. The Navamsa function reads the chart's stored degree, which is kept to two decimals, so a point within half a hundredth of a degree of a boundary is settled by rounding.
• No strength is attached here. The page does not say whether a graha is exalted, debilitated or in its own Navamsa, although the classical uses above turn mostly on that. That reading lives on the Vimshopaka page.
• No interpretation is attached to D9 houses, the D9 Lagna sign or Vargottama. BPHS's marriage-age rules, Saravali's 108 portraits and the longevity methods of BPHS Ch. 43 that count in Navamsas are all outside what this app computes.
• Aspects and conjunctions inside the D9 are not evaluated. Two grahas sharing a D9 sign, like the sample's Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius, are simply listed in the same house.
• The designations Deva, Manushya and Rakshasa from BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 12 are not shown.

How D9 connects to the rest of the app

The same Navamsa function feeds several other results, so a change in birth details that moves a D9 sign moves them too.

• Vimshopaka Bala uses the sixteen-division scheme of BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 21-25, in which the Navamsa carries 3 of the 20 points. For the sample chart the D9 row reads: Moon in Taurus, exalted, 3 of 3; Saturn in Aquarius, 3 of 3; Mars in Scorpio, own sign, 2.25; Sun in Pisces and Venus in Aries, friendly signs, 1.875 each; Mercury in Pisces, debilitated, 0; Jupiter in Aquarius, enemy sign, 0. The Moon ends as the chart's strongest graha at 10.88 of 20 and Jupiter the weakest at 6. This is where the dignity reading of the Navamsa happens, and it works without a birth time because it needs signs, not houses.
• Karakamsa reads one entry from the D9 result, the sign of the Atma Karaka. In the sample that is Mercury in Pisces. The twelfth from the Karakamsa then looks at which grahas occupy the sign before it in the Navamsa - here Aquarius, holding Jupiter and Saturn.
• Alternate dashas reads the D9 Lagna to test two of BPHS's applicability conditions: Dwadashottari is called appropriate when the Lagna is 'in the Navamsa of Venus' (Ch. 46 Sl. 27-28), and Shatabdik when the Lagna is Vargottama (Sl. 31-32). The sample's D9 Lagna is Aries, a sign of Mars, and its Lagna is not Vargottama, so it meets neither.
• The Kundali feature includes the Navamsa in a saved chart only when that chart has an Ascendant, for the same reason this page refuses a time-less request.
• Sibling divisions follow the same pattern with different starting rules: Drekkana (D3) stays inside a sign's trine, while the Navamsa walks through consecutive signs.

How confident the app is in any of these depends on the quality of the birth time behind them; the accuracy page explains how that is surfaced.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Navamsa a separate chart or a division of the birth chart?

A division. Every D9 sign is derived from a point's Rasi sign and degree and from nothing else; there is no second set of astronomical positions. BPHS Ch. 6 presents it as the sixth of sixteen ways of dividing a rashi. It is drawn as a chart, with a Lagna and twelve houses, because that makes the pattern easier to see.

Do BPHS and Saravali compute it the same way?

Yes. BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 12 counts from the sign itself for a movable sign, from the ninth for a fixed sign and from the fifth for a dual sign. Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 11 says the counts start from Aries, Capricorn, Libra and Cancer in turn. Worked out sign by sign, both give the table on this page, and the engine follows it.

How is my Navamsa sign related to my nakshatra pada?

They are the same slice of the zodiac. A pada is a quarter of a nakshatra, 3 degrees 20 minutes, which is exactly one Navamsa; BPHS Ch. 46 writes 'one Pad (Navamsa)'. Counting padas from Ashwini 1 as Aries and continuing through the signs gives the Navamsa sign. In the sample the Moon in Vishakha pada 2 is in Taurus Navamsa. Your pada is on the nakshatra page.

Does a Vargottama planet mean it is strong?

The texts treat it as a favourable condition, not a score. Saravali Ch. 24 Sl. 22-24 gives the Moon's effects as full in a Vargottama Navamsa, and Ch. 3 Sl. 13 speaks well of a Vargottama Lagna, but Ch. 39 Sl. 5 says such a Lagna with no planetary aspect leaves Raja Yogas ineffective. Note also that Vargottama only repeats the Rasi sign: a graha debilitated in its Rasi sign and Vargottama is in its debilitation sign twice. This page reports the flag without weighing it.

Why does the D9 Lagna change so quickly?

The Ascendant moves through all 108 Navamsas in a day. In the measured run for the sample date and place, each D9 Lagna lasted between 10 minutes and 15 minutes 20 seconds. A birth time known only to the nearest quarter hour can therefore sit in either of two adjacent D9 Lagnas, and all twelve house numbers follow the Lagna.

My birth time is approximate. Which parts of the result can I still use?

The D9 signs of the slow grahas. On the sample date the Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and the nodes held one Navamsa sign for the whole day, Venus changed once and the Moon four times. The D9 Lagna and every house number should be treated as provisional until the time is confirmed.

Does this calculator tell me about marriage?

No. BPHS Ch. 7 does name the spouse as the Navamsa's subject, and Ch. 18 uses Navamsa positions inside its seventh-house rules, but those rules combine several conditions and state fixed ages. This page reports signs, houses and the Vargottama flag only, and makes no statement about a partner, timing or outcome.

Where can I see whether a planet is exalted or debilitated in the Navamsa?

On the Vimshopaka Bala page. Its breakdown has a Navamsa row for each of the seven grahas, giving the D9 sign, the dignity in that sign and the points earned out of 3. Rahu and Ketu are not scored there, because the engine keeps no dignity table for the nodes.

Why might another site show a different Navamsa sign for one of my planets?

The rule itself is not in dispute, so a difference almost always comes from the longitude underneath: a different ayanamsa, a different ephemeris, or a different handling of time zone. Each Navamsa is only 3 degrees 20 minutes wide, so a small shift is enough for a point near a boundary. The same effect on nakshatras is explained in why apps disagree on your nakshatra.