Kundali - Vedic Birth Chart

The panels above say what the Kundali screen computes and what it does not know. This long read goes underneath them: where each layer comes from in the classical texts this app was built from, exactly how the engine computes it, how to read each kind of result, and one complete chart worked through with the engine's real output. Where the texts disagree with each other, or with the engine, it says so. A chart page that hides its disagreements is asking for more trust than it has earned.

What the classical texts mean by a Kundali

Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) sets out the working parts in its third chapter. The zodiac is one circle read two ways at once - as 27 nakshatras beginning from Ashwini, and as 12 rashis beginning from Mesha (Aries). The grahas are the bodies that move through them, the rashi rising in the east is the Lagna, and, in the words of Ch. 3 Sl. 4-6, it is from the Lagna and the grahas "joining and departing from each other" that good and bad effects are deduced. Everything on the Kundali screen is an elaboration of that sentence.

Two instructions in the same chapter (Sl. 8-9) are practical ones: take the positions of the grahas for the given time "as per Drikganit", and find the Lagna from the rising durations of the signs at the birth place. The translator's note after Sloka 7 adds the scale that matters most to anyone without an exact birth time: a rashi takes roughly two hours to cross the horizon, about four minutes a degree, and the true figure depends on latitude. A section further down measures this for the sample chart.

The rest of the structure is spread across the book. Ch. 6 cuts every sign into sixteen kinds of division, the vargas, and Ch. 7 says what each is consulted for. Ch. 11 lists what each of the twelve bhavas indicates. Ch. 26 and Ch. 8 give two separate aspect systems. Ch. 27 defines six-fold strength, Ch. 66-72 the Ashtakavarga, Ch. 29-33 the Jaimini padas and karakas, Ch. 35-41 the yogas and Ch. 46-51 the dashas. The Kundali screen is where this app lays all of them out for one person. Each also has its own free calculator, linked in the section it belongs to, and the birth-chart calculator runs the core of it without an account.

How the engine casts the chart, step by step

Nothing here is copied from a printed table of positions. Every number is calculated when the page loads, from the stored birth record, by the functions this sequence describes.

1. 1.The local date and time become one instant in UTC. The offset comes from the birth place's IANA time zone, applied for the actual birth date, so a summer birth in a country with daylight saving is not put an hour out; only when neither a zone nor a numeric offset is known does the record fall back to +5:30 (IST). The place itself is first resolved to coordinates - from the bundled list of towns, then from the Open-Meteo geocoder - and if neither finds it, the record is refused rather than given invented coordinates.
2. 2.That instant becomes a Julian Day, the continuous day count astronomical formulas work in.
3. 3.The Sun's longitude comes from Meeus's solar formula and the Moon's from the 35 principal periodic terms of Meeus's lunar theory (Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd ed., ch. 47). This repo's methodology table states Sun accuracy of about 0.001° at the equinoxes and solstices, and Moon accuracy of about 0.1-0.3°.
4. 4.Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are placed from JPL/Standish Keplerian elements, which the code labels valid for 1800-2050 AD, solved through Kepler's equation and converted from the Sun-centred frame to the Earth-centred one. A planet is marked retrograde when its apparent longitude moves backwards across the 24 hours around the birth moment. The Sun and Moon never are; Rahu and Ketu always are, by convention.
5. 5.Rahu is the mean ascending node of the Moon's orbit, and Ketu is exactly opposite it.
6. 6.Every tropical longitude is shifted onto the sidereal zodiac by the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, taken as 23.85306° at J2000.0 and growing by 0.0139601° a year. For the sample birth below it is 23.7779°. The ayanamsa calculator shows the value for any date.
7. 7.The Ascendant is computed on its own path: local sidereal time from Greenwich sidereal time plus the birth longitude, combined with the obliquity of the ecliptic and the birth latitude, then shifted by the same ayanamsa. The rising sign becomes the 1st house and the other eleven follow sign by sign - whole-sign houses, with no cusps. Last, the Sun's altitude at the birth place is checked against the -0°50' sunrise line to decide whether the birth was by day or by night, which one strength component needs.

From those longitudes each point gets its sign and degree, its nakshatra (13°20' each) and pada (3°20' each), and the lord of that nakshatra. A planet within its combustion orb of the Sun - Moon 12°, Mars 17°, Mercury 14°, Jupiter 11°, Venus 10°, Saturn 15° - is marked combust.

One chart, worked through

Every figure from here on is the engine's real output for one person: born 14 August 1994 at 06:42 IST in Ahmedabad (23.0225° N, 72.5714° E). It is the same sample person every free calculator page uses, so the Moon on this page is the Moon behind the result on the nakshatra calculator, and the rising sign here is the one on the Lagna calculator. Readings that depend on today - the running dasha and the transits - are taken at 06:30 UTC on 2 October 2026.

Two hand checks anyone can repeat. The Moon at 204.6401° is 24.64° into Libra, which starts at 180°. Vishakha, the 16th nakshatra, starts at 15 × 13°20' = 200°, so the Moon is 4.6401° into it; 4.6401 ÷ 13.3333 = 0.348 of the way through, inside the second quarter, which is pada 2. Mercury sits 1.17° from the Sun, inside its 14° orb, so it is combust. The Vishakha nakshatra page and Moon sign and nakshatra explain what the Moon's two coordinates are read for.

Dignity: the scale the other numbers reuse

Almost every later reading - strength, house tone, dasha verdicts, Vimshopaka - starts from one question: how comfortable is this graha in this sign? The engine answers it with a seven-step ladder that its code records as drawn from S. Kannan's Fundamentals of Hindu Astrology (1967), and it uses that one ladder everywhere, so a graha called weak in one panel is not called strong in another for a reason no reader could audit.

There is one place left where BPHS and the engine's tables part company in a way that can change a label: the moolatrikona spans. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54 gives the Sun the first 20° of Leo and Venus the first half of Libra; the engine's table puts the Sun's at 20°-30° of Leo and Venus's at 27°-30° of Libra. For Mercury both use 15°-20° of Virgo. Temporary friendship used to be a second difference and no longer is. BPHS Sl. 56 counts from where the two grahas actually sit in the chart: a graha in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th from another is its temporary friend, and anywhere else its temporary enemy, and the engine now reads it exactly that way. An earlier version counted from the graha's moolatrikona sign instead, which only re-counted the natural relationship; the code records that correction.

The sample Moon shows how the two halves combine. The engine treats Venus, lord of Libra, as neither a natural friend nor an enemy of the Moon. Venus in Virgo is the 12th from the Moon in Libra, a temporary friend, and Sl. 57-58 turn "neutral plus friend" into "friendly", so the Moon is graded "Friendly sign", position strength 6.25. The old moolatrikona count made Libra the 6th from Taurus and graded the same Moon "Enemy sign", 0, which shows how much the rule matters. The engine's grade is the one every panel uses, and the Shad Bala calculator shows each component, so a reader can see exactly where a number came from.

Houses, and two kinds of aspect

BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 33-38 names the groups the engine uses to describe a house: the kendras (1, 4, 7, 10), the panapharas (2, 5, 8, 11), the apoklimas (3, 6, 9, 12), the konas or trines (5 and 9 - Ch. 34 adds that the Lagna is both kendra and kona), the dusthanas (6, 8, 12) and the upachayas (3, 6, 10, 11). Ch. 11 lists what each bhava indicates: the 1st physique and temperament, the 2nd wealth and family, the 4th conveyances, mother and property, the 5th learning and children, the 7th marriage and trade, the 9th fortune and religion, the 10th authority, livelihood and honour, the 11th income, the 12th expenses. Each has its own learn page, from the 1st house to the 10th house.

For each house, the Life Map tab reads the lord: where it sits and in what dignity. A lord with a positive dignity makes the house read favourable, a negative one testing, the rest neutral. In the sample the Sun, lord of the Leo 1st, and the Moon, lord of the 12th, are both in friendly signs, so the 1st and 12th read favourable; Saturn rules both the 6th and the 7th from moolatrikona in Aquarius, so both read favourable; Venus, debilitated in Virgo, makes the 3rd and 10th it rules read testing; Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are in neutral signs, so the six houses they rule read neutral. That is a statement about the lords' dignity, not a forecast for those areas of life.

Aspects come in two systems that are expected to disagree. Graha drishti (BPHS Ch. 26 Sl. 2-5): every graha aspects the 7th from itself in full, and Saturn, Jupiter and Mars also fully aspect the 3rd and 10th, the 5th and 9th, and the 4th and 8th respectively. BPHS goes further - partial aspects in quarter slabs and a degree-based drishti value (Sl. 6-12) - but the engine computes only the full whole-sign aspects. Rashi drishti (Ch. 8 Sl. 1-5) belongs to the signs: a movable sign aspects the three fixed signs except the one next to it, a fixed sign the three movable signs except its neighbour, and a dual sign the other three duals. In the sample, Saturn in the 7th aspects the 1st, 9th and 4th by graha drishti, which is part of what the Saturn in the 7th house page reads; the Sun in Cancer, a movable sign, aspects Scorpio, Aquarius and Taurus - the 4th, 7th and 10th - by rashi drishti. The Deep Dive tab prints both side by side and merges neither.

Three measures of strength, and why they disagree

The engine computes three independent strength readings. They answer different questions, they sit on different scales, and on the sample chart they disagree sharply - which is the most useful thing about them.

Shad Bala, simplified to twenty points

BPHS Ch. 27 builds Shad Bala from six families measured in virupas: positional strength (itself five parts, including distance from exaltation and placement across seven vargas), directional, temporal (day or night, fortnight, thirds of the day, the lords of year, month, day and hour, solstice, planetary war), motional, natural and aspectual. The engine does not compute that full scheme. It computes a simplified twenty-point version whose six components follow the classical peaks:

• Sthana (position), 0-10: the dignity ladder above. A combust graha's sthana is set to zero.
• Drig (aspect), 0-3: 3 if only benefics aspect the graha's house, 0 if only malefics do, 1.5 if both or neither - that middle value is the engine's own interpolation.
• Naisargika (natural), 0-1: the fixed order of BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35-38, strongest the Sun, then the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, scaled in equal steps.
• Chesta (motion), 0-1: the Sun or Moon in the northern-course signs Capricorn to Gemini; Mars, Mercury, Jupiter or Venus retrograde; or any of Mars to Saturn in Gemini or Virgo.
• Dik (direction), 0-4: full at the graha's peak house - Mercury and Jupiter in the 1st, the Moon and Venus in the 4th, Saturn in the 7th, the Sun and Mars in the 10th, the compass BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35 gives - falling evenly to nothing at the opposite house.
• Kala (time), 0.5-1: a graha strong at the hour of birth earns 1, otherwise 0.5. The Moon, Saturn and Mars are strong by night, the Sun, Jupiter and Venus by day and Mercury always, as BPHS Ch. 3 says. The fortnight half is held at a flat value.

A total of 13 or more is labelled Strong and 7 or less Weak. Those cut-offs are the engine's own, roughly the top and bottom thirds, because no source gives a pass mark for a simplified scale.

Saturn can be checked by hand. Moolatrikona in Aquarius gives sthana 10. Only Jupiter, a benefic, aspects the 7th house, so drig is 3. Saturn is last in the natural order, 1/8 = 0.125. It is retrograde, but Saturn earns chesta only in Gemini or Virgo, so 0. It sits in its own peak house, the 7th, so dik is 4. A day-born Saturn gets 0.5 kala. 10 + 3 + 0.125 + 0 + 4 + 0.5 = 17.625.

Vimshopaka Bala: consistency across sixteen charts

BPHS Ch. 7 Sl. 21-25 weights the sixteen vargas so they total twenty - Rasi 3½, Navamsa 3, Shodashamsa 2, Hora, Drekkana and Trimshamsa 1 each, Shashtiamsa 4 and the other nine ½ each - and Sl. 26-27 reads the result: below 5 a graha "will not be capable of giving auspicious results", from 5 to 10 it yields "some good effects", up to 15 the effect is "mediocre", and above 15 "wholly favourable". The Vimshopaka Bala calculator uses exactly those weights and those cut-offs, though it labels the 10-15 band "good" where this translation says "mediocre". Where it differs is the share earned in each chart. BPHS grades each placement on its own Varg Vishwa scale - 20 in the graha's own vargas, then 18, 15, 10, 7 and 5 for the states it calls Pramudit, Shant, Svasth, Duhkhit and Khal - while the engine reuses its 0-10 dignity ladder divided by ten. The code records that as a deliberate choice, so one dignity scale runs through the whole app.

Read the two columns together. Shad Bala, which leans on the birth-chart sign and the house, calls Saturn the strongest graha and Venus the weakest. Vimshopaka puts Venus first and the Moon a close second, and Saturn only moderate. The breakdown says why. The Moon is in a friendly sign in the Rasi chart, and exalted in the Navamsa (weight 3) and the Shodashamsa (weight 2). Venus is debilitated in the Rasi chart, which is what sinks its Shad Bala, but sits in its Moolatrikona in the Shashtiamsa (weight 4) and in friendly signs in the Navamsa and the Shodashamsa. Saturn keeps its full Rasi and Navamsa weights but earns nothing in the two heavy charts it loses - an enemy sign in the Shashtiamsa (weight 4) and debilitation in the Shodashamsa (weight 2). Neither number is the "real" strength. One describes the birth-chart placement; the other, how well that placement holds up as the sign is cut finer.

Ashtakavarga: bindus, reductions and a fixed total

BPHS Ch. 66 builds a chart for each of the seven grahas from eight reference points - the seven grahas and the Lagna - marking the places each reference makes auspicious and inauspicious. In this translation the auspicious marks are Rekhas (small vertical lines) and the inauspicious ones Bindus (dots); modern usage, this app included, calls the auspicious points bindus. Adding the seven charts gives the Sarvashtakavarga, which Ch. 72 reads house by house.

The raw tables carry a built-in check. However the grahas are arranged, each graha's chart contributes the same number of points - for the Sun to Saturn, 48, 49, 39, 54, 56, 52 and 39 - so the twelve house totals always sum to 337, and the engine publishes the total with a validity flag on every chart. The sample sums to 337. The Ashtakavarga calculator shows every graha's own chart.

The last two columns disagree on three houses, and both are doing what they say. BPHS Ch. 72 Sl. 3-6 uses absolute thresholds - more than 30 favourable, 25 to 30 medium, under 25 adverse. The engine compares each house with this chart's own average instead, a choice its code documents: different popular sources give different absolute cut-offs, so it measures every house against the same chart's mean. So the 1st (32) clears BPHS's line but not the engine's, and the 3rd and 7th (24) fall below BPHS's line but not the engine's. The same relative rule scores transits: on 2 October 2026 the transiting Moon was in the sample's 10th, 36 bindus, the one house well above average.

Ch. 67-68 then reduce each graha's chart. Trikona Shodhana works on the four fixed trines of fire, earth, air and water signs: if any of the three signs holds nothing, the trine is left alone; if all three are equal they all become zero; otherwise the largest is kept and each of the others becomes the largest minus itself. The Sun's chart in the sample has 3 in Aries, 5 in Leo and 4 in Sagittarius, which reduce to 2, 5 and 1. Ekadhipatya Shodhana then compares the two signs of each graha that owns two, depending on whether a graha occupies them; in the Sun's chart Capricorn (empty, 1) and Aquarius (holding Saturn, 5) become 4 and 5. The engine stops there. Ch. 69's Pinda Sadhana, and the timing methods built on it, are not implemented.

A fourth figure on the Deep Dive tab, the planetary rays of Saravali Ch. 36, follows the school that text says the majority lean to: seven rays at exaltation, none at deep debilitation, in proportion between. The engine applies only that base figure. Saravali's own corrections in Sl. 7-9 - doubling or trebling by dwadasamsa, retrogression or exaltation, and the loss of all rays by a combust graha other than Venus and Saturn - are not applied. That is why the sample's combust Mercury shows the highest figure, 5.19 of 7, where the full rule would take its rays away. The chart total is 16.6 of a possible 49.

Sixteen divisional charts

A varga cuts every sign into equal parts and sends each part to a sign, by a rule BPHS Ch. 6 gives chart by chart; Ch. 7 Sl. 1-8 says what each chart is consulted for. The engine implements all sixteen from those slokas, and Navamsa, the second chart explains the most-used one in depth.

Three implementation notes, each recorded in the code. BPHS defines the Trimshamsa only as degree bands and their lords, so the engine reports the lord - and, for Vimshopaka, that lord's odd or even sign by the usual convention - and draws no Trimshamsa wheel. The Saptavimshamsa's "from Mesh and other Movable Rashis" is read by element: fire signs from Aries, earth from Cancer, air from Libra, water from Capricorn, which is the same as one continuous count of 27 parts per sign. And the Shashtiamsa counts forward from the sign for odd and even signs alike, because the reversal Sl. 33-41 mentions applies to the sixty names, not to the count.

A graha that lands in the same sign in a varga as in the birth chart is vargottama, classically read as a strengthening of that placement. In the sample, Saturn is vargottama in the Navamsa (Aquarius in both), and the Ascendant is vargottama in the Dashamsa (Leo in both). The divisional charts beyond the Navamsa are where birth time bites hardest; the sensitivity section below shows the Shashtiamsa Lagna changing roughly every two minutes.

Each varga has its own calculator: Hora D2, Drekkana D3, Chaturthamsa D4, Saptamsa D7, Navamsa D9, Dashamsa D10, Dwadasamsa D12, Shodashamsa D16, Vimshamsa D20, Chaturvimshamsa D24, Saptavimshamsa D27, Trimshamsa D30, Khavedamsa D40, Akshavedamsa D45 and Shashtiamsa D60.

Yogas and doshas, and where the texts disagree

The engine detects only yogas whose formation rule is single and mechanically checkable, and names the placements that formed each one: the Panchamahapurusha yogas, Gaj Kesari, Dharma-Karmadhipati, Raja Yoga from the 5th and 9th lords, Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga, the three Vipareeta Raja yogas, the Dhan yogas of BPHS Ch. 41, Parivarthana, the lunar and solar yogas, Chandradhi, Amala, Mudrika, all 32 Nabhasa yogas and an Argala Raj Yoga. It deliberately does not attempt BPHS Ch. 39's general Raj Yoga, where the source gives more than thirty competing rules. What a yoga in your chart means and the yogas calculator cover the catalogue. This is what the sample produces:

• Sasa Yoga - Saturn in moolatrikona in Aquarius, in the 7th, a kendra (the Panchamahapurusha rule of BPHS Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2).
• Gaj Kesari Yoga - Jupiter and the Moon both in the 3rd: Jupiter in a kendra from the Moon, joined by a benefic, and not debilitated, combust or in an enemy sign (BPHS Ch. 36 Sl. 3-4).
• Anapha Yoga - Venus in the 12th sign from the Moon (BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 7-10).
• Vasi Yoga - Mars in the 12th sign from the Sun (BPHS Ch. 38 Sl. 1, which spells it Vosi).
• Pasa Yoga - the seven classical grahas occupy exactly five signs, a Sankhya Nabhasa yoga.
• No Sarpa Yoga - the only graha in a kendra is Saturn, a natural malefic, and this Dala Nabhasa yoga needs malefics in three kendras (BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 8).
• Kendradhipathya Dosha, graded Mild - Venus, a natural benefic, owns the 10th but not the 1st. Mangal Dosha and Kaal Sarp Dosha are both absent.

The sources in this app's own library read several of these rules differently from one another, and a careful reader should know where the engine stands on each.

• Gaj Kesari. Advanced Predictive Astrology defines it as the Moon and Jupiter in mutual kendras and itself remarks that the configuration exists for about nine days of every lunar month. BPHS Ch. 36 Sl. 3-4 asks for more, and the engine follows BPHS: Jupiter in a kendra from the Lagna or the Moon, joined or aspected by a benefic, and not debilitated, combust or in an enemy's sign. The engine grades the sample's Jupiter Neutral in Libra; it is neither debilitated nor combust, it is in a kendra (the same sign) from the Moon, and the Moon, a benefic, joins it. So the yoga forms on the fuller rule too.
• Sarpa. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 8 asks for three kendras occupied by malefics, and Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 18 says "malefics in all Angles". The engine follows BPHS - malefics in at least three kendras, no benefic in any - and here one graha holds one kendra, so the chart has no Sarpa Yoga by either text.
• Pasa. BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 17 says none of the seven Sankhya yogas operates if another Nabhasa yoga can be derived. In this chart no other Nabhasa yoga forms, so Pasa stands even on that rule; where one does, the engine lists both.
• Vasi. BPHS Ch. 38 Sl. 4 says these Sun yogas give their stated effects when benefics form them and contrary effects when malefics do. The sample's is formed by Mars; the engine prints the standard reading without grading by the forming graha.

Doshas are reported plainly, with a severity only where the rule supports one. Mangal Dosha is Mars in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th or 12th from the Lagna, Moderate in the 7th or 8th; the sample's Mars is in the 11th. Kaal Sarp is all seven classical grahas on one side of the Rahu-Ketu axis. None of the searchable texts in this library contains it, so the engine applies the common rule without the twelve named types, and checks whether the true node, rather than the mean node it uses, would flip the verdict; for the sample the true node is 0.10° away and the answer is the same. Both have their own pages: Mangal Dosha, what it is and is not with the Mangal Dosha calculator, and Kaal Sarp Dosha explained with the Kaal Sarp calculator.

The Jaimini layer: padas, argala and karakas

BPHS Ch. 29-33 adds a second way of reading the chart, through the signs and through ranked significators. Arudha Lagna (Ch. 29 Sl. 1-3): count how many signs the Lagna lord is from the Lagna, then count the same number on from the lord. In the sample the Lagna is Leo and its lord, the Sun, is in Cancer, twelve signs on counting inclusively; twelve signs on from Cancer is Gemini, the 11th house. Sl. 4-5 adds the exceptions the engine applies: a pada may not fall in its own bhava or the 7th from it, and the 10th or the 4th is taken instead. The same method gives all twelve Bhava Padas, and Upa Pad (Ch. 30) is the pada of the 12th for an odd Lagna such as Leo - here Libra, in the 3rd. See the Arudha Lagna calculator and the Bhava Padas calculator.

Argala (Ch. 31) asks whether a house is supported from the 2nd, 4th, 11th and 5th from it more than it is obstructed from the 12th, 10th, 3rd and 9th. The engine uses a simplified count - how many of the seven classical grahas, not how strong they are, with Rahu, Ketu and the quarter-degree override left out - and says so. In the sample nine of the twelve houses carry unobstructed argala; the 1st, 3rd and 7th do not. The Argala calculator lists all twelve.

The Char Karakas (Ch. 32 Sl. 3-17) rank the grahas by degrees travelled within their signs. The Atma Karaka has the most - the sample's Mercury at 28.35° - followed by the Amatya Karaka (Sun, 27.26°), Bhratru (Moon, 24.64°), Matru (Saturn, 16.50°), Pitru (Jupiter, 13.55°), Putra (Venus, 12.92°) and Gnati (Mars, 4.42°). BPHS itself records the dispute over whether Rahu makes an eighth; the engine uses seven. The Atma Karaka's Navamsa sign is the Karakamsa, Pisces for the sample, and the 12th from it is the subject of Ishta Devata and the Karakamsa. Calculators: Char Karakas, Karakamsa and 12th from the Karakamsa.

BPHS Ch. 34 also classifies the grahas by the houses they rule from each Lagna. For Leo (Sl. 29-30), Mars, Jupiter and the Sun give auspicious effects, Mercury, Venus and Saturn are malefics, and Jupiter joined with Venus "will not produce auspicious results" even though one rules a kona and the other a kendra. Leo has no Yoga Karaka in that table, and the engine shows none. The Leo (Simha) rashi page covers the sign itself.

Time: three dasha clocks

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 2-5 calls Vimshottari "the most appropriate for the general populace" and lists other dashas "followed in special cases". The Kundali screen leads with Vimshottari, adds Jaimini Chara Dasha, and lists six of the alternates.

Vimshottari

The nine lords and their years (Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15) run Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17 - 120 in all - and the lord of the Moon's birth nakshatra opens the sequence. Sl. 16 gives the balance at birth: the part of the first period already used is in proportion to how far the Moon had crossed its nakshatra. The sample Moon was 0.348 of the way through Vishakha, which Jupiter rules, so 16 × 0.652 = 10.43 years of Jupiter remained at birth.

Ch. 51 Sl. 1-2 divides each period again in the same proportions, beginning with the period's own lord, and the engine applies the same function again to reach the third level. On 2 October 2026 the sample was in Mercury Mahadasha, Ketu Antardasha (16 June 2026 to 13 June 2027) and Moon Pratyantardasha (24 September to 24 October 2026). The Timeline tab shows the first two levels, with every period's sub-periods one tap inside it; the running third level, and how far through each level the moment sits, is on the Intelligence tab. More in What a Mahadasha actually is, Antardasha and Pratyantar, the Vimshottari calculator and the Mercury Mahadasha page.

Each period is tagged by the test in BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 5-6: favourable if the lord is in the Lagna or in exaltation, own or a friendly sign; unfavourable in the 6th, 8th or 12th, or in debilitation or an enemy's sign. The sample's Mercury is in a neutral sign, which decides neither way on its own, but it sits in the 12th, so its Mahadasha is tagged testing. Ch. 48 adds which houses the lord rules - Mercury rules the 2nd and 11th from Leo - so the period's themes run through those two houses. Ch. 47 Sl. 3-4 also says a dasha lord's effects come early, mid-way or late in its period according to its decanate, reversed if it is retrograde; the engine does not apply that.

Jaimini Chara Dasha

Chara Dasha gives its periods to signs, not to grahas. As the engine applies it, following BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 158-167: the twelve signs run from the Lagna sign in zodiacal order when the sign in the 9th house is odd-footed (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius) and in reverse when it is even-footed; each sign's length is the inclusive count from it to the sign its lord occupies, minus one - forward for an odd-footed sign, backward for an even-footed one - and a lord in its own sign gives twelve years. Scorpio counts to Mars or Ketu and Aquarius to Saturn or Rahu, whichever the sloka's strength tests make stronger. A year is added when the graha counted to is exalted and deducted when it is debilitated. Each period divides into twelve equal sign sub-periods (BPHS Ch. 51 Sl. 5), in K.N. Rao's order: from the sign after the period's own, in the main direction, with the period's own sign last. The sample's 9th is Aries, so it runs forward:

Three points are readings, not settled text. Where Sl. 158-166 are ambiguous about which co-lord is stronger, the engine follows K.N. Rao's school as the Jyotisha Bharati notes give it. K.N. Rao and U.K. Jha themselves omit the exalted/debilitated year, so their lengths differ by a year wherever it applies - here Libra and Taurus. And BPHS Ch. 51 Sl. 6-12 gives a different sub-period order, built on a strength comparison the text does not define; the engine does not apply it. The Chara Dasha calculator shows the reasoning sign by sign.

The alternate nakshatra dashas

Ch. 46 Sl. 23-39 attaches a condition to each special-case system. The Kundali screen lists ten with the lord running at birth and its years - for the sample, Shodshottari Sun 11, Dwadashottari Mercury 13, Panchottari Moon 17, Shatabdik Venus 10, Chaturashiti-sama Moon 12, Dwisaptati-sama Sun 9, Shat-trimshat-sama Saturn 6, Ashtottari Mars 8, Shastihayani Mercury 6 and Kala Chakra Jupiter 10 - with each system's condition in words and whether the chart meets it. The alternate dashas calculator goes further and tests the condition against the chart: for the sample Shodshottari applies, because the Ascendant falls in the Sun's Hora and the birth was in the bright fortnight (Sl. 24-26). The calculator also computes Ashtottari, Shastihayani and Kala Chakra, reading Abhijit as a 28th nakshatra from the Moon's longitude where the first two need it; Ashtottari applies to the sample too, because Rahu in Libra is the 4th sign from the Ascendant lord, the Sun, and not in the Ascendant (Sl. 17-20), and so does Shat-trimshat-sama, a day birth with the Ascendant in the Sun's Hora (Sl. 42-43).

Transits, Sade Sati and the year chart

Transits are read in two frames. Gochara counts from the natal Moon sign, by rules the engine's code cites from Kannan: Jupiter, Mercury and Venus do well from the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th; the Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu from the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 11th; every graha does well in the 11th; and the 1st, 4th, 8th and 12th are the testing places. Sade Sati is Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd from the Moon, read in three phases. The transit chapter of Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 313) adds two shorter Saturn periods the engine also tracks: Ardha Ashtama Sani, Saturn in the 4th from the Moon, and Ashtama Sani, Saturn in the 8th.

On 2 October 2026 transiting Saturn was in Pisces, the 6th from the sample's Libra Moon - a supportive place for Saturn, with no Sade Sati and no Ashtama Sani. Jupiter in Cancer was in the 10th from the Moon, favourable; the transiting Moon in Taurus was in the 8th, which the engine also flags as one of the source's intensified pairings. Because the Moon's sign is the reference, this reading does not need the Ascendant - but it does need the Moon's sign to be settled, which, as the next section shows, it is not for this birth date without a time. See the Gochar calculator, the Sade Sati calculator and the Ashtama Sani calculator.

The Timeline tab also casts a Varshaphal - in the code's words, the classical Tajika solar-return chart - for the year being lived: the moment the transiting Sun returns to its exact natal sidereal longitude. For the sample's 2026 year that was 06:01 UTC on 14 August 2026, with Libra rising. The Muntha starts at the natal Lagna and moves one sign per completed year; at age 32, Leo plus 32 signs is Aries, the 7th house of the annual chart. The five classical candidates for year lord are listed with their placements, and none is crowned, because the strength contest that decides it, Panchavargiya Bala, is not computed. The Varshaphal calculator runs the same engine.

How much the birth time moves

The Kundali is the part of this app most exposed to an inexact birth time, and the exposure is not even. The table recasts the sample at nearby times with nothing else changed.

Between 06:30 and 06:32 the Ascendant crosses from Cancer into Leo, and every house moves with it: the Sun goes from the 1st to the 12th, and every reading built on houses changes. Here the Ascendant moves about 0.22° a minute, close to the translator's rule of thumb of four minutes a degree. At that rate the Shashtiamsa Lagna, whose parts are half a degree wide, changes roughly every two minutes; the Dashamsa Lagna, in 3° parts, every thirteen or so; the Navamsa Lagna, in 3°20' parts, about every fifteen. The nakshatra sub-lord calculator makes the same point at a finer grain: the sample Ascendant's sub-lord is Venus, 40.19 arcminutes from turning to the Sun - about three minutes of clock. Sub-lords and birth time explains why.

The Moon moves far less, about 0.59° an hour on this date, but the Vimshottari dates hang on it. With no time on file the app assumes 12:00 noon, and for this date that puts the Moon at 207.76°: still Vishakha, still a Mercury Mahadasha running now, but dated 22 April 2020 to 22 April 2037 instead of 18 January 2024 to 17 January 2041 - every window shifted by about three and three-quarter years. Across the whole day the Moon runs from 200.70° in Libra to 214.80° in Scorpio, from Vishakha into Anuradha, so the app's own precision note for a time-less record of this date says that the Moon's sign, its nakshatra and even the running Mahadasha - Saturn early in the day, Mercury late - all depend on the hour.

Where each layer sits on the screen

• Overview: the life theme (Lagna, Moon nakshatra, Mulank and the dominant element in one line), the three identity points, strengths and cautions, a short "what to do next" list with each line naming the placement it came from, the birth-chart wheel in North or South Indian style with an optional degree display remembered on your device, the birth Panchang, and the Full Reading.
• Deep Dive: the divisional-chart picker, the nine-graha table, graha drishti and rashi drishti side by side, Vimshopaka, Shad Bala, the planet-in-house readings paraphrased from Bhrigu Sutras Part II Ch. II-IX, Ashtakavarga raw and reduced with today's transit scoring, the padas, argala, planetary rays, the Ch. 34 lordship roles, and a numerology snapshot.
• Life Map: the twelve houses read as areas of life, the most and least strongly ruled house, and recommendations.
• Timeline: the running Mahadasha and Antardasha with the BPHS Ch. 47 tag, Sade Sati or Ashtama Sani when active, the balance at birth, the Varshaphal, Chara Dasha, the full Vimshottari cycle, and two consulted clocks - the convergence of the dasha with the numerology timing layers, and the alternate dashas.
• Secrets: the yoga catalogue, each with the Mahadasha window of the grahas that form it, the Char Karakas and Karakamsa, today's Gochara and a seven-day transit scan.
• Intelligence: 0-100 indices built only from published components - for a graha, Shad Bala 35 points, dignity 25, house 20, aspects 12, motion 8 - with the share of the scale actually readable shown beside each, and nothing published below a third; plus life-area scores and the three-level dasha context.

The print button prints the page you are looking at, after opening every folded section, so the paper carries what the screen carries.

What this Kundali does not do

• It is not Swiss Ephemeris. Positions come from Meeus series and JPL/Standish elements; this repo's rules name Swiss Ephemeris as the intended source of truth for any future swap, with validation anchors a replacement must still meet.
• The five planets' elements are labelled valid for 1800-2050 AD. A birth outside that window is still computed, but outside the range the code vouches for.
• Rahu is the mean node. No text in this library says which node a rule was written for; the true node appears only as a check on the Kaal Sarp verdict.
• One ayanamsa (Lahiri) and one house system (whole-sign). There is no cusp-based house table and no Bhava Chalit.
• Shad Bala is the simplified twenty-point version, not the full virupa computation of BPHS Ch. 27, and Ch. 28's Isht and Kasht Phala are computed beside it without entering the total (the Seeghrochcha for Mars to Saturn is taken from the Surya Siddhanta, outside BPHS).
• Ashtakavarga stops after the two shodhanas; Pinda Sadhana and the methods built on it are not implemented.
• General Raj Yoga, three alternate dashas and the Varshaphal year lord are left out rather than guessed.
• Graha drishti is whole-sign and full only; BPHS's partial and degree-valued aspects are not scored.
• The birth Panchang gives tithi, paksha and weekday; karana and nitya yoga are not computed.
• No remedies, gemstones or rituals are prescribed, and the classical texts' death-timing and disease-as-destiny passages are not carried into any reading.

How the Kundali connects to the rest of the app

Every other feature reads this same chart. Timing turns the dasha and transit layers into dated windows. Compatibility compares two charts, and the Kundali screen previews a friendship-type score for the other profiles saved on the account. Numerology runs beside it from the same birth date, Life Blueprint joins the two systems through the ruling graha of each number, and the convergence tool sets them against each other in public. AI chat answers from what has already been computed here, with dates only from this dasha timeline, and Accuracy counts how the Intelligence-tab insights you rated actually landed. Without an account, the free birth-chart tool runs the same engine for a one-off chart, and the sources page lists every book this engine was built from.

Why does this Kundali not match one from another app or a printed chart?

Usually because of one of five choices: the ayanamsa (Lahiri here), the node (mean here), the house system (whole-sign here), the ephemeris (Meeus and JPL/Standish series here, not Swiss Ephemeris), or the time zone applied to the birth time. A graha far from any boundary will agree everywhere; one within a fraction of a degree of a sign, nakshatra or pada boundary may not. Why apps disagree on your nakshatra works through an example.

Do I need an exact birth time?

For the Ascendant, the houses and the finer divisional charts, yes. The sample's Lagna would be a different sign about ten minutes earlier, and its Shashtiamsa Lagna changes roughly every two minutes. The graha positions, sign dignities, Vimshopaka Bala and the Moon-based readings work from the date alone, and the Intelligence tab says how far the assumed noon could move the Moon and the dasha dates for your birth date.

What happens if my birth place cannot be found?

The chart is not cast. A place is resolved to coordinates from the bundled list of towns, then from the Open-Meteo geocoder; if neither finds it, you are asked for a nearby larger town rather than given invented coordinates, because a wrong latitude moves the Ascendant and every house.

Which house system does it use?

Whole-sign. The rising sign is the 1st house and each following sign is the next house. There are no house cusps and no Bhava Chalit table, so a graha's house is always the house of its sign.

Why is my strongest planet different in Shad Bala and in Vimshopaka?

Because they measure different things. Shad Bala here weighs the birth-chart sign, the house, aspects, motion and the time of birth; Vimshopaka asks how well the graha is placed across all sixteen divisional charts, with the Shashtiamsa and the Rasi carrying the most weight. In the sample, Saturn leads Shad Bala at 17.63 of 20 and Venus leads Vimshopaka at 11.75 of 20, just ahead of the Moon at 10.88.

Is Rahu the true node or the mean node?

The mean node, everywhere in the app, with Ketu exactly opposite. The Kaal Sarp check also tests the true node and reports when the two would disagree; for the sample they are 0.10° apart and agree.

Why does it not list every Raj Yoga I have heard of?

It lists the Raj Yogas whose rule is single and checkable - Dharma-Karmadhipati, the 5th-and-9th-lord Raja Yoga, Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga, the Vipareeta yogas and an Argala Raj Yoga - when a chart has them. It does not attempt BPHS Ch. 39's general Raj Yoga, where the text gives more than thirty competing rules, because any single choice would be presented as the rule.

Does it suggest gemstones, mantras or remedies?

No. It reports placements, strengths, periods and the classical readings attached to them, and it leaves out remedies as well as the classical texts' death-timing and disease predictions.

Can I see a North Indian or South Indian chart, and print it?

Both wheel styles are on the screen, with a degree display you can switch on that is remembered on your device. Print opens every folded section first, so the printout carries what the screen carries.

Which parts change from day to day?

The natal chart never changes. What moves with the date is which dasha periods are running, the transit readings (Gochara, Sade Sati, Ashtama Sani and the Ashtakavarga transit scoring), the seven-day transit scan, and which year's Varshaphal is shown.

Does it work for very old or far-future birth dates?

The Sun and Moon formulas are general, but the five planets come from orbital elements the code labels valid for 1800-2050 AD. A chart outside that window is still computed; a planet close to a sign or nakshatra boundary deserves extra caution there.