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In short
The Lagna is the rising sign: the rashi on the eastern horizon at the moment and place of birth. BPHS names it in Ch. 3 and deduces a person's results from the Lagna and the grahas. In this app the Lagna's sign is the whole 1st house, and it is computed only when both the birth time and the birth place are known.
What the term means
Lagna is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon when and where a person was born. It is the sign of the Ascendant, the exact rising degree, and it is where the count of the twelve houses starts. The word is also used for other starting points: the Chandra Lagna counts houses from the Moon's sign, the Navamsa Lagna is the rising sign of the D9 chart, and the Arudha Lagna is a sign found by counting from the Lagna lord.
Where the term comes from
BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 4-6 defines it in one line: the rashi rising is called the Lagna, and a person's good and bad results are deduced from the Lagna and from the grahas joining and leaving each other. Sl. 8-9 add that the Lagna at birth is found from the rising times of the rashis at the birth place. Ch. 11 Sl. 2 reads the first house, Tanu Bhava, "through the ascending Rasi", and Ch. 12 Sl. 11 tells the reader to apply the same reading from the Moon as well. Ch. 5 defines further special Lagnas (Bhava, Hora and Ghati Lagna), which this app does not compute.
How this app computes it
- The engine computes the rising degree from the birth instant, latitude and longitude, shifts it onto the sidereal zodiac, and takes its sign as the Lagna. That sign becomes the whole 1st house.
- A Lagna needs a time and a resolved place. With either missing the engine returns no Lagna and no houses, rather than one cast for an assumed place.
- It moves fast. For 19 January 1985 in New Delhi the engine gives a Pisces Lagna at 11:14 and 11:24 IST, but an Aries Lagna at 11:44, so a birth time off by half an hour can change it.
Pages that use this term
- The 1st house (Tanu Bhava) - the house the Lagna sign becomes.
- When the birth time is unknown - what is lost without a Lagna.
- Aries (Mesha Rashi) - one of the twelve signs read as a Lagna.
- Ishta Devata and the Karakamsa - where the Karakamsa is read both in Navamsa signs and against the natal Lagna.
- Lagna calculator - the rising sign and the houses from it.
- Arudha Lagna calculator - the Lagna's pada.
Related terms
- Arudha Lagna - the image of the Lagna, Jaimini style.
- Bhava - the houses counted from the Lagna.
- Birth-time rectification - why the Lagna depends on an exact time.
- Whole-sign houses - one sign, one house.
Lagna (Ascendant)
The rising sign and degree, and the twelve whole-sign houses counted from it.
What it needs
Date, time and place
That is more than this article asks for - it only ever takes a date, and sometimes a time, and never a name or a birth place. So this one runs on its own page, which asks for exactly what it needs and stores none of it.
Run it on its own page