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In short
Whole-sign houses is the house system in which the entire rising sign is the 1st house, the next sign the entire 2nd, and so on round the zodiac. It is the only system this app uses, in the birth chart and in every divisional chart. A graha's house therefore depends only on its sign, never on how many degrees it is from the Ascendant.
What the term means
In whole-sign houses each bhava is one complete rashi. The sign that holds the Ascendant degree, whatever that degree is, is the 1st house from its first degree to its last; the following sign is the 2nd house; and so on. House and sign always coincide, so every house is exactly 30 degrees wide. The alternative is a cuspal system, in which houses are bounded by computed cusps and can straddle two signs.
Where the term comes from
The classical texts in this project's library do not name a house system; they count in rashis. BPHS Ch. 11 Sl. 2 reads the first house "through the ascending Rasi", and its Jaimini chapters count whole rashis from one point to another (Ch. 29 Sl. 1-3). Elsewhere the BPHS translator does gloss a bhava's middle as its cusp (Ch. 4 Sl. 25-30). The modern case book Advanced Predictive Astrology shows both views on one page: its commentary on one chart counts houses by whole signs from the Lagna, while the same page prints a cuspal Bhava Chalit table beside it.
How this app uses it
- The engine takes the sign of the Ascendant as the 1st house and the next eleven signs in order. A graha's house is its sign counted from that one.
- In the 19 January 1985, 11:14 IST, New Delhi chart the Ascendant is at Pisces 23.04, so all of Pisces is the 1st house. Rahu at 0.54 degrees of Taurus is in the 3rd house, and Venus and Mars, both in Aquarius, are in the 12th. A cuspal system could place a graha near a sign's edge differently.
- The same rule is applied in the divisional charts: the Navamsa's houses are whole signs from the Navamsa Lagna.
- When there is no birth time there is no Ascendant and so no houses; some features then count whole signs from the Moon instead and say so.
Pages that use this term
- The 10th house (Karma Bhava) - the tenth sign from the Lagna, not the mid-heaven.
- The 1st house (Tanu Bhava) - the rising sign as the whole first house.
- The 7th lord in the 10th house - lordship and placement both read by sign.
- Navamsa: the second chart - whole-sign houses in the D9.
- Lagna calculator - the twelve houses for a birth.
- Methodology - the house convention set beside a printed cuspal chart.
Related terms
- Lagna - the sign that becomes the 1st house.
- House lord - the ruler of the house's sign.
- Chandra Lagna - whole signs counted from the Moon.
- Kendra - the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th signs from the Lagna.
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