Sun in the 1st house: what the texts say, sign by sign, and how to check yours

In this app's charts the 1st house is the whole sign that was rising in the east when you were born, so “Sun in the 1st house” means one precise thing: the Sun stood in your rising sign. That is a statement about the time of day as much as about temperament. This page sets out what the classical texts say about the placement, with chapter and sloka, how the rising sign changes the reading, which yogas it can complete here, how its periods are timed, and how to check all of it with the free birth chart calculator.

The texts are Bhrigu Sutras, whose twelve-house chapters are the source of this app's planet-in-house readings; Kalyana Varma's Saravali; Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS); and, where it adds something, the modern case-study book Advanced Predictive Astrology. All four are listed on the sources page. Where they disagree, the disagreement is reported rather than settled. Every sign, house, dignity and count below was produced by running this app's own engine, and the methodology page explains what that engine can and cannot resolve. For the Sun as a graha in general, see the Sun in Vedic astrology; for the house itself, the 1st house, Tanu Bhava.

What the placement means in the sky: a birth near sunrise

BPHS Ch. 3 defines the Lagna as the sign rising in the east at the latitude of birth, and its translator's note gives roughly two hours for a sign to cross the horizon, the exact figure depending on latitude. This app counts houses in whole signs from the rising sign, so the Sun is in the 1st house exactly when it shares that sign with the Ascendant. The Sun is then within one sign of the eastern horizon, and the birth falls within a couple of hours of sunrise, before or after.

To put numbers on “a couple of hours”, the engine was run minute by minute for every day of 2024 at five places, five hours either side of sunrise:

Whether a Sun-in-1st birth came before or after sunrise depends on how far the Sun had travelled through its sign. Early in a sign, the rising point enters that sign at about the moment the Sun comes up, so the stretch runs after sunrise. Late in a sign, the sign rises well ahead of the Sun, so most of the stretch is before dawn.

This matters in two ways. First, it is a free check on your birth data: a chart that shows the Sun in the 1st house for a mid-afternoon birth points to an AM/PM slip or a wrong time zone, not to an unusual sky. Second, the app's Shad Bala gives the Sun its full time-of-day point only for a day birth, and Sun-in-1st births split almost evenly: 52.9% of the Delhi minutes counted as day. Without a birth time and a place that resolves to real coordinates the app draws no houses at all, so it cannot tell you whether your Sun is in the 1st; what an unknown birth time costs covers what survives without one, and the Lagna calculator shows the rising sign and degree on their own.

What Bhrigu Sutras says

Bhrigu Sutras opens its whole run of planet-in-house chapters with this placement (Part II, Ch. I, Sutras 1-21). The general statement comes first. The native enjoys good health, is wise and of good conduct, highly intelligent, speaks little, wanders away from the place of birth and is happy. In the same passage the sutras give a bilious constitution, trouble with the eyes and an acid stomach, and say the native is bereft of knowledge and sense, which the translator's own comment points out cannot sit beside “highly intelligent”.

The book's chapter on the houses lists what the 1st signifies: physical stature, form and constitution, health, vitality and vigour, natural dispositions, personality and the struggle for life, honour, dignity, general well-being, the head and upper face, longevity and the start in life. The Sun reading is the Sun's nature laid over that list.

The sign clauses

Most of the chapter's detail depends on the sign the Sun occupies, which for a 1st-house Sun is also the rising sign:

• Aries, the Sun's exaltation: name and fame; if benefics aspect the Sun, the native becomes highly learned.
• Leo, or the Sun in the Leo navamsa whatever its sign: lordship over some territory. In its own sign Leo the Sun also gives good health.
• Libra, the Sun's debilitation: dignified in bearing but short of learning and power, with an eye clause. The sutras add that these ill effects are not felt if a benefic, Jupiter or Venus, aspects the Sun.
• Cancer: knowledgeable, with a skin clause (boils).
• Capricorn: a heart clause.
• Pisces: a less assertive Sun, which the sutra words as deference to women; the commentator ties this to Pisces being a feminine, dual sign in which the Sun loses its domineering edge.
• Virgo: the native "will be father of daughters only. He will lose his wife and will be ungrateful." These are the sutra's statements, reported, not forecasts.
• With malefics, or in an enemy's sign or its debilitation: "fever in his third year", again said not to be felt if a benefic aspects the Sun. The app carries no timed predictions of this kind.

How the book's commentator explains them

The translator reasons from house lordship, which is a useful habit to copy. With Aries rising, the Sun rules the 5th house, a trine; exaltation adds dignity to an already beneficial trinal lord. The 5th signifies intellect, so learning follows, and the 5th is the 9th from the 9th, the house of fortune, so name and fame follow. With Virgo rising, the Sun rules the 12th, which is the 6th counted from the 7th house of the spouse, and that is how he accounts for the Virgo clause.

He also notes a consensus across texts that the Sun in the ascendant affects the eyes, and explains it by position rather than by the Sun itself: the 1st house is the 12th, the house of loss, counted from the 2nd, and the 2nd governs eyesight. And he argues that the Sun, the source of light and life and a planet of sattva guna, should not be classed as a malefic at all, while conceding that it is hot and cruel. That argument returns below, because BPHS and this app both do class it as one.

Other views quoted in the same chapter

Saravali and BPHS, read directly

Saravali Ch. 30 Sl. 2, read in the translation in this library, gives the Sun in the ascendant less hair on the head, slowness to act, a temper, a prominent personality, honour, weak sight, a coarse physique, courage, impatience and unkindness; then, by sign, swollen eyes in Cancer, weak sight in Aries, night blindness in Leo, and poverty and loss of children in Libra. The wording differs from the Saravali lines Bhrigu Sutras quotes (cataract there, swollen eyes here). That is a difference between translations, and a reason to read sign clauses as tendencies rather than as clinical statements.

BPHS has no general sloka on the Sun in the Lagna of the kind Bhrigu Sutras and Saravali give; it names the placement only in two special rules covered further down, a wealth yoga and an alternative Dasha. Otherwise it frames the placement through the Lagna. Ch. 11 Sl. 2 says physique, appearance, intellect, complexion, vigour, weakness, happiness, grief and innate nature are all judged from the rising sign. Ch. 12 Sl. 4 says a benefic in the Lagna gives a pleasing appearance and a malefic takes it away, and that bodily felicity comes when a benefic joins or aspects the Lagna; Sl. 3 says bodily health suffers when a malefic joins or aspects the Lagna or the Moon with no benefic aspect to offset it. Ch. 3 Sl. 11 puts the Sun among the malefics, so these are the slokas that apply. Ch. 12 Sl. 11 adds that the same tests are to be applied from the Moon.

On one physical detail three texts written centuries apart agree. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 23 describes the Sun itself as honey-eyed, square-bodied, of clean habits, bilious, intelligent and with limited hair on the head. Saravali gives the Sun in the ascendant less hair. Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, in its passage on the beauty of the face) says the Sun associated with the Lagna is not conducive to good looks and can give thin, sparse hair. With the eye clauses, it is one of the two details the texts in this library repeat most consistently, and it is a claim about appearance, not fortune.

A malefic in the 1st house, or not?

BPHS calls the Sun a malefic in Ch. 3 Sl. 11 and again in Ch. 34 Sl. 8-10, where the weak Moon, the Sun, Saturn and Mars are listed in rising order of malefic force, which makes the Sun the mildest of the three outright malefics. Ch. 3 Sl. 22 also counts both luminaries as sattvic. And Ch. 34 Sl. 2-7 says that malefics owning kendras do not stay inauspicious and that the Lagna lord is specially auspicious, because the 1st is both a kendra and a trine. Bhrigu Sutras' commentator, as above, would drop the malefic label entirely.

This app agrees with BPHS: its malefic list includes the Sun, and that list feeds the aspect component of Shad Bala and the Nabhasa yogas. One detail cuts the other way. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11 says Mercury becomes a malefic when it joins a malefic, so a Mercury sharing the 1st house with the Sun is, by BPHS, a malefic. The app's benefic list always counts Mercury as a benefic. Mercury was in the same sign as the Sun on 51.2% of days from 1970 to 2015 in this engine's positions, so the difference touches about half of all Sun-in-1st charts.

BPHS on reading a chart from three points

BPHS Ch. 74 describes the Sudarshana Chakra, which reads every house three times: from the Lagna, from the Moon and from the Sun (Sl. 5-9). In that scheme the Sun is considered auspicious in the first bhava and malefic in the others. But Sl. 19-20 then limit its use: the Chakra applies only when the Sun and the Moon stand in signs different from the Lagna's, and if two of the three share a sign the chart is to be judged from the ordinary birth chart alone. A chart with the Sun in the 1st house is exactly that case, so BPHS itself sends it back to the Rashi chart. This app does not compute a Sudarshana Chakra. Advanced Predictive Astrology calls the Ascendant, the Moon and the Sun the three pivots of a chart, standing for body, mind and soul (Vol. II, pp. 70-71); in this placement two of the three occupy one sign.

The rising sign decides the verdict

This app turns the Bhrigu Sutras chapters into a two-way reading for each graha. A placement reads as favourable when the graha is exalted, in its Moolatrikona, in its own sign or in a friend's sign, and is not in the 6th, 8th or 12th house; otherwise it reads as testing. The 1st house is never one of those three, so for a 1st-house Sun the sign alone decides. The favourable reading on the Kundali page ends “tending toward real vitality and good conduct - capable of forming genuine Raja Yoga in exaltation, a classically strong placement”. The testing one ends “tending toward strain to health and clarity of purpose under real affliction”.

The fixed points come straight from the texts: exaltation in Aries and debilitation in Libra, deepest at 10 degrees in each (BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50, and Bhrigu Sutras' introduction to the Sun), and Leo as the Sun's own sign. Both BPHS (Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54) and Bhrigu Sutras make the first 20 degrees of Leo the Sun's Moolatrikona and the last 10 its own sign. In this app's favourable test both labels count as strong, so a Leo Sun in the 1st reads as favourable at every degree.

The other eight signs turn on friendship. Bhrigu Sutras names the Sun's friends as the Moon, Mars and Jupiter, its enemies as Venus and Saturn, and Mercury as neutral; the engine's natural-relationship table agrees. The engine then combines that with a temporary relationship counted from the Sun's Moolatrikona sign, after Kannan's Fundamentals of Hindu Astrology, and that is why Gemini comes out as an enemy's sign and Virgo as a friend's although Mercury rules both. BPHS's own temporary relationship (Ch. 3 Sl. 56) is counted between the actual positions of two grahas in a chart, which is a different rule, and the two can give different answers.

BPHS also scales a graha's good effects by dignity (Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60): full in exaltation, three quarters in Moolatrikona, half in its own sign, a quarter in a friend's, an eighth in a neutral's, nil in an enemy's sign or in debilitation. The app's Shad Bala uses Kannan's position-strength ladder instead: 10 for exaltation and Moolatrikona, 7.5 for own sign, 6.25 for a friend's, 5 neutral, 0 for an enemy's sign or debilitation. The two scales rank the signs the same way and space them differently.

Read across, the table also shows where two classical lenses part company. Taurus rising reads as testing by dignity, yet BPHS Ch. 34 calls the Sun auspicious for Taurus because of the house it rules. Pisces rising reads as favourable by dignity, yet Ch. 34 calls the Sun a malefic there. Bhrigu Sutras' own cautions for Cancer, Virgo and Pisces fall on signs the dignity test reads as favourable. The app's verdict is one gate, the one the Bhrigu chapter's structure implies; it is not a summary of everything the texts say about your sign. The Kundali page names the Yoga Karaka for your rising sign from the same Ch. 34, where there is one (the Sun, for Scorpio and Sagittarius); for the other roles, the table above is the reference.

The Sun as lord of a house: BPHS Ch. 24

The Sun owns one sign, Leo, so in any chart it rules exactly one house, and with the Sun in the 1st that house's lord is sitting in the Lagna. BPHS Ch. 24 gives a sloka for each house lord in each house. Sl. 145-148 then add two rules: a graha that owns two houses mixes both readings, and a lord gives full, half or a quarter of its effects as its strength is full, medium or negligible. The first rule never applies to the Sun. The second always does, which is why the dignity column above matters for this table too.

Two Ch. 34 rules soften rows in that table. Sl. 2-7 say that the 8th-house lordship of the Sun and the Moon is not evil, which speaks directly to Capricorn rising. And Sl. 13 makes a graha that owns both a kendra and a trine specially a Yoga Karaka; the Sun does that only for Leo rising, where its one house is the 1st, which is both. Note the Libra row as well: a debilitated Sun reads as testing by dignity, yet the sloka for the 11th lord in the Lagna is one of the warmest in the chapter. How much of it survives depends on which BPHS rule you apply. Ch. 24 Sl. 145-148 give a lord of negligible strength a quarter of its effects; Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60 set a graha's good effects at nil in debilitation. BPHS does not reconcile the two.

Yogas this placement can complete in this app

A yoga in this app is a rule run against your chart, and the yogas calculator lists every one that holds. These are the ones a 1st-house Sun can take part in. The percentages are how often each appeared in the same 16,509-chart sample described above. How common a yoga is matters before you read anything into it, which is the argument of what a yoga in your chart means.

Vesi, Vasi and Ubhayachari

Saravali Ch. 14 Sl. 1 and BPHS Ch. 38 Sl. 1 agree on the rule: a graha other than the Moon and the nodes in the 2nd sign from the Sun forms Vesi, one in the 12th forms Vasi (BPHS spells it Vosi), and grahas on both sides form Ubhayachari. With the Sun in the 1st house, the 2nd and 12th from the Sun are simply your 2nd and 12th houses. One of the three appeared in 89.9% of the sample: Ubhayachari 34.5%, Vesi 27.7%, Vasi 27.7%. Mercury and Venus never stray far from the Sun (in this engine's positions, Mercury never more than about 28 degrees and Venus about 47), so they supply many of these.

What the yoga means depends on who forms it. BPHS Ch. 38 Sl. 2-3 gives Vesi as even-sighted, truthful, tall, indolent and happy with little wealth; Vosi as skilful, charitable, famous, learned and strong; Ubhayachari as king-like and happy. Sl. 4 then says these effects hold when benefics form the yoga, and turn contrary when malefics do. Saravali gives a separate effect for each graha (Ch. 14 Sl. 3-5 and 7-9) and asks, at Sl. 10, that the strength of the Sun and of the causing graha be weighed. The app prints one line per yoga, so check which graha it names: a Saturn-formed Vesi is not the same claim as a Jupiter-formed one.

Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga

BPHS states this yoga twice. Ch. 41 Sl. 28 makes a Raj Yoga of any relationship between the lord of a kendra (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) and the lord of a trine (1st, 5th, 9th). Ch. 34 Sl. 11-12 spell the relationships out: an exchange of signs, the two lords together in a kendra or trine, a full aspect between them, or simply a trine lord placed in a kendra or a kendra lord placed in a trine. That last clause matters here. The Sun is a kendra lord when Leo is the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th house, which means Leo, Taurus, Aquarius or Scorpio rising, and a trine lord when Leo is the 1st, 5th or 9th: Leo, Aries or Sagittarius rising. The 1st house is both a kendra and a trine, so by Ch. 34's wording a 1st-house Sun completes the relationship by its own placement for Aries, Taurus, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Aquarius rising, and as Lagna lord in the Lagna for Leo.

This app's rule is narrower. It asks for two different lords, either in the same house or each aspecting the other; it does not count a lone placement, and exchanges are listed separately as Parivartana. The Sun aspects only the 7th house from itself (BPHS Ch. 26 Sl. 2-5: all grahas aspect the 7th fully), so from the 1st its partner must be in the 1st with it or in the 7th facing it. Even so, for those six rising signs the yoga is common, not rare: it named the Sun in 50.0% of the Aries-rising sample, 64.5% of Taurus, 62.9% of Leo, 44.3% of Scorpio, 66.2% of Sagittarius and 68.4% of Aquarius. For the other six it cannot involve the Sun at all.

BPHS carries the idea into timing as well: Ch. 48 Sl. 14-17½ say that when a trine lord sits in a kendra, or a kendra lord in a trine, the Dasha of any graha joined with it becomes favourable. And it goes on (Ch. 41 Sl. 29-34) to grade the yoga by the divisional dignities of the two lords, from merely royal to legendary. The app applies neither refinement, so a listed Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga says the link exists, not how strong it is.

Dharma-Karmadhipati and Raja Yoga

Dharma-Karmadhipati Yoga in this app is the 9th and 10th lords in the same house, that house being a kendra or a trine. Sagittarius rising makes the Sun the 9th lord and Mercury the 10th, and because Mercury so often travels with the Sun the yoga appeared in 57.7% of the Sagittarius-rising sample. Scorpio rising makes the Sun the 10th lord and the Moon the 9th, which needs the Moon in the Sun's sign, a birth near the new moon: 8.0%. The separate Raja Yoga the app takes from Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara is the 5th and 9th lords together. With Aries rising that is the Sun (5th) with Jupiter (9th) in the 1st, 9.1% of the sample; with Sagittarius rising, the Sun (9th) with Mars (5th), 12.9%.

Parivartana: the Lagna lord in Leo

A Parivartana Yoga is two grahas each in the other's sign. With the Sun in the 1st, its partner is the Lagna lord sitting in Leo. BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 14-17½ singles out two such exchanges. With Sagittarius rising and Jupiter in Leo, the 9th lord is in the Lagna and the Lagna lord in the 9th, and the Dashas of both are said to be extremely beneficial. With Scorpio rising and Mars in Leo, the 10th lord is in the Lagna and the Lagna lord in the 10th, and BPHS promises “acquisition of a kingdom” in both Dashas. Across the sample the Sun was in an exchange in 6.6% to 13.4% of charts, depending on the sign. Leo rising is excluded by definition, since the Sun is then in its own sign. For Taurus and Gemini rising it never formed, and it cannot: Venus or Mercury would have to sit in Leo, more signs from the Sun than either ever strays.

Dhan Yoga: Leo rising only

BPHS Ch. 41 Sl. 9 gives a wealth yoga that is this placement exactly: the Sun in Leo, the Leo being the Lagna, joined or aspected by Mars and by Jupiter. The engine requires both. Mars reaches the 1st from the 1st itself or by aspect from the 6th, 7th or 10th; Jupiter from the 1st, 5th, 7th or 9th. It appeared in 12.1% of the Leo-rising sample. The app's line for it reads the yoga as prosperity tied to personal capability rather than inheritance or luck.

Sarpa Yoga, and why Maala can never form

The two Nabhasa “Dala” yogas look at the four kendras. Both follow BPHS Ch. 35 Sl. 8, read with Saravali Ch. 21's “exclusively”. Maala Yoga needs benefics in at least three kendras and no malefic in any. A Sun in the 1st is a malefic in a kendra, so Maala can never form in these charts: it appeared in none of the 16,509. Sarpa Yoga is the mirror: malefics in at least three kendras and no benefic in any. With the Sun in the 1st, that means Mars and Saturn in two of the other three angles and Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and the Moon in none. 46 of the 16,509 charts (0.3%) meet it.

Until October 2026 the app formed Sarpa whenever every occupied kendra held only malefics. On that rule it appeared in 2,713 of these charts (16.4%); in 1,727 the 1st was the only occupied kendra, and in 1,267 the Sun was the only graha named. Saravali Ch. 21 Sl. 18 sets a still higher bar than BPHS, malefics in all the angles, and read literally fits none of them. If an older reading showed you Sarpa Yoga with only the Sun named, that was the looser rule, and the app no longer gives it.

What it cannot form

The Panchamahapurusha yogas belong to Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn alone (BPHS Ch. 75 Sl. 1-2, and the app's list), so an exalted or own-sign Sun in the 1st, a kendra, is not one of them. Vipareeta Raja Yoga needs a lord of the 6th, 8th or 12th sitting in one of those houses; a Sun in the 1st is in none, so it cannot be the graha that forms one.

Strength: what the measures do with a rising Sun

The Shad Bala calculator shows a 20-point version of the six-fold strength, built from Kannan's tables. For a Sun in the 1st house the six parts behave like this:

• Position (0-10): the dignity ladder above, 10 in Aries, 0 in Libra and in an enemy's sign.
• Direction (0-4): BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35-38 makes the Sun strong in the South, and the engine puts its peak in the 10th house. The 1st is three houses from the 10th, which the engine's own straight-line fall-off scores 2 of 4. That fall-off is the engine's interpolation, not a classical figure.
• Motion (0-1): the Sun earns the full point in the Uttarayana signs, Capricorn through Gemini, so with Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus or Gemini rising.
• Time (0-1): BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 35-38 makes the Sun strong only in daytime. The full point needs a day birth; a night birth gets half. Sun-in-1st births sit on that line.
• Natural (0-1): a fixed 0.875 for the Sun.
• Aspect (0-3): from the grahas that aspect the 1st house: 3 if only benefics do, 0 if only malefics, 1.5 if both or neither.

Planetary rays (Saravali Ch. 36) give the Sun 0 to 7 by its distance from its deepest debilitation at 10 degrees Libra. A Sun rising at 10 degrees Aries scores the full 7; one at 10 degrees Libra scores 0. The Kundali page shows each graha's rays.

The Navamsa is where Bhrigu Sutras' Leo-navamsa clause can be checked. Each navamsa is 3 degrees 20 minutes, and the Sun lands in the Leo navamsa in a fixed band of each sign that has one. The Navamsa calculator shows the Sun's D9 sign directly.

For Leo rising, the Leo-navamsa band is also where the Sun is vargottama, the same sign in both charts; the Navamsa article explains how this app computes it and why it needs a birth time to the minute. Across the sample the Sun was vargottama in 9% to 11.5% of charts for each rising sign, close to the one-in-nine the arithmetic predicts.

One more measure is a cost the Sun imposes on others. The engine marks a graha combust within its orb of the Sun (Moon 12 degrees, Mars 17, Mercury 14, Jupiter 11, Venus 10, Saturn 15) and sets its position strength to zero. With the Sun in the 1st, any combust graha is in the 1st or a neighbouring house; Mercury was combust on 43.4% of days from 1970 to 2015. Across all sixteen divisional charts, the Vimshopaka Bala calculator grades the Sun's dignity chart by chart.

Timing: the Sun's periods

BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 5-6 gives one test for every Dasha lord: the effects are favourable if at the start of the Dasha the lord is in the Lagna, exalted, in its own sign or in a friendly one; unfavourable if it is in the 6th, 8th or 12th, debilitated, or in an inimical sign. The engine applies that test to the birth chart: favourable when the dignity is strong or the lord is in the Lagna, provided the dignity is not weak and the house is not the 6th, 8th or 12th.

For the Sun the Lagna clause never changes the answer. The engine finds no sign in which the Sun is merely neutral: every sign comes out exalted, own, friendly, enemy or debilitated. So the Sun's Dasha verdict is its dignity verdict, favourable for the same seven rising signs, and over the 16,509-chart sample the two agreed every time. Note too that BPHS speaks of the Dasha lord's position at the start of the Dasha, and Ch. 48 Sl. 5-8 asks that the birth position and the position at the Dasha's start both be weighed. The app reads the birth chart only.

Ch. 47 Sl. 7-11 fill in the favourable side for the Sun: wealth, felicity and honours from government if the Sun at birth is in its own or exaltation sign, in a kendra (the 1st is one), in the 11th, joined with the lord of the 9th or 10th, and strong in its vargas. Sl. 12-15 list the troubles if it is debilitated, weak in the 6th, 8th or 12th, or joined with malefics or with those houses' lords, with some relief at times when benefics aspect it. The app's two lines for a Sun Mahadasha are “authority, recognition and steady gains, often tied to government, leadership or public standing” and “friction with authority, strain with father figures, and setbacks that call for a lower profile”.

BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 2-8 add that the house a Dasha lord rules colours its period: physical well-being for the Lagna lord (Leo rising), house and land for the 4th (Taurus), education and children for the 5th (Aries), recognition from government for the 10th (Scorpio), religious-mindedness and unexpected gains for the 9th (Sagittarius). For the 2nd, 7th and 8th lords (Cancer, Aquarius and Capricorn rising) BPHS uses the language of death; the app paraphrases those as financial, partnership and transformational strain. When the Sun's Mahadasha is the one running, the Kundali page shows its house theme beside the verdict.

BPHS also says when inside a Dasha the effects arrive (Ch. 47 Sl. 3-4). A lord in the first third of its sign, 0 to 10 degrees, delivers at the start of its Dasha; in the second third, in the middle; in the last third, at the end; a retrograde lord reverses the order, and the Sun is never retrograde. The app does not time anything by this rule, but the Drekkana calculator shows the third: by BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 7-8 the Sun's D3 sign is its own sign in the first third, the 5th sign from it in the second, and the 9th in the last.

The Sun's Vimshottari Mahadasha is six years of a 120-year cycle, and where it falls is set by the Moon's nakshatra at birth, not by the Sun, so it can come in childhood, in old age or after a hundred; in the sample chart below it begins in 2089, when the sample native would be 105. Every Mahadasha contains a Sun sub-period, though, and BPHS Ch. 52 Sl. 1-3 says the Sun's own sub-period inside its Mahadasha brings good results when the Sun is exalted, in its own sign, in the 11th, in a kendra or in a trine. The same sloka adds a stark caution where the Sun rules the 2nd or the 7th, Cancer or Aquarius rising, with a remedy this app does not prescribe. The Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives your dates; what a Mahadasha is and how its sub-periods work explain the arithmetic, and the Sun Mahadasha page covers the period itself.

BPHS names one alternative Dasha for this placement specifically. Ch. 46 Sl. 40-41 say Shastihayani Dasha may be adopted when the Sun is in the Lagna: Jupiter, the Sun and Mars run 10 years each, then the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Saturn and Rahu 6 years each, sixty years in all. This app computes it, reading Abhijit from the Moon's longitude, with a balance and dated periods by the rule "as in Vimshottari", which BPHS does not state and the app takes from a published reference outside it (Sanjay Rath). For Leo rising, though, the Lagna lord is in the Lagna, which is the stated condition for Dwisaptati-sama Dasha (Sl. 37-39), and the alternate Dashas calculator marks that system as applying to your chart. Transits are a different matter: this app reads Gochara from the natal Moon, not from the Lagna, so the Sun in the 1st changes nothing in the Gochar calculator.

A worked sample chart

A sample, not a person: 24 April 1984, 06:15 IST, Delhi (28.61 N, 77.21 E). The engine puts sunrise that morning at 05:47 and the Ascendant at 18.12 degrees Aries, with the Sun at 10.39 degrees Aries in the 1st house. The birth is 28 minutes after sunrise, so it counts as a day birth. At 10.39 degrees the Sun is in the middle third of Aries, which BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 3-4 ties to the middle of its Dasha.

• The Kundali reading: “Sun in your 1st house, exalted in Aries - classically favourable, tending toward real vitality and good conduct - capable of forming genuine Raja Yoga in exaltation, a classically strong placement.”
• Shad Bala 16.38 of 20, banded Strong: position 10, direction 2, motion 1 (Aries is an Uttarayana sign), time 1 (day birth), natural 0.875, aspect 1.5, because Jupiter from the 9th and Saturn from the 7th both aspect the 1st.
• Planetary rays 6.98 of 7: the Sun is 0.39 degrees from its deepest exaltation.
• Navamsa: the Sun is in Cancer, the fourth part of Aries, so not in the Leo navamsa and not vargottama.
• Yogas naming the Sun: Vasi (Venus in the 12th) and a Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga, the Sun as 5th lord and Saturn as 10th lord in mutual aspect across the 1st and 7th. Saturn, exalted in the 7th, also forms Sasa Yoga, a Panchamahapurusha yoga that is Saturn's, not the Sun's.
• Mercury shares the 1st house, combust and retrograde, so the engine gives it no position strength.
• Dasha verdict for the Sun: favourable, with the 5th-house theme “progress in education and happiness through children”. The Sun Mahadasha itself runs from 2089 to 2095.

Laid against the texts: BPHS Ch. 24 Sl. 49 is the sloka for this chart (the 5th lord in the Lagna), Ch. 34 Sl. 19-22 call the Sun auspicious for Aries, and Bhrigu Sutras' Aries clause applies, with Jupiter's aspect on the 1st from the 9th meeting the condition under which the sutra adds “highly learned”. Saturn's aspect from the 7th is a malefic one. None of this is a forecast. It shows which classical statements this chart satisfies, and on what arithmetic.

Checking it in your own chart

1. 1.Enter your birth date, a birth time as exact as you can find, and your birth place in the birth chart calculator. It lists each graha's sign, degree, house and combustion, the dignity of each classical graha, and every yoga the engine finds. If the Sun's house is 1, this page applies.
2. 2.Read your rising sign against the dignity table and the BPHS Ch. 24 table above: that gives the app's verdict, the house the Sun rules for you, and its Ch. 34 role.
3. 3.Read the Sun's degree. It tells you whether you were most likely born before or after sunrise, whether the Sun is in the Leo navamsa band, and which third of the sign, and so which part of its Dasha, BPHS points to.
4. 4.Open the Shad Bala calculator for the six components, and the Navamsa calculator for the Sun's D9 sign.
5. 5.In the yogas calculator, look for the yogas named above, and check which graha each one names before reading its line.
6. 6.Use the Vimshottari Dasha calculator to find when the Sun's Mahadasha and sub-periods run.
7. 7.Signed in, the Kundali page shows the Bhrigu-based reading sentence, the Yoga Karaka for your rising sign and the planetary rays. The Life Blueprint lists a favourable Sun-in-1st reading under Strengths and a testing one under Blind Spots, since all five testing signs are an enemy's sign or debilitation. The AI chat is handed the Sun's sign and house, its Shad Bala band and your yogas, not the reading sentence itself.

Common misreadings

• “My Sun in the 1st means my Western Sun sign is my rising sign.” This app uses the sidereal zodiac, and the Sun sign calculator gives the sidereal sign. The two zodiacs are about 24 degrees apart now (the ayanamsa calculator gives the figure for any date), so for most of each month a Western Sun sign is the next sign along. The Moon sign article explains the gap.
• “Favourable means good things will happen.” It means the placement meets the classical conditions the Bhrigu chapter attaches to its good readings. The texts themselves condition every clause on aspects, associations and lordship.
• “The Sun in the 1st gives a Raj Yoga.” The favourable reading says capable of forming one in exaltation. Whether the app lists one depends on a second graha, as the yoga section shows. BPHS Ch. 34's broader wording lets the placement qualify on its own for some rising signs, and the yoga the app lists most often, Kendra-Kona, appears in half or more of the charts where it can form, so neither should be read as rare.
• “A debilitated Sun in the 1st ruins the chart.” Bhrigu Sutras cancels the Libra ill effects under a Jupiter or Venus aspect, and BPHS Ch. 24 Sl. 121, the sloka a Libra-rising Sun falls under, is largely positive even if a weak lord delivers less of it. Testing means classically harder, not doomed.
• “The eye clauses are a diagnosis.” They are a classical association repeated across texts, explained by their own commentator as a matter of house position. They are not medical information.
• “A Sarpa Yoga naming only the Sun is a serious mark.” The app no longer lists one. Sarpa now needs malefics in three kendras, as BPHS sets it, so the Sun alone in the 1st never forms it; the old listing came from a weaker condition than either BPHS or Saravali sets.
• Confusing this with the Sun in the 1st from the Moon. BPHS Ch. 12 Sl. 11 applies the Lagna's tests to the Moon too, but this app's planet-in-house readings count houses from the Lagna only.

Questions

Does the Sun in the 1st house mean I was born at sunrise?

Near it. On every day of 2024, at the four Indian cities measured, every Sun-in-1st minute fell between about 2 hours 15 minutes before sunrise and 2 hours 23 minutes after it. The Sun's degree in its sign tells you which side is more likely: early in the sign, after sunrise; late in the sign, before.

Is the Sun good or bad in the 1st house?

The texts split. Bhrigu Sutras opens with good health, wisdom and good conduct, then attaches eye, temper and sign-specific clauses; Saravali leans harsher; BPHS classes the Sun as a malefic, which its Lagna slokas count against appearance and health, while making the Lagna lord, which the Sun is for Leo rising, specially auspicious. This app reads it as favourable for seven rising signs and testing for five, decided by the Sun's dignity in that sign.

Which rising sign is strongest for a 1st-house Sun?

By dignity, Aries (exalted) and Leo (own sign and Moolatrikona). By lordship BPHS Ch. 34 makes the Sun a Yoga Karaka for Scorpio rising and able to confer a yoga for Sagittarius rising, and Ch. 34 Sl. 13 makes it specially a Yoga Karaka for Leo, where it rules the 1st. Only Leo rising can form the Ch. 41 Sl. 9 wealth yoga.

What if my Sun is debilitated in Libra in the 1st house?

The app reads it as testing. Bhrigu Sutras says its ill effects are not felt if Jupiter or Venus aspects the Sun. The BPHS sloka for the 11th lord in the Lagna, which is what the Sun is for Libra rising, gives wealth, happiness and eloquence, but BPHS also reduces a weak lord's good effects: to a quarter by Ch. 24 Sl. 145-148, to nil in debilitation by Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60.

Does the Sun in the 1st house cause eye problems?

Bhrigu Sutras, Saravali and the Brihat Jataka lines Bhrigu Sutras quotes all associate the placement with the eyes, and Bhrigu Sutras' commentator explains the link by house position: the 1st is the 12th from the 2nd, the house of eyesight. That is a classical association, not a medical finding, and this app does not make health predictions from it.

Which house does a 1st-house Sun aspect?

Only the 7th. BPHS Ch. 26 says all grahas aspect the 7th fully, and the Sun has no special aspects. That is why, in this app, the right kind of house lord sitting in the 7th can form a Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga with a 1st-house Sun by mutual aspect.

When will the effects of this placement show?

BPHS times graha effects through Dashas. The Sun's Mahadasha and its sub-periods inside every other Mahadasha are the windows, and Ch. 47 Sl. 3-4 place the effects early, midway or late in the Dasha by which third of its sign the Sun occupies. The Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives the dates.

Why does the app call my Sun favourable when a book I read says otherwise?

Because the app applies one gate, dignity in a non-dusthana house, and the books attach many other conditions. Bhrigu Sutras' cautions for Cancer, Virgo and Pisces, and BPHS Ch. 34 calling the Sun a malefic for Pisces rising, all sit on signs the gate reads as favourable. Both are on this page so you can weigh them.

My birth time is uncertain. Can I still use this page?

Only if the Sun stays in the 1st across your whole range of doubt. Run the birth chart calculator at both ends of the range; if the Sun moves to the 12th or the 2nd, this placement is not settled for you.

Related pages

• The Sun in the other houses: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th.
• Other grahas in the 1st house: Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu.
• The signs that matter most here: Aries (exaltation), Leo (own sign) and Libra (debilitation).
• Timing: the Sun Mahadasha, and the timing feature that sets the Dasha against your other cycles.