A Kundli is a map of the sky at the minute and place you were born. The horizon, the zodiac and the nine grahas are frozen at that moment and drawn as a square (North Indian style) or a diamond (South Indian style). Everything a Vedic astrologer says about you starts from this one drawing.
Three anchors before anything else
Beginners get lost because a chart has dozens of things to look at. Experienced readers look at three first. The Lagna is the sign rising in the east at birth — it sets the frame of the whole chart and describes how you meet the world. The Moon sign (Chandra rashi) is where the Moon sits; Vedic practice treats it as the mind, and most horoscopes follow it. The Sun sign is vitality and purpose, and it is usually different from your Western Sun sign because Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac.
Houses: where things happen
Counting from the Lagna, the twelve houses cover the areas of life — self, wealth, siblings, home, children, health, partnership, longevity, fortune, career, gains and loss. Jyotish Drishti uses the whole-sign system, in which each house is exactly one sign, so a planet's house is never ambiguous.
Grahas: who is acting
- Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn are the seven visible grahas.
- Rahu and Ketu are the Moon's nodes — mathematical points, always opposite each other.
- Each graha rules certain signs and is strong (exalted, own sign) or weak (debilitated) in others.
What a reading actually does
A reading layers the three anchors, the strength of the house lords, any notable yogas (planetary combinations) and the running dasha period to say which themes are active and when. A single placement rarely decides anything; agreement between several indicators is what a careful astrologer looks for.
Jyotish Drishti ನಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿ
Generate your free Kundli →