Learn Jyotish

Plain-language guides to every building block of your chart.

• Start with the basics

  A Kundli is a snapshot of the sky at the moment and place of your birth, drawn as twelve houses holding the twelve signs and nine grahas.

• The 9 Planets

  The nine grahas — Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the nodes Rahu and Ketu — are the actors of the chart.

• The 12 Signs

  The twelve rashis are the backdrop the grahas act against — each an element (fire, earth, air, water) and a mode (movable, fixed, dual).

• The 12 Houses

  The twelve bhavas map life's terrain: self, wealth, siblings, home, children, service, partnership, transformation, fortune, career, gains and release.

• The 27 Nakshatras

  The 27 nakshatras divide the zodiac into lunar mansions of 13°20′ each; the Moon's nakshatra at birth seeds the dasha sequence and the traditional name syllables.

• Yogas

  A yoga is a named combination — lords exchanging signs, planets in mutual kendras — with a traditional signification.

• Doshas

  A dosha is an affliction pattern. Tradition also lists cancellations for each, and a mitigated dosha reads very differently from an active one.

• Dashas

  Dashas are planetary periods — the chart's timing system. Vimshottari, seeded by the Moon's nakshatra, is the default in most of India.