Reading an old handwritten kundli: a method

Why this matters

A handwritten janma-patrika is a historical document as well as a chart. It records how a local astrologer computed time and position in a particular decade, often with traditional tables. Reading it carefully lets a family recover birth data that may survive nowhere else, and shows the student how classical computation worked in practice. Our aim is to read the document, not to reinterpret the person's life.

Step 1: Preserve and photograph

Photograph every page flat, in daylight, with a scale and colour card where possible. Never write on the original. Number the images and keep them with the transcription.

Step 2: Transcribe

Transcribe line by line in the original script, then romanise it. Mark doubtful readings in square brackets. Typical headings include the samvat year, the ayana (northern or southern course of the Sun), the season, the lunar month, the paksha (bright or dark fortnight), the Tithi, the vara (weekday), the Nakṣatra with its elapsed and remaining ghatis, the yoga and karana, and the ishta-kala, the time of birth counted in ghatis and palas from sunrise.

Step 3: Identify the calendar

Determine whether the year is in Vikram samvat (about 57 years ahead of the Common Era) or Shaka samvat (about 78 years behind), and whether months are reckoned purnimanta (ending at full Moon, common in North India) or amanta (ending at new Moon, common in the South and West). Getting this wrong shifts the date by a fortnight or a year.

Step 4: Convert date and time

With the tithi, paksha, month and year fixed, find the Gregorian date on which that tithi prevailed at sunrise and that weekday matches. The weekday is an excellent check. Then convert the ishta-kala: one ghati is twenty-four minutes and one pala twenty-four seconds. Add the result to local sunrise for the place of birth, computed with a stated convention, and convert local mean time to standard time if necessary. Many older documents predate standard time zones in daily use, so record which assumption you make.

Step 5: Recompute the chart

Recompute the Lagna and graha positions with a modern ephemeris. Run it twice: once with the Lahiri Ayanāṃśa, and once with an ayanamsa close to the one implied by the document's own positions. Older handmade charts often used tables based on the Sūrya Siddhānta or on the almanac of a particular region, and their positions can differ by a degree or more from modern values.

Step 6: Compare and log

Compare sign by sign and graha by graha. Record each discrepancy in a table with a probable cause: ayanamsa, computation basis, sunrise convention, time-zone assumption, copying error or uncertain reading. The Daśā balance at birth, if written, is a sensitive check, because it depends directly on the Moon's position within its nakshatra.

Step 7: Report

Write a short report that states the recovered birth data with its uncertainty, the assumptions made and the discrepancies found. Return the original and the report to the family. If the lagna falls near a sign boundary, say so plainly rather than choosing one.

Sources and context

Manuscript conventions for time and calendar are discussed in David Pingree's work on Sanskrit astronomical literature, and S. R. Sarma's studies of Indian astronomical instruments explain how time was measured in practice before clocks were common. K. V. Sarma's editions show how regional computational traditions, such as the Kerala one, kept their own tables.

Limits

The method recovers what the document encodes. It cannot establish whether the original time was itself correct.