The birth chart, house by house

What a kundli records

A kundli or janma-kundali is a diagram of the sky at a particular moment, seen from a particular place. It records two kinds of information: where each graha (the Sun, the Moon, the five visible planets and the lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu) stood in the sidereal zodiac, and which sign was rising on the eastern horizon. That rising sign is the Lagna, the ascendant. Everything else in the chart is arranged around it.

A kundli is a record of positions computed with a stated Ayanāṃśa, usually Lahiri in India. Reading it is a matter of a long interpretive tradition, which is what the Hora branch of Jyotisha studies.

Two ways to draw it

North Indian style. A square divided by its diagonals and by lines joining the midpoints of its sides into twelve cells. The cells are fixed as houses: the top central diamond is always the first house, and the houses run anticlockwise. The sign in each house is written as a number (1 for Mesha, 2 for Vrishabha and so on).

South Indian style. A square border of twelve cells with an empty centre. Here the cells are fixed as signs: Meena is always in the top-left cell, Mesha next to it, and the signs run clockwise. The lagna is marked with a diagonal stroke or the letters "La" or "Asc".

Both show exactly the same information. The North Indian style makes houses easy to see; the South Indian style makes signs easy to see. Our article on houses and signs explains why that distinction matters.

There is also an East Indian style, used in Bengal and Odisha, which, like the South Indian, fixes the signs.

Counting houses

In the system most widely used today, whole-sign houses, the sign occupied by the lagna is the first house, the next sign the second house, and so on round the zodiac. Another approach, the bhava chalit chart, divides houses around the exact degree of the lagna, so that a graha near a sign boundary may fall in a different house. Both are discussed in classical texts and both are taught.

The twelve houses

Classical texts such as the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra and Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka assign each house (bhava) a range of significations. What follows is a short, conventional summary of the topics each house is said to concern, not a statement about any person.

1. Tanu bhava (first): the body and the self, the starting point of the chart.
2. Dhana bhava (second): family, speech, accumulated resources.
3. Sahaja bhava (third): younger siblings, effort, short journeys, communication.
4. Sukha bhava (fourth): mother, home, land, vehicles, inner contentment.
5. Putra bhava (fifth): children, intellect, learning, past merit.
6. Ari bhava (sixth): obstacles, disputes, debts, service.
7. Yuvati bhava (seventh): partnership, marriage, others in relation to the self.
8. Randhra bhava (eighth): longevity, the hidden, sudden change, inheritance.
9. Dharma bhava (ninth): father, teachers, dharma, long journeys, fortune.
10. Karma bhava (tenth): work, status, public action.
11. Labha bhava (eleventh): gains, elder siblings, networks, aspirations.
12. Vyaya bhava (twelfth): loss, expenditure, foreign lands, withdrawal, liberation.

House groupings

The tradition groups houses in ways that recur throughout chart reading.

• Kendra (angles): houses 1, 4, 7 and 10. The word comes from Greek kentron. These are considered the pillars of the chart.
• Trikoṇa (trines): houses 1, 5 and 9. These are associated with dharma and merit.
• Dusthana (difficult houses): 6, 8 and 12.
• Upachaya (houses of growth): 3, 6, 10 and 11, where results are said to improve with time.
• Maraka houses: 2 and 7, discussed in classical texts in connection with longevity.

The first house belongs to both the kendra and the trikona groups, which is one reason the lagna carries so much weight. Square (kendra) and trine (trikona) structures are the subject of two modules of our programme.

The house lord

Each house contains a sign, and each sign has a ruling graha: Mars rules Mesha and Vrishchika, Venus rules Vrishabha and Tula, Mercury rules Mithuna and Kanya, the Moon rules Karka, the Sun rules Simha, Jupiter rules Dhanu and Meena, and Saturn rules Makara and Kumbha. The ruler of the sign in a house is the lord of that house. Much of classical interpretation consists of following lords: where the lord of one house is placed, and with whom.

Reading carefully

A chart is a structured set of relationships. Classical authors warn repeatedly against judging from a single factor, and the commentaries spend pages reconciling rules that seem to conflict. A responsible reading weighs the lagna, the house lords, the grahas, the signs and the periods together, and it remains an interpretation within a tradition.

Try it

Draw your chart in both styles with the Kundli tool, and see which classical combinations it identifies with the Yogas tool.

Taught in

Houses and their groupings are Module 5 (Qualities of Houses) of our Certificate Programme in Predictive Astrology, offered as FORE × Deepanshu Giri Ji. The programme has 60 hours of learning engagement: 30 hours of live teaching on weekends and 30 hours of self-paced research. The fee is ₹35,000 + applicable GST. Module 7 covers the Bhav Chalit and Rasi charts, and Modules 9 and 10 cover square and trine structures.