Jyotish Astrology. Constructing the Natal Chart (Rashi)

Indian Jyotish astrology uses birth data in its work, which include: the day of birth, the year of birth, the place of birth, and a birth time accurate to within 2 minutes. From these data, the starting point of your life is calculated. Astrologers call this point (and in Jyotish it is rather an area) the rising constellation, or Lagna. The word “Lagna” comes from the Sanskrit root lag (lag), which means “to hold,” “to cling,” “to stick.” This is the point of contact between the soul and reality, the time when the soul “caught on” to the body.

Let us understand how all this is used and how not to make mistakes when you create your own chart.

Let us move to the equator on the date of April 14, within a range of plus or minus 75 years from the current year. At the equator, at this time, the Sun rises exactly at 6 a.m., and at the same time, opposite it, the star Spica (Chitra in Jyotish) of the constellation Libra sets. This simultaneous setting of the star and rising of the Sun is the reference point for the sidereal zodiac. Astrologers call this point 0 Aries.

From this point, it is necessary to divide the sky into 12 equal segments, forming a circle of 12 areas. Because of difficulties in translation from Sanskrit, they were called houses, although the word bhava, in addition to the meaning “house,” also has the meaning “area.” And for the sky, it is more logical to use this meaning.

Each such area of the sky contains a group of stars; we call these groups constellations. But constellations are distributed unevenly across the sky: some fall more into this area of the sky, some less. It even happens that more than one constellation falls into one area.

There are also inaccuracies with the constellations: around the 1st–4th centuries CE, the Greeks renamed all the constellations. Here is the list of changes:

Mesha (Aries): A ram, symbolizing primordial fire, impulsive energy, and leadership.

Vrishabha (Taurus): A bull, personifying earthly stability, material resources, and persistence.

Mithuna (Gemini): A man with a club and a woman with a lute, symbolizing communication, a couple, and a creative union.

Karka (Cancer): A water crab, denoting home, deep emotions, maternal care, and intuition.

Simha (Leo): A regal lion in the forest, embodying nobility, power, ego, and strength of spirit.

Kanya (Virgo): A girl in a boat with ears of wheat and fire, symbolizing purity, harvest, and service.

Tula (Libra): A person at a market with scales in hand, personifying balance, trade, and diplomacy.

Vrishchika (Scorpio): A scorpion hiding in a burrow, as a symbol of secrets, mysticism, transformation, and crises.

Dhanu (Sagittarius): A centaur archer aiming upward, signifying the highest goal, law, philosophy, and Dharma.

Makara (Capricorn): A mythical dragon with a deer’s head and a fish’s tail, symbolizing hidden ambitions and work.

Kumbha (Aquarius): A person carrying an empty clay pitcher, as a symbol of asceticism, service, and secret knowledge.

Mina (Pisces): Two fish swimming in opposite directions, symbolizing moksha (liberation) and the ocean of consciousness.

At the equator, each constellation crosses the horizon every 2 hours; astrologers say that the constellation rises, or that it is a rising constellation. Therefore, for the equator, calculating the rising constellation at the moment of your birth is very simple. On April 14, beginning at 6 a.m., all constellations rise one after another. If you had been born from 6 to 8 a.m., your rising constellation would have been Aries; from 8 to 10 a.m., Taurus, and so on. For the equator, there would be no need to enter a location; the date and time of birth would be enough.

Difficulties appear when we begin to move from the equator to the north or south: because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis, the constellations begin to rise unevenly, one faster and another slower. Of course, this formula for calculating the Lagna can be used further as well. But the farther from the equator, the more difficult the calculations will be. After all, the Sun no longer rises at 6 a.m., and a difference in the speed of the constellations’ rising appears. Therefore, astrologers begin to take the place of birth into account as well.

At a distance of approximately plus or minus 1,000 kilometers from the place of birth, local time will change by 1 hour. That is, within a range of 10–15 km, there is a change of one minute. This means that you can choose a place of birth within a diameter of 30 km from your place of birth, and if we say that we need an accuracy of 2 minutes, then within a diameter of 60 km from the place of birth.

But in everyday life we do not use local time; we use a time zone. And to form a time zone, people chose point zero, which is located at the longitude of London.

Greenwich (a historic district of London) has the longitude 0° 0' 0".

It is precisely through the building of the Greenwich Observatory that the Greenwich (or zero) meridian passes, which serves as the reference point for geographical longitude and time zones for the entire planet. Everything east of Greenwich has east longitude (up to 180°), and everything west has west longitude. Therefore, the time adjustment for a time zone is determined as an adjustment to Greenwich. GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time.

But in addition to the adjustment by Greenwich, there is also the transition to winter and summer time, which depended strongly on political decisions. And now, without special time-conversion tables, it is difficult to say exactly what time was used in a particular political period. For example, in the USSR many republics used Moscow time.

All these nuances complicated astrologers’ work, and they stopped doing manual calculations; now programs do them. But programs often produce errors: even skilled programmers introduce bugs, which are corrected over time. Therefore, it is very important to understand whether a program made a mistake or not.

Therefore, in order to calculate the data of your astrological chart, it is necessary to enter your birth data carefully. Namely: the day, year, and time of birth. Then you need to determine the place of birth; for this, you need to figure out whether your place of birth is to the right of London on the map or to the left. For those born to the right of London, longitude will be marked with the letter E (from English east — east), and for those to the left, longitude will be marked with the letter W (from English west — west). This is easy to remember: western films, derived from west, are America, so the opposite for Ukraine or India will be east—east longitude. If the calculation program shows you the correct direction, that is already good. You can make a request on the internet and enter the coordinates of your place of birth. They should coincide with the value in the program; a difference occurs, but it is usually insignificant, often up to half a degree—such accuracy is acceptable.

It is also worth paying attention to the automatic calculation of the GMT offset; it can also be checked on the internet, but make sure to specify the year for your birth data. As I said above, the offset from Greenwich changed with political decisions. For example, you could search for “What was Kyiv's GMT offset on April 14, 2026?”, substituting your own birth date and place. If you entered all the birth data correctly, the program will calculate them without errors. And you will be able to find your Lagna.

When the time of birth is unknown, there are two paths: to do rectification—a clarification of the time of birth—or to use the position of the Moon as the calculation point. Rectification does not find the exact time of birth—it is always an assumption; moreover, rectifications down to minutes in Western and Indian astrology will differ. Every astrologer has their own methods for finding the time of birth; it is always more of a creative process than a mathematical one.

The position of the Moon is not simple either. Indian astrology can work without the time of birth, although half of the methods will be erroneous. For example, a planet that occupies the first house receives additional points of strength in shad-bala, while we place the Moon there, which automatically makes it stronger. But even this approach will still make it possible to forecast events and will be able to describe the personality. But it is worth paying attention to the fact that forecasts and descriptions will be incomplete and imprecise. However, in my work I have met people who live according to a chart from the Moon, ignoring the chart from the time of birth. So here it depends on how lucky you personally are.

The Moon changes constellations roughly every two and a half days, and that extra half-day complicates matters. This means that on the same day, the Moon may be in one constellation for the first half of the day and another for the second half. Therefore, it is also important to know whether you were born during the day or at night. But if you do not know, build two charts: one for 0:00 and the other for 12:00, and compare the results. Whichever results suit you better, use those as a basis.

To see where to enter your birth details on Hidden World, read the article Astrology without an Astrologer.

To understand the differences between the methods of Western astrology and Indian Jyotish astrology, read the article Jyotish and Western Astrology: Differences.

To understand the philosophical differences between Western astrology and Jyotish, read the article Jyotish and Western Astrology: What Is the Essence.