01The idea in one sentence
The planets never stop moving, and their arrangement is different at every instant and every place on Earth. Your kundli freezes that arrangement for your birth — seen from your birthplace, at your exact minute. Jyotish then reads that frozen sky for meaning.
A kundli is the sky, stopped — your personal astronomical fingerprint.
The twelve bhavas — self, wealth, courage, home, creativity, health, partnership, transformation, fortune, career, gains and release — anchored by the lagna.
02What a kundli contains
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Lagna
The ascendant — the sign rising on the eastern horizon at your birth. It anchors the whole chart and shapes temperament, vitality and how you meet the world.
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Rashi
The Moon's sign — in Vedic astrology the seat of the mind and emotions. It is what your daily rashifal is based on.
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Nakshatra
Your birth star — one of 27 lunar mansions, each split into four padas. It adds a finer layer of personality and drives the dasha timing system.
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Nine grahas
Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu — each with a sign, a precise degree, and aspects (drishti) onto other houses.
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Dashas
The Vimshottari dasha maps your life into planetary periods — showing which graha is running, and therefore which themes are active now.
03Sidereal, not the zodiac you know
| Sidereal (Vedic) | Tropical (Western) | |
|---|---|---|
| Anchored to | The fixed stars | The seasons (equinoxes) |
| Correction | Lahiri ayanamsa — ≈24° today | None |
| Reads first | The Moon (rashi) | The Sun (star sign) |
| Your sign | Often one sign back | The one you grew up with |
04How a kundli is calculated
Three inputs produce everything: your date, time and place of birth. From these, an ephemeris computes every planet's exact sidereal longitude, the rising sign, the house cusps and the dasha timeline. AskVeda uses the Swiss Ephemeris — the same high-precision engine professional astrologers trust — so nothing is approximated.
What casting a kundli needsAll three · no approximations
✓Date of birth — sets the slower placements: planet signs and the dasha epoch.
✓Time of birth — the lagna shifts roughly every two hours; time decides your entire house framework.
✓Place of birth — the same minute shows a different sky from a different horizon.
✓Time uncertain? Your rashi and nakshatra stay reliable; the house framework turns approximate.
05Kundli vs horoscope vs rashifal
| Kundli | Rashifal / horoscope | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your full birth chart | A short daily forecast |
| Built from | All grahas, houses and dashas | Your moon sign alone |
| Unique to you | Yes — fixed for life | Shared by your whole rashi |
| Depth | The deep source | A thin daily slice of it |