Reading the North Indian Chart

Reading a chart step by step

Every chart in this book, and every chart I read in class, is opened in the same order. Do it the same way every time, so that it becomes automatic.

You make the chart in software (Chapter A1). Here is exactly what I do in class with a chart from the software: I take a screenshot of the chart and put it on my screen, or print it, and keep it beside the table of rashis (Chapter A3). Then:

1. Know the houses by position. The top diamond is the 1st; count counter-clockwise to the 12th.
2. Find the lagna. Read the number in the top diamond and turn it into its rashi.
3. Write the rashi in every house. Go counter-clockwise, adding one each time; after 12 comes 1. Beside every number, write the name of its rashi in a different colour: 8 becomes Vrischika, 9 becomes Dhanu, and so on round the chart.
4. Locate the grahas. Decode each short name (Su, Mo, Ma, Me, Ju, Ve, Sa, Ra, Ke) and say three facts about it: which graha, in which rashi, in which house. Grahas written in the same box are in yuti, conjunction.
5. Find the lagna lord. Take the rashi of the 1st house, find its lord (Chapter A3), and see in which house that lord is sitting.

Only then do we start predicting, and we always follow the order we have learnt: house, then rashi, then graha.

If you learn it like this, step by step, you will understand. You have to do it again and again, so that it gets memorised.

Finding the house of any rashi

Often you know the rashi and want the house: Shani is in the box with 12; which house is that? My way in class is to count. Put your finger on the top diamond and say "first", then move counter-clockwise, "second, third", until you reach the box. When I showed the class where Shukra had gone, I counted it out loud: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, into the 8th house.

You can also work it out from the numbers alone, without the chart in front of you:

House = rashi number − lagna number + 1. If the result is zero or less, add 12.

With Kanya (6) as lagna, rashi 10 gives 10 − 6 + 1 = 5. It is the 5th house. Rashi 2 gives 2 − 6 + 1 = −3; add 12 and you get 9. It is the 9th house.

The other way round, to find which rashi sits in a given house:

Rashi = lagna number + house number − 1. If the result is more than 12, subtract 12.

With Kanya (6) as lagna, the 3rd house holds 6 + 3 − 1 = 8, Vrischika. The 9th house holds 6 + 9 − 1 = 14; subtract 12 and you get 2, Vrishabha.

Finding the lagna lord

Who is the lord of the 1st house, and in which house is he sitting? This is the first question I ask of every chart after reading the rashis. The method is always the same: read the number in the house, turn it into the rashi, find the lord of that rashi, and then look for where that lord is sitting in the chart.

The graha that rules the rashi in your 1st house is your lagna lord, and the master of the 1st house is the raja, the king, of the chart. Whatever number is written in the 1st house, take its rashi, then that rashi's owner: number 8 in the 1st means a Vrischika lagna, and the lagna lord is Mangala. For these first drills take Mangala for Vrischika and Shani for Kumbha, as I did in the first classes; Chapter A3 tells you about Ketu and Rahu. Here is how I showed it to the class, on three charts.

Chart one. What number is written in the top diamond? 8. Now go to the table of lords (Chapter A3): the lord of 8 is Mangal. So you have to find, in this kundli, where Mangal has gone. Look for "Ma", because "Ma" means Mars and Mars means Mangal. He is in the 10th house. So we say: the lagna lord, the master of the 1st house, Mangal, has gone into the 10th house.

Chart two. Here 11 is written in the top diamond. The lagna is of number 11, which is Kumbha, and its master is Shani. Where has Shani gone? Count: first, second, third house. The master of number 11, Shani, has gone into the 3rd house.

Chart three. Here 2 is written. 2 is Vrishabha, and its master is Shukra. Where is Shukra in the chart? Count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Shukra has gone into the 8th house.

You must understand this one sequence: what is written on the lagna, which rashi it is, who its master is, and where that master went. If it is not clear, I can teach it not four times but ten times. What each lagna lord does in each of the twelve houses is taught in Chapter B1. For now, practise only the finding.

Drills from the classroom

These are the charts I used in the basics classes and in the recaps at the start of the house lectures. Do each one yourself first, on paper, and then check against the answer.

Drill 1: Simha in the 1st house

The chart has 5 in the top diamond, and then, counter-clockwise, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3 and 4. This is the order you will see whenever 5 rises.

In class I did not start from the top. I started from the box with number 1 and asked: which rashi is here, and which house is it? Number 1 is Mesha, and that box is the 9th house. So Mesha rashi is in the 9th house. Then I went on round the chart.

Check yourself with the formula: rashi 1 with lagna 5 gives 1 − 5 + 1 = −3, plus 12 = 9. The 9th house.

Drill 2: In which rashi is each graha?

The second chart came out of software, somebody's kundli. Going round the chart, the numbers were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and then 1 and 2 again. First turn every number into its rashi: 3 is Mithuna, 4 Karka, 5 Simha, 6 Kanya, 7 Tula, 8 Vrischika, 9 Dhanu, 10 Makara, 11 Kumbha, 12 Mina, 1 Mesha and 2 Vrishabha.

Then, before we even look at houses, read the rashi of each graha.

• "Sa" is Shani Maharaj, Saturn. He is in the box with 12. Number 12 is Mina, so Shani is in Mina rashi.
• "Ma" means Mars, and Mars means Mangal. He is in the box with 9. Number 9 is Dhanu, so Mangal is in Dhanu rashi.
• "Ke", "Su" and "Me" are written together in the box with 7. "Ke" is Ketu, "Su" is the Sun, Surya, and "Me" is Mercury, whom we call Budh. Number 7 is Tula, so all three are in Tula rashi.

This is the first habit to build: the number represents the rashi, and the short name tells you who is sitting in it.

Drill 3: A Vrischika lagna made in class

Next I made a chart in software in front of the class, took a screenshot and put it on my screen. Going round from the top diamond, the numbers were 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Beside each number I wrote its rashi in another colour: 8 Vrischika, 9 Dhanu, 10 Makara, 11 Kumbha, 12 Mina, 1 Mesha, 2 Vrishabha, 3 Mithuna, 4 Karka, 5 Simha, 6 Kanya, 7 Tula.

This very first house we call the lagna. If anyone asks you which rashi is in the 1st house, it is the rashi of number 8, Vrischika. In the 2nd is number 9, Dhanu. In the 3rd, number 10, Makara. In the 4th, number 11, Kumbha. In the 5th, number 12, Mina.

Then the grahas:

• "Su" and "Ke" are in the box with 5. 5 is Simha, so Ketu and Surya are both in Simha rashi.
• "Mo" and "Ma" are in the box with 6. "Mo" is the Moon, Chandrama, and "Ma" is Mars, Mangal. 6 is Kanya, so Chandrama and Mangal are in Kanya rashi.
• "Sa" is in the box with 12. 12 is Mina, so Shani is in Mina rashi. And in which house? The box with 12 is the 5th house. So Shani is in Mina rashi, in the 5th house.
• "Ju", Jupiter, is in the box with 3. 3 is Mithuna, so Jupiter is in Mithuna rashi.

Drill 4: A Dhanu lagna

This was the first student chart we read in the basics class, done exactly the way I had just taught. In the 8th-house lecture I set the same start as a recap: suppose a chart starts from number 9.

Number 9 is in the top diamond. What does 9 represent? Dhanu. So the 1st house has Dhanu. Then 10 is Makara, 11 Kumbha, 12 Mina, 1 Mesha, 2 Vrishabha, and in the same way you can write out all the rest.

Before any prediction, I said the whole chart out loud, and you should learn to do the same. The 1st house has Ketu, in Dhanu rashi. The 2nd house has Makara, and Mangal is in Makara. The 6th house has Vrishabha rashi, and Shani is there. The 7th house has Mithuna, and in Mithuna there is a yuti of Rahu and Guru. The 9th house has Simha rashi, and in Simha we have Chandrama. The 11th house has Tula rashi, and in it are Shukra, Surya and Budh.

Then the lagna lord. The lord of Dhanu is Devguru Brihaspati. Where is Brihaspati sitting? In the 7th house, in Mithuna, with Rahu. What that reading went on to say is in Chapter B13, with the other readings from the live class.

Drill 5: The class test from the fifth-house lecture

At the start of the fifth-house lecture I tested the class with two questions.

First: 6 is written in the top diamond. Which house is it, and what does the 6 represent? It is the 1st house, and the 6 represents Kanya rashi: not Tula, and not the 6th house. One student answered "Libra". No: 6 is not Libra, 6 is Kanya, Virgo. This is the question the class stumbled on.

Second: suppose 3 is written in another box. Which rashi is it, and which house? Count from the top: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth house. One student wrote: "It is the seventh house and Gemini." Keep counting: seventh, eighth, ninth, and the box has become the 10th house. So the house is the 10th. Number 3 represents Mithuna, Gemini. The rashi was right; the house was not. I told another student the same thing the other way round: "You are correct on the house, but work a little on the rashi." If you do not learn this properly, you will make mistakes.

The rotated chart: a first look

Now one more method, which you will use all through this book. For a question about another person, make that person's house the temporary lagna, and read the chart from there. We call it rotating the axis. To see the father's chart, for example, make the 9th the lagna and keep the 9th at the centre.

Example: your father wants to buy property. Your father is the 9th house. So to look at your father's property, make the 9th house the new 1st. Count: the 9th is the new first, the 10th is the second, the 11th is the third, the 12th is the fourth. The 4th house (home, property) from the 9th falls on the 12th of your chart.

So your father's property purchase is read from your 12th house. Again: father is the 9th, his property is the 4th from there, which is your 12th house. In Chapter B0 I give you the full list of such relations.

The three questions you will ask in every chapter

When we read any house, we ask exactly three things:

1. Which house is it? What area of life is this?
2. Which rashi is in the house? What is the environment?
3. Which grahas are in it, and where is the lord of the house sitting? Who acts, and where does the energy go?

These three questions are the engine of the whole book. Keep them in mind.

After the basics

If you have learned this much, understand that you have got the basics: which number shows which rashi, which graha is in which rashi, and in which house. After this come the theorems: what the nature of a rashi is, what Mithuna rashi means, what we see from the 1st house, and so on through the twelve.

But you will have to see this on every chart. Practise it on every chart you can find. If you practise two or three times, you will understand how I look at a kundli, and at least this much you should understand of your own chart.

If the basics are not clear, you cannot study astrology. You must understand the basics.

Remember

• Open every chart in the same order: houses by position, the lagna, the rashi in every house, the grahas, the lagna lord.
• The top diamond is always the 1st house. The number in it is the lagna rashi; count up by one, counter-clockwise; after 12 comes 1.
• Decode every short name and say three facts: graha, rashi, house. Several grahas in one box are a yuti.
• House of a rashi = rashi − lagna + 1 (add 12 if zero or less). Or simply count from the top diamond.
• Lagna lord: number in the 1st, its rashi, its lord, and the house where the lord sits. For now take Mangala for Vrischika and Shani for Kumbha; add Ketu and Rahu in your notebook.
• Before predicting, say the whole chart aloud, house by house.
• To read a relative, rotate the axis: make that person's house the temporary lagna. Your father's property is your 12th house.
• Ask three questions of every house: which house, which rashi, which grahas, and where its lord sits.

Check yourself

1. A chart shows 6 in the top diamond. What rashi is in the 3rd house?

• aKanya
• bTula
• cVrischika

2. Lagna is Kanya (6). A graha sits in the box with the number 10. Which house is it in?

• a4th
• b5th
• c6th

3. In the Simha-lagna drill I started from the box with number 1. Which house was it?

• aThe 1st
• bThe 5th
• cThe 9th

4. Lagna is Vrischika (8) and "Sa" is in the box with 12. What do you say?

• aShani is in the 12th house, in Vrischika
• bShani is in Mina rashi, in the 5th house
• cShani is in Mina rashi, in the 12th house

5. 8 is written in the top diamond. Whom do you look for to find the lagna lord?

• aShukra
• bMangala ("Ma")
• cShani

6. 11 is in the top diamond and "Sa" sits in the 3rd house. What is the reading?

• aThe 11th lord is in the 3rd
• bThe lagna lord Shani has gone into the 3rd house
• cKumbha is in the 3rd house

7. Lagna is Dhanu (9) and "Ra" and "Ju" are written in the box with 3. What is this?

• aRahu and Guru in Kumbha in the 3rd house
• bA yuti of Rahu and Guru in Mithuna, in the 7th house
• cRahu aspecting Guru from the 3rd house

8. In the class test a student said the box with 3 was "the 7th house and Gemini". When we counted from the top, which part of the answer was right?

• aBoth were right
• bOnly the rashi: it was the 10th house, with Mithuna
• cOnly the house

9. What is the idea of "rotating the axis"?

• aTurning the paper upside down
• bTreating another house as the temporary lagna to read a relative or a derived subject
• cMoving the planets to another house

10. What are the three questions we ask for every house?

• aAge, weight, height
• bWhich house, which rashi, which grahas (and where the lord sits)
• cDay, month, year