What a kundli is

Begin with the picture, not a prediction. The figure below is a labelled teaching chart made for this course. It contains no person's birth data.

Choose an Indian kundli drawing style

South IndianNorth IndianEast Indian

South Indian

Signs sit still. House 1 is whichever cell holds the rising sign — here Leo, the default drawing on Astroyana.

North Indian

House 1 is the top-centre diamond and never moves. The signs rotate around that frame, counter-clockwise.

East Indian

Another grid. Same twelve rooms, same lagna. Only the handwriting changes.

Chart placements and drawing guide

Every drawing below represents the same Leo-lagna teaching chart. South Indian fixes the signs, North Indian fixes the houses, and East Indian uses a regional grid. Only the drawing convention changes; the placements do not.

• South Indian: Signs sit still. House 1 is whichever cell holds the rising sign — here Leo, the default drawing on Astroyana.
• North Indian: House 1 is the top-centre diamond and never moves. The signs rotate around that frame, counter-clockwise.
• East Indian: Another grid. Same twelve rooms, same lagna. Only the handwriting changes.

Complete placements in the sample Leo-lagna chart

Label	Body or point	Sign	House
Su	Sun	Aries (sign 1)	House 9
Mo	Moon	Taurus (sign 2)	House 10
Ma	Mars	Capricorn (sign 10)	House 6
Me	Mercury	Pisces (sign 12)	House 8
Ju	Jupiter	Cancer (sign 4)	House 12
Ve	Venus	Pisces (sign 12)	House 8
Sa	Saturn	Libra (sign 7)	House 3
Ra	Rahu	Gemini (sign 3)	House 11
Ke	Ketu	Sagittarius (sign 9)	House 5
La	Lagna	Leo (sign 5)	House 1

Find the small circle marked La. Compare the South, North and East-style views of this sample chart. The mark occupies a different-looking cell, but it still identifies Leo, sign 5, as the lagna. The static fact is the same: in this whole-sign teaching frame, House 1 is Leo.

What the chart records

A kundli organises calculated positions into a readable frame. For a birth chart, the inputs are a birth date, time, and place, together with calculation settings. Those inputs are not a character judgement. They are what a chart calculator uses to locate the lagna and grahas against the zodiac.

The figure on this page is schematic rather than a computed sky snapshot: its positions were deliberately selected to make the reading steps easy to check.

The frame keeps three kinds of label apart:

• a bhava is a numbered house counted from the lagna;
• a rashi is a sign printed in that house;
• a graha is a body or lunar node placed there.

The classical sources organise interpretation around grahas and rashis. The square, diamond, and grid are display conventions for keeping the same chart facts legible. Changing the drawing does not recalculate the sky.

A worked synthetic example

Stay with the sample and follow only Sa:

1. In the South Indian drawing, Sa appears in the fixed Libra cell, sign 7.
2. The lagna is Leo, sign 5. Count Leo as House 1, Virgo as House 2, and Libra as House 3.
3. In the North Indian drawing, House 3 has moved to another part of the page, yet Sa and sign 7 are still together.
4. Astroyana's East-style drawing preserves that same pair.

So all three drawings record the same checkable statement: Sa is in sign 7, in House 3. We have not said what that means. Recognition comes first.

Your turn: find the anchor before revealing

Look at the South Indian view. Signs occupy fixed cells there. Without reading on, decide what makes the Leo cell House 1 in this particular chart.

Try it before you reveal it

Why is the Leo cell House 1 in this synthetic chart?

Your attemptI made the attempt mentally instead.

Compare your attempt

Worked answer

Because La marks Leo as the lagna. Whole-sign house counting begins there. A common mistake is to search for a permanently printed House 1 in the South Indian grid; it is the signs that stay fixed in that style, while House 1 follows the lagna.

A likely mix-up

South Indian charts fix sign cells, not a permanent House 1 cell; the lagna anchors the house count.

Try a fresh case

Change the synthetic lagna to Virgo and describe where House 1 appears in South and North Indian styles.

If you searched for a permanent House 1 box in the South grid, you mixed up the fixed sign frame with the house count. Start at La; that marker, not a corner or printed zodiac number, anchors the count used here.

For transfer, imagine a second synthetic whole-sign chart with Virgo rising and the same listed graha signs. In a South Indian drawing, the Virgo cell would become House 1; in a North Indian drawing, House 1 would remain in the fixed top-centre position and sign 6 would be printed there. Say that distinction aloud before touching any meaning.