How Skybond reads a Vedic chart: method and conventions

You enter your name, date, time and place of birth. This is saved to a free account, which you open with Google or an email code, no password needed. If you do not know your birth time, Skybond still writes for you, and you can add the time later.

From those details Skybond computes your Vedic birth chart: the ascendant (lagna, the sign rising at birth), the moon sign, the twelve houses and where each planet sits. A precise birth time makes the houses sharper.

The birth time is converted using the time zone rules that applied at the birth place on that date, including daylight saving and wartime changes. The calculator uses the same method as the Skybond chart.

The free calculator runs in your browser, and nothing is stored unless you create an account.

Zodiac and ayanamsa: Skybond uses the sidereal zodiac with the True Chitra Paksha ayanamsa. The ayanamsa is the offset between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs, and True Chitra Paksha keeps the star Chitra (Spica) as its reference point.

Houses: whole-sign houses, one sign per house, counted from the lagna. Skybond also reads the houses counted from the Moon, the Moon chart (Chandra lagna).

Rahu and Ketu, the two shadow points (the Moon's nodes), are calculated as the mean nodes, the averaged positions of the Moon's nodes.

Dignity (how strong a planet is in its sign) follows the classical tables of BPHS chapter 3 for exaltation, debilitation, own signs and moolatrikona. For Rahu and Ketu, Skybond uses exaltation in Taurus and Scorpio and debilitation in Scorpio and Taurus, the values in the BPHS translation. The Planets lesson shows where schools differ on the nodes.

Aspects (graha drishti, planetary sight): the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn each aspect the 7th house from themselves. Mars also aspects the 4th and 8th, Jupiter the 5th and 9th, and Saturn the 3rd and 10th.

This follows chapter 26 of BPHS (Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra), the classical reference text.

For each planet, the chart records its sign, house, degree, nakshatra (a lunar mansion, one of 27 star segments) and pada (a quarter of a nakshatra), its dignity (how strong the planet is in that sign), whether it is retrograde (appearing to move backwards) or combust (very close to the Sun), which planets share its house, which houses it rules for the lagna, and its shadbala (sixfold strength) score.

Timing: Skybond uses Vimshottari dasha, a planetary period system that P.V.R. Narasimha Rao (PVR), author of the textbook Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach, calls the most popular among Vedic astrologers. It works out the mahadasha (main period) and antardasha (sub-period) running on a given date.

The 'timing chapter' article is written from this.

Divisional charts: Skybond uses the D9 (navamsa) for commitment and marriage and the D10 (dashamsa) for career and public life. PVR's table of divisional charts gives the navamsa for marriage and the spouse and the dashamsa for career and achievements in society.

Transits: Skybond writes transits for your houses, counted from your lagna and from your Moon. The public transit articles are written for each ascendant.

Skybond keeps a library of written chart patterns, for example a planet in a given sign and house with its dignity and the houses it rules, transits, and patterns between two people's charts. The patterns that match your chart are gathered before an article is written.

Calculation and writing are separate steps: the chart is calculated first, and the writing step works from the calculated chart.

The articles are written by AI. Skybond's disclaimer says the content 'is generated by an AI system. It is not written or reviewed by a qualified human advisor', and that 'AI can produce incorrect, inconsistent, outdated, or generic output'.

The disclaimer calls the articles 'a tool for personal reflection and entertainment only' and 'not a substitute for medical, financial, legal, psychological, or relationship advice'. Skybond 'uses traditional birth-chart methods for reflection, not as empirical science'.

Skybond writes four sets of articles:

• Today: a daily piece, the timing chapter and transits for your houses.
• Self: 13 essays, each a part of life written from the whole chart.
• Bonds: written from two charts, with consent.
• Ask: a question answered as an article.

The writing is in plain language.

Learn lessons are different from articles: they are drafted with AI from verified sources, then fact-checked and edited by Skybond before publishing.

The Learn lessons explain these parts one by one: the zodiac and ayanamsa (Vedic vs Western), the birth chart, the planets, the signs, the houses, and house lords and functional benefics and malefics.

In the app, your chart is shown in the North Indian style, the diamond-shaped chart format common in North India.