Read a sample Vedic chart: practice 1 (foundations)

This is a practice page, not a lesson. It teaches nothing new: it uses the foundations module on one chart, then lets you check yourself with questions and answers at the end.

The chart is Skybond's sample chart, a recurring teaching chart computed with Skybond's own settings, rather than a real person's. Its ascendant (lagna) is Cancer, at 12 degrees.

With whole-sign houses, the lagna's sign becomes the 1st house. So Cancer is the 1st house, Leo the 2nd, Virgo the 3rd, and so on around to Gemini as the 12th.

The lagna lord is the planet that rules the lagna's sign. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so the Moon is the lagna lord here.

In the sample chart the Moon sits in Leo, which is the 2nd house. P.V.R. Narasimha Rao (PVR), author of Vedic Astrology: An Integrated Approach, reads the lagna lord as representing the physical self.

In the North Indian chart, the top diamond is house 1. Count the houses from Cancer and place each planet in the house holding its sign: Sun and Saturn in Capricorn land in the 7th, Moon in Leo lands in the 2nd, and so on. Houses 4, 6 and 10 hold no planets.

The sign lords come from Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS, R. Santhanam's translation), chapter 4: Cancer by the Moon, Leo by the Sun, Virgo and Gemini by Mercury, Libra and Taurus by Venus, Scorpio and Aries by Mars, Sagittarius and Pisces by Jupiter, Capricorn and Aquarius by Saturn.

Two worked rows show how to read the table:

• 9th house: Pisces, ruled by Jupiter. Jupiter sits in Virgo, the 3rd house. So the 9th lord is Jupiter in the 3rd.
• 10th house: Aries, ruled by Mars. Mars sits in Gemini, the 12th house (retrograde, marked R in the chart). So the 10th lord is Mars in the 12th.

Notice that some planets lord two houses, because they rule two signs. Saturn lords both the 7th and the 8th here, and Mercury both the 3rd and the 12th.

Once you have read a couple of rows this way, the rest of the table follows the same pattern: find the house's sign, name its lord, then look up where that lord sits in the sample chart.

First the house groups (PVR §7.4): kendras (the corner houses) are 1, 4, 7 and 10; trikonas (trines) are 1, 5 and 9; upachayas (houses of growth) are 3, 6, 10 and 11; dusthanas (difficult houses) are 6, 8 and 12.

PVR's rules (§13.2) then sort the lords:

• Trine lords are functional benefics.
• Lords of the 3rd, 6th and 11th are functional malefics.
• A kendra lord is a functional malefic if it is a natural benefic, and neutral if it is a natural malefic.
• Lords of the 2nd, 8th and 12th are neutral.
• A planet owning both a kendra and a trine is a yogakaraka.

Applied to Cancer lagna, PVR's Table 30 gives: Mars as yogakaraka (it owns the 5th, a trine, and the 10th, a kendra); Moon, Mars and Jupiter as functional benefics; Sun and Saturn as neutrals; Mercury and Venus as functional malefics (Mercury owns the 3rd, Venus the 11th).

Read Table 30 alongside the house lords table: each planet's classification follows from the houses it rules in this lagna. Mars owns the 5th and the 10th, which is why it appears both as yogakaraka and among the benefics.

For a planet owning two signs, PVR advises to 'judiciously combine the two indications'.

In the sample chart, Saturn in Capricorn is in its own sign (a planet in a sign it rules), and Venus in Pisces is exalted (deepest at 27 degrees, PVR Table 6).

This page records where things sit only. No interpretation is attached to any placement.

Rahu and Ketu are the north and south nodes, two shadow points in Vedic astrology. Skybond's engine gives them no sign of their own, so they are never house lords here.

Other texts differ: BPHS chapter 47 and PVR assign Rahu Aquarius and Ketu Scorpio. On this page the nodes are placed, in the 5th and 11th houses of the sample chart, and left out of the lord-counting altogether.