Janam Kundli by Date of Birth and Time: What You Need and What You Get

A janam kundli is your birth chart, and making one online from your date and time of birth takes about a minute: you type three details, and a calculator places the nine grahas in the twelve signs and houses as they stood when you were born. What takes longer is knowing which parts of the result you can lean on. That depends almost entirely on how good your three details are.

Astroliya's free kundli asks for the same three details as any Vedic calculator. A small slip in one of them does not spoil the whole chart; it moves the parts that detail controls and leaves the rest where it was.

The three inputs a janam kundli needs

Every Vedic birth chart calculator asks for the same three things. They are not equally sensitive.

Date: where the planets are

The slow planets barely notice a small error: Saturn stays in a sign for about two and a half years, Rahu and Ketu for about eighteen months and Jupiter for roughly a year, so the date alone fixes them firmly. The Sun moves about one degree a day. The Moon is the fast one: it crosses a whole nakshatra (13 degrees 20 minutes) in roughly a day and changes sign about every two and a quarter days. Because the Vimshottari dasha starts from the Moon's nakshatra and how far through it the Moon had travelled, the date and time together decide which mahadasha you were born into and how much of it was left.

Time: your lagna and houses

The lagna is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. As the Earth turns, all twelve signs rise over about twenty-four hours, so on average a new sign rises every two hours, and the lagna degree moves about one degree every four minutes. In the Parashari tradition the lagna is house 1 and every other house is counted from it, so the time does not change where the planets are, but it changes which house each one sits in. That is why a Manglik check, a 7th-house reading for marriage or a 10th-house reading for career all need a reliable time.

Place: time zone and coordinates

The place does two jobs. First it tells the calculator which time zone and UTC offset applied, so your clock time can be converted to a single universal moment. Second, the latitude and longitude decide which degree of the zodiac was rising at that spot. When you pick a place on Astroliya, the tool confirms it with its region, time zone and coordinates, so you can check you have the right town before the chart is drawn. If you were born in a small village, the nearest town in the same district is normally close enough.

What Astroliya's free kundli shows you

Once you sign in and add a date, time and place of birth, the chart is drawn for you. You can add family members and switch between their charts. The kundli is laid out in six parts:

• Chart. Your main birth chart (D1) in North Indian style, read house by house.
• Planets. All nine grahas with sign, degree, nakshatra, house and strength.
• Dasha. Your Vimshottari dasha: the period you are in now and the ones ahead.
• Findings. Dated observations, such as Sade Sati when it applies to you.
• Doshas. Checks for Manglik, Sade Sati, Kaal Sarp, Pitra and Kemadruma, each marked present, active, coming up, not present or needing a birth time.
• Transits. This month's planetary movements, counted from your Moon sign.

The calculation is Vedic, meaning sidereal, with the Lahiri ayanamsa, which is the reference most Indian almanacs use. Houses are whole-sign: the lagna sign is house 1, the next sign is house 2, and so on. If you have used a Western astrology site and found your "sign" there is different, this is usually why: the Western zodiac is tropical, and the two currently differ by a little over 24 degrees, so many people's Sun sign moves back by one.

A dosha being listed does not mean something is wrong with you or your future. Each check on the page opens to show how it was worked out, and dedicated guides such as checking Manglik dosha step by step explain what tradition says about cancellations and what the check does not mean.

Reading a North Indian chart: the basics

A North Indian kundli is a square divided by two diagonals and a diamond into twelve boxes. The boxes are the houses, and they never move.

1. Find house 1. It is the top-centre diamond. Whatever sign number is written there is your lagna.
2. Count anticlockwise. House 2 is the triangle to the upper left of house 1, and the houses run anticlockwise round the square to house 12, the triangle to its upper right.
3. Read the numbers as signs. The small numbers in each box are signs, not houses: 1 is Aries (Mesha), 2 is Taurus (Vrishabha), through to 12, Pisces (Meena).
4. Read the planets. Each planet sits in the box of its sign, so its house is that box. "Ju" in the box marked 4 means Jupiter is in Cancer, in whichever house that box is.

South Indian charts do the opposite: the signs stay fixed in their boxes and the lagna is marked wherever it falls. Both show the same chart. Astroliya draws North Indian. For a full walk-through on a sample chart, house meanings included, read how to read your kundli.

Janam kundli, birth chart, horoscope: one chart, three names

People search for the same thing in different words. A janam kundli (janma kundali, "birth chart" in Hindi) is the chart cast for your birth moment. "Vedic birth chart" is the English name for the same thing. "Horoscope" is used loosely for both the birth chart and the daily or yearly readings published for each rashi. Those rashi readings, like our daily horoscope, are written for everyone with the same Moon sign; your kundli is written for the moment you were born, so it can say far more about you specifically. If you prefer Hindi, our जन्म कुंडली guide covers the same ground.

When your birth time is uncertain

Many people have only a date, or a time remembered by a relative ("early morning", "around lunch"). Here is how to handle each case.

When you tick that box on Astroliya, the planets are read at local noon on that day and the chart is drawn as a Moon chart, with the Moon sign in house 1. There is no lagna, and checks that depend on houses, such as Manglik, are shown as needing a birth time rather than guessed. Because the Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, it changes nakshatra on most dates and changes sign on a little under half of them; if your birth date was one of those, the noon position may not be yours, and the Moon sign or nakshatra stays an open question. Our guide to a kundli without birth time goes through what still holds and the traditional ways astrologers try to narrow down a time.

Two practical tips: a parent's memory of a festival, a meal or the light outside can narrow a window to an hour or two, and an old hospital discharge paper sometimes has the time even when the certificate does not.

After your chart is made

A kundli answers "where was everything?" The next questions are usually "what does it mean?" and "what about now?" There are three ways to go further on Astroliya:

• Ask the AI astrologer. Astroliya's AI astrologer reads the same chart the kundli page shows and answers follow-up questions in English or Hindi. It is an AI, not a person, and it is built to show its reasoning; how Astroliya's AI reads your chart explains what it looks at and what it won't do.
• Get a full written report. The Complete Life Report works through your chart area by area, from the same birth details.
• Match two charts. If the question is marriage, kundli matching compares two birth charts across the eight kootas.

Whatever you read, treat it as a traditional way of reflecting on your life, not a verdict. Astrology is not a substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.

Questions people ask

Is the kundli free to make?

Yes, making your kundli on Astroliya is free. You need to sign in so the chart can be saved to your account and opened again later, along with any family members you add.

Can I make a kundli with only my date of birth?

Yes. Tick "I don't know the birth time" and the chart is drawn from your Moon sign. You will see where the planets were and, unless the Moon changed sign that day, your Moon sign, but there is no lagna, so house-based readings and the Manglik check are left open rather than guessed.

Why does my kundli on two websites show different lagnas?

The usual causes are a different place (and so different coordinates or time zone), a typo in AM or PM, or a different ayanamsa. Astroliya uses the Lahiri ayanamsa and whole-sign houses; check that both sites have the same city and time before comparing anything else.

Is a kundli the same as my rashi?

No. Your rashi is just the sign the Moon was in, one detail inside the kundli. The kundli adds the other eight grahas, the lagna, the twelve houses and the dasha periods, which is why it can say more than a rashi horoscope.

Can I change my birth time later?

If you find a more reliable time, add the person again with the corrected time and the chart is calculated fresh from it. Keeping both for a while lets you see exactly what changed, usually the lagna and the houses rather than the planets' signs. Use the better time from then on, because every house-based reading depends on it.