What details do I need to generate a Vedic birth chart?

Three things: your birth date, your birth time, and your birth place. The date and place fix where the planets stood; the time fixes the lagna, the rising sign, which changes roughly every two hours and sets the whole house layout. The more exact the time, the more reliable the houses. Time from a birth certificate or hospital record is best; a family memory is a workable start.

Is a Vedic birth chart different from a Western birth chart?

The two systems measure the zodiac differently. Vedic charts use the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the fixed stars, while most Western charts use the tropical zodiac, anchored to the equinoxes; the difference is currently about 24 degrees, called the ayanamsa. Vedic charts also typically use whole-sign houses and include the lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu among the nine planets, so the same birth yields different placements.

What if I don't know my exact birth time?

Generate the chart with 12:00 noon, then again with early morning and late evening times. The planets' sign positions rarely change within a day, except the Moon, which moves about 13 degrees daily. What does change is the lagna, and with it the houses. If the rising sign differs across your trials, treat house readings as provisional and lean on the chart counted from the Moon's sign.

What is the lagna in my birth chart?

The lagna, or ascendant, is the zodiac sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at your birth moment and place. It becomes your first house, and the remaining eleven houses follow from it in zodiac order, so it sets the frame for the entire chart. It changes sign roughly every two hours, which is why the lagna is the part of the chart most sensitive to birth time.

Which ayanamsa does this calculator use?

The Lahiri ayanamsa, the most widely used standard in Vedic astrology and the official one adopted in India. The ayanamsa is the correction, currently around 24 degrees, that converts tropical planetary positions to sidereal ones measured against the fixed stars. Planetary positions themselves come from the Swiss Ephemeris, which is built on NASA JPL astronomical data, so the underlying astronomy is observatory-grade.

Free Vedic Birth Chart (Kundli)

A Vedic birth chart, called a kundli, is a map of the sky at the moment you were born: the sign rising on the eastern horizon, the twelve houses counted from it, and the nine planets of Vedic astrology placed among the twelve signs. Generating one free takes three inputs, your birth date, time, and place. The calculator on this page computes the planets' sidereal positions with the Swiss Ephemeris, applies the Lahiri ayanamsa, finds your lagna, and draws the full chart. The article around it explains what each part of the result means and where to start reading, so the chart you generate is a beginning rather than a wall of symbols.

What the chart shows

A kundli compresses a lot into one diagram. The table below lists each element of your result, what it is in plain terms, and where on this site to read it in depth once the calculator names yours.

Element	What it is	What it tells you
Lagna (ascendant)	The sign rising in the east at your birth	The self, the body, and the frame for all twelve houses
The 12 houses	Areas of life counted from the lagna	Where each planet's results land: home, career, partnership, and the rest
The 12 signs	The zodiac backdrop, measured on the sidereal zodiac	The manner and condition of each planet standing in them
The 9 planets	Sun through Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu	The actors: what is doing the acting in each house
Janma nakshatra	The lunar mansion holding your Moon	Your birth star, which also seeds your dasha timeline

Why each input matters

The birth date anchors the day's sky: it fixes every planet's position to within the distance it travels in a day, which for most planets is a fraction of a degree and for the Moon about 13 degrees. The place converts your local clock time into the true astronomical moment and sets the horizon the lagna is measured against.

The birth time is the precision input. The lagna changes sign roughly every two hours, and the lagna decides where house one begins, so a time off by even a few minutes near a boundary can rearrange the houses. The why birth time matters page covers this in detail, and the section below covers what to do when the time is uncertain.

How the chart is calculated

The procedure is fixed and mechanical, and it follows the framework of signs, houses, and planets laid out in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra.

Compute each planet's position for your birth moment from an astronomical ephemeris. Steer's calculators use the Swiss Ephemeris, built on NASA JPL planetary data.
Convert to the sidereal zodiac by subtracting the ayanamsa, currently about 24 degrees; the Lahiri ayanamsa is the standard applied here. This step is what makes the chart Vedic rather than tropical, as the sidereal vs tropical page explains.
Calculate the lagna, the degree of the zodiac rising in the east, from your time and place.
Assign the houses by whole signs: the sign holding the lagna is the first house, the next sign the second, and so on around the zodiac.
Place each planet in its sign, and so in its house, with its exact degree, and note the Moon's nakshatra.

Every step is the same arithmetic an astrologer once did by hand with printed tables. The software's contribution is speed and precision; the system itself is the classical one.

How to start reading your result

Begin with one phrase: planet, in sign, in house. Pick any planet in your chart and read its three labels together. The planet is what acts, the sign is how it behaves there, and the house is where in life the result lands. The planet in sign in house page teaches the move with worked examples.

Then follow the classical order rather than wandering. Look at your lagna and its ruling planet first, since that planet is the lord of your whole chart. Then your Moon: its sign, its house, and its nakshatra. Then the Sun. The full sequence, including house lords, conjunctions, and aspects, is the subject of the how to read a birth chart guide, which is the natural next page after the calculator.

One reading habit worth adopting from the start: no single placement is a verdict. A strained planet in your result is one voice in a nine-voice chart, and the tradition pairs nearly every affliction with conditions that soften or cancel it. Read the whole before concluding anything about a part.

North Indian or South Indian style?

The same chart can be drawn as a North Indian diamond, where the houses are fixed and the signs appear as numbers, or as a South Indian grid, where the signs are fixed and the lagna is marked. Both contain identical information, and every planet sits in the same sign and house in each.

Choose whichever style you expect to keep seeing, in your family, your books, or your software. The North vs South Indian chart page decodes both layouts box by box, including the opposite counting directions that catch beginners.

What if you don't know your birth time?

You can still get most of the chart. Generate it for 12:00 noon, then again for early morning and late evening. The planets' signs will almost always agree across all three, because only the Moon moves far in a day; those placements, and usually your nakshatra, are settled by the date and place alone.

What the missing time withholds is the lagna, and with it the house layout. If your trial charts show different rising signs, treat house-based readings as provisional, and read the chart counted from the Moon instead: the classics regularly read houses from the Moon's sign, so a date-only chart still supports a real first reading. A birth certificate, a hospital record, or even a family memory like "just before dinner" often narrows the window enough to fix the lagna.

After you generate it

Read your chart's three pillars first: the lagna page for your rising sign, your Moon sign and nakshatra, and your Sun sign. Then take the chart to the reading guide and work through it step by step. The chart is a dense document, and it repays slow reading; everything on this site is built to help you do exactly that, one placement at a time.