What is a Kundali (Janam Kundli)?
A kundali (janam kundli, birth chart) is a diagram of the sky as it stood at one moment and one place — normally a birth. It records where each of the nine grahas was along the zodiac, which rashi was rising in the east, and how those fall into twelve bhavas (houses). All of that is astronomy: a kundali states positions, and any reading of them is a separate, interpretive act.
What the chart holds
Three layers. The lagna (ascendant) is the rashi rising on the eastern horizon at the birth instant — it fixes the first house and therefore the whole house grid. The nine grahas are placed by sidereal longitude. The twelve bhavas are counted from the lagna. A chart also normally prints the birth panchang: tithi, nakshatra and pada, lunar month and samvat.
Why the birth time matters so much
The lagna advances through all twelve rashis in roughly 24 hours, so it changes about every two hours — and a few minutes either side of a boundary moves it into the next rashi and rotates every house with it. The Moon shifts about 13° a day, enough to change nakshatra and therefore the naam akshar and the opening dasha. The Sun and the outer grahas barely move in an hour. So an approximate birth time still gives dependable graha placements while leaving the lagna and the houses uncertain.
North, South and East Indian styles
The same chart is drawn three ways. The North Indian diamond keeps the houses fixed and writes the rashi number into each; the South Indian square keeps the rashis fixed in a 4×3 grid and marks which one holds the lagna; the East Indian style is a third arrangement of the same data. None of them is a different calculation — only a different drawing of one set of positions.
Sidereal, not tropical
Indian astrology places grahas against the fixed stars (nirayana, sidereal); Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac tied to the equinox. The two frames have drifted apart by the ayanamsa, currently about 24°, which is why a person is very often one rashi earlier in an Indian chart than in a Western one. Neither is a mistake; they are two different reference frames.
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FAQ
What is the difference between a kundali and a horoscope?
A kundali is the chart itself — the positions of the grahas and the lagna at a moment. “Horoscope” is used loosely for a prediction written from such a chart, or for newspaper sun-sign columns, which are a different thing entirely.
Do I need my exact birth time?
For the graha positions, no — they move slowly. For the lagna and the houses, yes: the lagna changes rashi roughly every two hours, so an error of a few minutes near a boundary shifts every house.
Why is my Indian moon sign different from my Western sun sign?
Two reasons. Indian astrology reads the Moon’s rashi rather than the Sun’s, and it uses the sidereal zodiac, which currently sits about 24° behind the tropical one.