Free Vedic Astrology Chart: Sidereal Birth Chart, Nakshatras and Dasha

Compiled by Haiyuan · AI-generated content · Updated 2026-10-20 · How we calculate

Vedic astrology is the traditional astrology of India. It reads the same sky as a Western chart but starts the zodiac from the fixed stars, about 24° behind the Western tropical zodiac, so roughly four in five people find their Sun sign moves back one. The tool above casts your birth chart, Navamsa, the nine grahas and your lifetime dasha timeline in one go; the sections below explain how to read them.

How Vedic astrology differs from Western astrology

Vedic astrology (Jyotish) and Western astrology look at the same sky and the same planets, yet their longitudes always differ by a fixed angle. The difference is where the zodiac starts:

• Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which starts at the March equinox (0° Aries). The equinox point slides slowly west along the ecliptic, about 50.3 arcseconds a year. This is precession.
• Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the background stars rather than the equinox.

The gap between the two is called the ayanamsa, and it grows a little every year. This site uses the Lahiri ayanamsa adopted by India’s official calendar: about 23°09′ at the start of 1950, 23°51′ in 2000 and 24°13′ in 2026.

A sign is 30° wide, so a shift of about 24° moves most people back one sign. We ran the numbers with the same engine:

• Sun sign: sampling every day at noon from 1950 to 2009, 78.6% of days land in a different sign in the Vedic chart, and every one of them moves back exactly one sign (Western Aries becomes Vedic Pisces, for example).
• Moon sign: sampling every six hours over the same years, 78.6% change sign.
• Rising sign: sampling Taipei every four minutes on one day in every ten across a year, 80.8% change sign.

So it is perfectly normal not to recognize your sign in a Vedic chart. Neither system is miscalculating; they simply start counting from different points. The other main differences:

Reading the chart in three steps

1. Start with the ascendant (Lagna). It is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. With whole-sign houses, that sign is the 1st house and the rest follow in order to the 12th. The ascendant changes roughly every two hours, so an accurate birth time matters.
2. Then the Moon sign and birth star. Vedic astrology gives the Moon as much weight as the Sun. The Moon’s sign (rashi) is read for feelings and daily life; the Moon’s nakshatra is your birth star (janma nakshatra), and it decides which planet opens your dasha sequence.
3. Finally, find your current dasha. Vimshottari divides life into nine periods, each ruled by one planet and split again into sub-periods. The tool marks the period you are in and the themes traditionally linked to its ruler.

The 27 nakshatras: the Moon’s 27 stations

Vedic astrology divides the 360° ecliptic into 27 equal nakshatras of 13°20′ each, and each nakshatra into four padas of 3°20′. The Moon passes through roughly one nakshatra a day, so the birth star is a finer reading than the Moon sign.

The nakshatras were translated into Chinese in the Tang-dynasty Xiuyao Jing, which matched them to the Chinese 28 lunar mansions (dropping one). The names line up, but the Vedic nakshatras are equal slices of the ecliptic while the Chinese mansions vary in width and start elsewhere, so the degrees do not match.

Vimshottari dasha: 120 years in nine periods

Vimshottari is the most widely used dasha system. Nine planets take turns as ruler, each for a fixed number of years, adding up to 120. The sequence starts with the ruler of the nakshatra the Moon occupied at birth; whatever share of that nakshatra the Moon had already crossed is taken off the first period. Each period is then split in the same proportions into nine sub-periods (antardashas), starting with the period’s own ruler.

For example, if the Moon sits in the middle of Ashwini, which Ketu rules, life opens with a Ketu period of 3.5 years (half of seven), followed by Venus for 20 years, the Sun for 6, and so on around the cycle.

Traditions disagree on how long a dasha year is: 365.25 days, 360 days or a sidereal year. We use 365.25 days; other conventions move the change-over dates by days or months. The themes of each period are traditional views. We describe the general direction of a period and never claim that something will happen in a given year.

The nine grahas and their condition

Vedic astrology uses the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu, together called the navagraha. Rahu and Ketu are not physical bodies but the two points where the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic: Rahu is the north node and Ketu the south node, always 180° apart. By default we use the mean node, as Indian almanacs traditionally do; you can switch to the true node in the form. The two usually differ by less than 2°.

Each graha is traditionally stronger or weaker depending on its sign. Exaltation, debilitation, own signs and moolatrikona for the seven classical bodies (schools disagree on Rahu and Ketu, so we leave them out):

Where exaltation and moolatrikona share a sign (the Moon in Taurus, Mercury in Virgo), the graha counts as moolatrikona once it passes its peak degree. The tool’s “Condition” column also flags retrograde motion and combustion: a graha too close to the Sun, traditionally thought to be overpowered by it. Our orbs are Moon 12°, Mars 17°, Mercury 14°, Jupiter 11°, Venus 10° and Saturn 15°, with 2° less for retrograde Mercury and Venus.

Aspects work differently too. They are counted by sign rather than by angle and orb: every graha aspects the 7th sign from itself, Mars also the 4th and 8th, Jupiter the 5th and 9th, and Saturn the 3rd and 10th.

What is the Navamsa?

The Navamsa (D9) divides every sign into nine parts of 3°20′ and maps them in order onto the twelve signs, producing a second chart. Traditionally it is a magnifying glass on the birth chart, used above all for marriage and partnership. The rule: movable signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) start counting from themselves, fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) from the 9th sign, and dual signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) from the 5th.

Each Navamsa slot is only 3°20′ wide, and the ascendant crosses one in about 13 minutes. A birth time off by ten minutes or so can change the Navamsa ascendant, so check the time before reading too much into it.

How we calculate and how we checked it

• Astronomy: apparent planetary positions and the ascendant come from the open-source astronomy-engine ephemeris, the same engine behind our Western birth chart.
• Ayanamsa: Lahiri, with a mean value of 23.857092° at J2000.0 plus IAU 2006 general precession and nutation.
• Houses and nodes: whole-sign houses; mean node by default.
• Verification: we compared 1,000 random birth moments (1900–2100, latitudes 60° S to 65° N) against Swiss Ephemeris, the ephemeris library behind most Indian and Western astrology software. Signs, nakshatras and houses all matched, and padas and Navamsa differed only in a handful of charts sitting within 1.5′ of a boundary; the Moon was within 1.5′ and the other six classical bodies within 20″. Dashas and the Navamsa were also cross-checked against a separately written implementation, with no differences.

How to treat the results

• It is an ancient cultural system. Jyotish has been practiced in India for well over a thousand years and is still used to choose dates and match couples. It is worth knowing as culture.
• Readings are traditional views, not predictions. Dasha themes and dignities describe tendencies, and the same chart is often read differently by different astrologers.
• Scientific tests have not supported its predictive power. In a public experiment in India in 2008, astrologers were asked to tell gifted children from children with intellectual disabilities using only their birth charts; they did about as well as chance.
• Use it for reflection and fun. Our content is compiled with AI assistance and has no lineage of teachers behind it. Treat the results as one more way of looking at yourself, not as a basis for decisions.