u/bhishmagaming

Hello everyone. So recently I saw some posts where people were asking if their birth time is correct, or if their chart is correct etc. This made me wonder if I could share my knowledge on it, based on what I have learnt till now.

So first you start by gathering the events. If these events are precise, to the date, then we can go till prana and deha dasha too, otherwise till month is also fine, since you can go till sookshma dasha.

Give priority to major events. Events like death of a relative usually have higher priority since they require activation of maraka dashas of the houses which signify that relative in D1. Like eg, paternal grandfather is signified by 5th house. So maraka for 5th house is 6th and 11th house. This way, we can see for all relatives.

These events are crucial to fix D1 lagna, since marakas etc are seen from D1 only. Atleast at MD and AD level, marakas should be active (marakas are decided based on the rules of Laghu Parashari). You can see this in the chart of Prince Harry, where Princess Diana passed away tragically during Prince Harry’s Moon-Ketu dasha. In Prince’s chart Moon is in 5th (2nd from lagna) and Ketu is conjunct Mars, which is 5th lord itself. 1-2 such events actually provide a strong clue for the lagna.

Then you go for the funnel method, which KN Rao sir and VP Manley sir also adopts. Where the events are matched in this format.
D1->D3 (if there are siblings) -> D4->D7->D9->D12->D16->D20->D24->D30.
The logic behind this method is that with each successive divisional chart, you go on discarding the rest of the window, to the point where you get a workable window of maybe 4-5 mins. And it establishes a harmonious synchronicity till D30 chart, thus making it super likely to be your correct ascendant and subsequently, your true birth chart.

Make sure you take D1 chart and the relevant Divisional chart when analysing a particular event. Like for events related to education, D1 with D24. Events related to property take D1 with D4 etc etc. In this way, you can rectify your time to a fairly certain window. Then there are other techniques like pranapada rectification, tatwa shodhana etc etc which can be used to bring it to the minute level.

There are some research techniques to quickly verify whether your birth time is correct or not, but I won’t cover them here. I have written a post on one of the techniques by which one can quickly verify if their recorded time is correct or not. I found this technique to be highly accurate on rectified and well recorded charts, hence can be used to quickly verify if the recorded time is correct or not. I will attach the link below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/vedicastrologyexperts/s/1M1nqxi10g

In this way, you can get the chart rectified yourself, but you also need great understanding of the fundamentals. Without that, one cannot do it. Videos by VP Manley are a treat to watch, and his explanation of how it happens is brilliant too.

Edit: Someone asked me “what to do when there are two ascendant candidates and both can satisfy the events?”

For this I’ll say see the transits. There are some nadi rules which can help. One rule is that whenever slow moving malefics (Sat,Rah,Ket) transit over signs ruling 64th navamsa from Lagna or moon, it can lead to losses for the native.

There is very low chance of Navamsa chart being the same for both candidates. See where were these malefics transiting during the period of major losses like death of relatives etc. the one where it connects with signs ruling 64th navamsa from lagna/Moon, is correct.

So I was reading about Navamsa and I came across this article from one of SJC’s teachings, which talks about how planets in Navamsa trines dictate the skills of a person. 1st house is natural talent, 5th house is self aquired talent, and 9th is talent after getting a Guru.
Like Sun for organization, moon for singing, Venus for art, oratory etc.
but I came across a genuine question about skills associated with planets.
I noticed that musical instruments are linked to Sun, even though Venus is more logical planet for music (art).
What is the reason behind it? Isn’t it more logical that Venus be linked towards all art, like music, poetry, acting etc? What is the logic behind the sun?

Like I have Venus in Navamsa Ascendant (Gemini), and Ketu in 9th. I am complimented multiple times for my oratory skills from school itself, have high receptivity towards music (tunes and lyrics), movies, arts (like a critique). A good aesthetic sense too. Also became better at mathematics and computers after meeting the right teacher.
But at the same time I also learnt musical instruments: tabla under a teacher (rather reluctantly, my mom wanted me to learn), and currently learning guitar just as a way of escape from daily grind.
I am basically confused about my Navamsa ascendant, between Gemini and Cancer.
If its Cancer, then Mars is in Navamsa Lagna, and Mercury,Sun in 5th house.
Inner personality wise, I resonate more towards Gemini as Navamsa Lagna (coz for Cancer it makes me more emotionally volatile, with Mars in 1st in Navamsa lagna would’ve made me hot headed, emotionally impulsive and moody and which isn’t really me.)

Can anyone guide me here?

I had read that a house in which Ketu is in D60 shows the inherent skill one already has. ‬
‪My question is which‬ placement of Ketu would explain my tendency to keep trying to find out about any topic? Like for me it’s a self-consuming tendency to find out about anything, like I can’t even eat properly, and the thing I am researching about keeps occupying my mind even when I am eating. This goes on till I find a hard evidence. This mostly happens when dealing with deep subjects like psychology, astrology etc., but can also happen while researching my work stuff, especially triggered when under a crisis. Which one makes more sense? Ketu in 8th, or Ketu in 5th?
Because I remember reading that Ketu in 8th makes good researchers and 8th is house of research. But 5th is also linked to intellect, hence confused. Or is it 9th, since 9th is also linked to higher knowledge, dharma etc?

So I have been confused about some topics about techniques in Astrology, mainly around birth time rectification, and u/ShauryaShukla85 ji really helped me clear my doubt.
He is patient, understanding and cordial and really gave me so many tips around learning and practicing astrology. He even cleared a major doubt about BTR, which had kept me awake at nights for almost a week now. (ketu in my Lagna showing his effects ig). But like how Jupiter’s drishti/yuti controls the effects of Ketu and rather leads to higher wisdom, Shukla sir’s guidance has helped to calm the wandering mind of mine. He is a blessing in disguise for me.

Thank you very much.

Hello everyone. So I am an undergrad who is also researching stuff. The issue is these experiment runs sometimes take a day, and I get bored doing nothing while waiting for results. Can ya’ll please suggest me some good ideas I can actually code out while awaiting results? I tried asking LLMs, but they keep giving those same repetitive ideas based on my past interactions about my experiments and my approaches, which is now tiring and honestly frustrating. I want these projects to be good enough for my resume too, something I can show in my resume and talk for hours about it in interviews. Even open source suggestions are welcomed.
Please help.

So while going through the texts, I found something interesting to share here. As ya'll know, there are two main ways to calculate the Hora of a specific moment:

Method A (equal): 1/24 of sunrise-to-next-sunrise vedic day duration.

Method B (seasonal): dinamāna divided into 12 day-horas, rātrimāna into 12 night, and then we do the usual hora calculation.

But when I delved into books regarding it, I saw mixed opinions. Some following the equal method, some following the seasonal method. I wanted to know which one is textually correct wrt Indian astrology, not just "what XYZ software/website does.", or "what my guru says". So I traced it through the mula texts, commentaries, and lexicons. Findings have been attached as follows:

1. No foundational text (till what I have seen) defines the hora's duration. None.

Āryabhaṭīya (Kālakriyā 16), Sūryasiddhānta (12.78–79), Pañcasiddhāntikā (1.20–21), Yavanajātaka (final chapter, v. 55), Bṛhajjātaka, BPHS etc, every single one gives the lords (Chaldean sequence, first hora ruled by the weekday lord, reckoned from sunrise), but not one of them says how long a hora lasts, or the duration of hora.

And here's the kicker: the famous weekday arithmetic doesn't discriminate between the methods. Both give 24 horas per day, so the 25th hora lands on the next day's lord either way. The question is genuinely undecidable from the mūla layer alone.

2. But the duration is explicitly stated, in a continuous chain from the 11th century onward.
   Once we look past the mula layer into commentaries and the muhūrta genre, the equal hora is stated outright, repeatedly, across the centuries:

3. Sūryadeva Yajvan (11th c.), commenting on Āryabhaṭīya 3.16:

साधं नाडीद्वयं होरा । तेनाहोरात्रे चतुर्विंशति होराः ॥
“Two and a half nadis make one hora; hence there are 24 horas in an ahoratra.”
(Sarma & Shukla, Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa, INSA, vol. 3, p. 100)
Note the logic: a nāḍī is defined as 1/60 of the full ahorātra (SS 1.11–12), so “2.5 nāḍīs” = 1/24 of the whole day-night, independent of day/night length by construction. A seasonal hora can’t even be expressed in whole nāḍīs; a summer day-hora might be 2.75 nāḍīs.

2. Śrīpati, Jyotiṣaratnamālā (11th c.) — the formula as mūla verse, quoted by Govinda in the Pīyūṣadhārā:
   वारप्रवृत्तेर्घटिका द्विनिघ्नाः कालाख्यहोरापतयः शराप्ताः । दिनाधिपाद्या रविशुक्रसौम्यशशाङ्कसौरेज्यकुजाः क्रमेण ॥
   “The ghaṭīs from the start of the weekday, doubled, divided by five, give the lords of the kālahorā — beginning with the day-lord, in the order Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.”
   The ×2÷5 arithmetic exists solely to count completed 2.5-ghaṭī horas in integers — the equal hora compiled into the algorithm, plus the full Chaldean sequence spelled out planet by planet.
3. Vasiṣṭha (quoted in the Pīyūṣadhārā, date uncertain): hora-lords from the day-lord, नाडीद्वितयेन तष्टः (“measured off by two[-and-a-half] nāḍīs”), every sixth counted inclusively, तत्र कृतेऽहोरात्रे चतुर्विंशतिः कालहोरा भवन्ति — “24 kālahorās per ahorātra.”
4. Muhūrtacintāmaṇi 55 (Rāma Daivajña, 1600):
   वारादेर्घटिका द्विघ्नाः स्वाक्षहृच्छेषवर्जिताः सैकास्तष्टा नगैः…; same doubled-ghaṭīs-÷5 formula, sunrise-reckoned, counted from the day-lord.
5. Govinda Daivajña, Pīyūṣadhārā (1603), in the vāsanā on MC 55, states the duration and its derivation in so many words: सार्धघटीद्वयेनैकहोरा: “one horā is two-and-a-half ghaṭīs”, deriving it by rule of three from 60 ghaṭīs : 24 horas.

Further corroboration: Pañcasiddhāntikā 1.20 (~550 CE) computes the hour-lord arithmetically with elapsed hours as integer counting units; though the rule seems to have gaps which were subsequently filled by the commentrators, but I personally feel its correctly filled, making it executable only with a fixed hour-rule, and its internal calibration (the formula returns the day-lord at the sunrise hora) holds only on the equal clock. Plus Sudhākara Dwivedī's ṭīkā on SS 12.79 (होरा = 2 दण्ड = 15°), the Vahnipurāṇa verse preserved in the kośas ("चतुर्विंशतिवेलाभिरहोरात्रं प्रचक्षते" — 24 velās per ahorātra, notably not phrased as 12+12), and Śabdakalpadruma (19th c., horā = 2.5 daṇḍas, "what the English call hour").

3. So where does the seasonal method come from?
Here I want to be careful and humble: I can't “prove” an origin, only report where the earliest witnesses sit and what the specialists say. My working hypothesis is that it entered through the Perso-Arabic (Tajika/Islamic-astronomy) transmission; and to be fair, the scholars who work on exactly this material seem to say the same:

S.R. Sarma, the leading authority on Sanskrit astrolabes, who catalogued the ~130 extant ones, notes something remarkable in his study of the 1644 Maṇirāma astrolabe: “Sanskrit astrolabes generally have only hour lines (for equal hours, or unequal hours, or both) but never ghaṭī lines, in spite of the fact that the Hindus reckoned in equal ghaṭīs” (Sarma, “Yantrarāja at Edinburgh,” Proc. 13th World Sanskrit Conference, Section 8). In other words: unequal hours were the imported instrument’s native furniture, while the users’ own reckoning was the equal ghaṭī; the foreign clock arrived physically embedded in the astrolabe itself.

On dating, the earliest Sanskrit treatments of unequal hours I could find are both in the Islamic-transmission channel: instrumentally, Mahendra Sūri's Yantrarāja (1370 CE, first Sanskrit astrolabe treatise, written under Firūz Shāh Tughluq's patronage and explicitly based on Islamic astronomy, the astrolabe plate's lower half carries the classic unequal-hour lines, the below-horizon arcs divided into 12), with the successor literature (Padmanābha's Yantrarājādhikāra, ~1400) carrying the same apparatus. Al-Bīrūnī even claims (India, 11th c.) to have written a Sanskrit astrolabe manual; not extant.

Astrologically, via the Tajika corpus (13th–17th c.): per Martin Gansten's critical edition of Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna (1649 CE; Brill, 2020), Tājika is "a Sanskritized version of Arabic-language astrology, sharing a Hellenistic core with pre-Islamic Indian jyotiṣa but comprising a number of additional doctrines which either had never reached India before or else had not survived there", transmission beginning ~13th c. with Samarasiṃha, traceable to the 9th-c. Arabic astrologer Sahl ibn Bishr. Gansten's glossary for that corpus defines horā, sense 3: "seasonal hour, defined as 1/12 of the time from sunrise to sunset or vice versa." Fascinatingly, in that corpus even ghaṭī and prahara acquire seasonal doubles (ghaṭī as dinamāna/30).

The seasonal-hours habit itself is much older than Islam; it goes back through al-Bīrūnī's Tafhīm to Hellenistic-Egyptian civil timekeeping (see Dio Cassius 37.18–19 for the ancient weekday derivation on those hours). Since the Yavanajātaka's author was himself in the Greek tradition, it's even possible the hour-lords were originally “conceived” seasonally in his source milieu, the verse is silent on duration, so I can't rule that out. What I can say is that no pre-Islamic Sanskrit attestation of a seasonal hora has surfaced in anything I've read, every witness I found sits in or after the 14th-century transmission window. If someone here knows an earlier one, I'd genuinely love to see it; that would be a real discovery, not a gotcha.

Meanwhile, the seasonal hours you see on modern panchanga websites are mostly a re-import of the Western planetary-hours convention wearing the hora's name.

4. "But Tribhāga Bala uses dinamāna, shouldn't the same standard carry to Hora Bala, since they are part of Kaalbala itself?"

This can be a good counterargument, but it fails on shastric interpretive grounds:

1. Horā is a pāribhāṣika (defined technical) term with an established siddhantic sense. Technical denotation outranks contextual analogy (śruti > liṅga > vākya > prakaraṇa). Anuvṛtti carries qualifiers, not redefinitions of established units.

The tradition demonstrably knew and used seasonal divisions (yamārdha for Gulika, tribhāga in Shadbala itself, prahara/muhūrta generally), it just never attached them to the hora. The equal hora isn't the "winner" of a debate; it's the only hora the siddhantic tradition ever had.

Also, till what I have read, both B.V. Raman ji (Graha and Bhava Balas) and JHora compute Hora Bala with equal horas from sunrise (1/24 method).

This is what I have found till now, if someone has new additions, or refutations please do share in the comments.

Sources:
- Āryabhaṭīya, Kālakriyā-pāda 16, with Sūryadeva Yajvan's commentary: K.V. Sarma & K.S. Shukla (eds.), *Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa, 3 vols., Indian National Science Academy, 1976 (Sūryadeva's gloss: vol. 3, p. 100).

- Sūryasiddhānta 1.11–12, 1.51–52, 12.6, 12.78–79: Burgess (tr., 1860/1935); Sudhākara Dwivedī (ed.), Asiatic Society of Bengal; Sanskrit e-text on GRETIL (ed. M. Yano).

- Pañcasiddhāntikā 1.17–21: T.S. Kuppanna Sastri & K.V. Sarma (ed./tr., 1993); O. Neugebauer & D. Pingree (1970).
- Yavanajātaka, final chapter v. 55: Bill M. Mak, "The Last Chapter of Sphujidhvaja's Yavanajātaka critically edited with notes," *SCIAMVS* 14 (2013); D. Pingree (1978).
- Śrīpati, Jyotiṣaratnamālā (kālahorā verse), and Vasiṣṭha, as quoted in Govinda Daivajña's Pīyūṣadhārā (1603) on Muhūrtacintāmaṇi 1.55 (Rāma Daivajña, 1600) — standard editions with Pīyūṣadhārā ṭīkā.

- Vahnipurāṇa (Gaṇabheda-adhyāya) as preserved in Śabdakalpadruma and Vācaspatyam, s.v. होरा.
- Martin Gansten, The Jewel of Annual Astrology: A Parallel Sanskrit-English Critical Edition of Balabhadra's Hāyanaratna (Brill, 2020), incl. glossary s.v. horā; also Gansten, "Samarasiṃha and the Early Transmission of Tājika Astrology," Journal of South Asian Intellectual History 1.1 (2018).

- S.R. Sarma on Sanskrit astrolabes and hour lines: A Descriptive Catalogue of Indian Astronomical Instruments; Yantrarāja at Edinburgh," Proc. 13th World Sanskrit Conference, Section 8.

- Mahendra Sūri, Yantrarāja (1370): eds. Sudhākara Dvivedī (1882), K.K. Raikva (1936); Yukio Ôhashi, "Early History of the Astrolabe in India," IJHS 32 (1997).
- B.V. Raman, Graha and Bhava Balas; Jagannatha Hora (P.V.R. Narasimha Rao) for computational practice.

Edit:
So I also looked into other versions of BPHS, one being the oldest printed one, the GL Sharma one. That method refers to the Muhūrta Mārtaṇḍa's method, which uses:

(Lagna Longitude - Sun Longitude) * 2 = Hora

This formula presents a massive mathematical paradox for anyone arguing for Seasonal Hours. We do not need to assume the author's underlying philosophy to prove this; we only need to observe the rigid algebra of the formula itself.
The equation calculates the elapsed spatial distance in Rasis (Zodiac signs) and multiplies it by a fixed constant of 2. By defining the output algebraically as ⁠Elapsed Rasis * 2 = Elapsed Horas⁠, the math strictly dictates a universal constant: every single Rasi equals exactly 2 Horas
But this causes a massive discrepancy, if we use a seasonal hora method, it is impossible to map that here, since we aren’t using the duration at all, rather we are using the geographical position. So its safe to assume that Mhurat Martanda indirectly rejects the seasonal hora method here. The Mhurat Martanda method stands as a method of its own. It’s not a part of any other method.

So now there are three methods, one which is supported by a continuous chain of astrology texts (ie the 1/24 method), the geospatial method (Mhuratmarthanda), and the seasonal one (Perso-Arabic/Tajika influence).

I was recently doing a deep dive into some famous English translations of BPHS, and I found out that most of them are sub-par, to the point that they yield functionally incorrect mathematical outputs as compared to their sanskrit verses.

So I checked BPHS by R. Santhanam sir, and that texts has faults in the mathematical parts which makes it functionally incoherent. Erroneous translations, attempts to fix it with tricks and even mixing of different interpretations of BPHS. I checked the same shlokas in older, hindi translations (DC Jha), and there they were correctly translated, no changes. But in English, they were mistranslated. Same mistakes I found in GC Sharma’s translation of BPHS.
I then later on dived deeper, and found a mid 19th Century version of BPHS, by Girdhari Lal, published in 1867. There, I found that Santhanam sir’s, with all due respect, “tricks” has been misappropriated from this book without further going down and fixing other calculations too, which brings discrepancies in final calculations, which is not only creates mistakes, but even result in wrong predictions. Girdhari Lal ji’s BPHS has also been translated by GD Pathak ji.

For example, there is this topic about calculation of Drikbala.
BPHS by Santhanam, 26.12 in sanskrit states this for special aspects of Jupiter (Jeeva):

*त्रि*******सप्तमे************ तु जीवस्य भाग****ार्धं शर-वेद-युक् ।
द्विगुणंस्तु लवैश्चोन****ाः खरसाश्चतुरष्टमे ।।१२।।

Now, if we actually make a formula for the 2nd line, goes like
60-2*((D)%30)
Where D is the degree difference between Jupiter and the aspected planet. But, if we go further down to his translation, we see he has mistranslated the shloka, making the formula:

60-(D%30)

And he uses his notes to justify it, which are derived from older translation and commentaries, like Girdhari Lal Sarma’s, as a support. But the real problem is, is that it leads to artificial inflation of final grah drikbala calculation, since in Santhanam’s BPHS, the aspects of Jupiter and Mercury are added without undergoing the 1/4 division, irrespective of Shadbala or bhavbala.
The method by Girdhari lal Sarma, in his version, is similar to his notes, but there, he explicitly states that for Grah drikbala, we do 1/4 for all planets, irrespective of whether its Jupiter/Mercury or not.
But for Bhav drikbala, Girdhari Lal Sarma’s BPHS asks us to do 1/4 for all graha’s aspects, except Jupiter and Mercury.
This is the same method which is also used by Shri BV Raman in his work “grahbal and bhavbal”.

This artificial inflation might be a big issue if someone tries to use them to build astrological softwares. So this is just an advice post to everyone who is learning astrology/building some software wrt astrology. Please do not rely on English translations. Try to interpret the sanskrit verses yourself, otherwise you might end up as someone who thinks they know stuff, but in reality, they might not, thus causing issues while predicting etc.

Vedic astrologers of Reddit, do ya’ll consider D8 chart during your predictions? Because I did follow the classics (BPHS, Brihat Jataka and Saravali), and none mention D8 chart. I did do some research on D8, and some say it comes from Jaimini sutras, while some say its from Tajika sources.

Anyways, do ya’ll use it? Or can it be safely ignored, especially when the standard Sodashavargas give an unanimous verdict?

So I was going through BPHS again, and I noticed something which is conflicting. In Chapter 3 of BPHS, Parashar Rishi explicitly states Rahu-Ketu as Malefics.

But when we go forward in Chapter 34, he mentions how Rahu and Ketu’s malefic/benefic nature depends on the PAC (Position, aspect, conjunction), while he re-iterates the rest of planets as natural malefics (Sun, Saturn, Mars) and benefics (unafflicted mercury, strong moon, Venus, Jupiter), just like he did in Chapter 3.

Now I am confused which one should be followed? Would love some clarification here.

The book referred to was R. Santhanam’s commentary and translation on BPHS.

So I have used multiple websites, like Astrosage, DrikPanchang, ProKerala etc. to calculate shadbala.

Though all of them give similar bhavbala, they are different when calculating shadbala. JHora, Prokerala and Drikpanchang are almost giving the same, with DrikPanchang and Prokerala’s results being closer. JHora is also close to this cluster, but for 1-2 planets its a bit different (I use the settings for the calculations as recommended by Yashraaj Sharma on X.).
Astrosage gives different results, almost like an outlier. So I am confused which one is accurate.

JHora settings
Ayanamsa: True Lahiri with a minute correction.
Sunrise: Tip of sun appearing on the eastern hemisphere
Geocentric, true nodes.

So I was reading Shri BV Raman ji “graha and Bhavbal”, where he explained the concepts well. But when I also referenced some other books, I saw some confusion.
BV Raman ji states that the minimum requirement of Shadbal for Ravi (Sun) needs to be 5.0 Rupas. While in some other book, its saying that Sun needs to have 6.5 Rupas as minimum.
Also,do we consider the ratio (shadbal/min. Required shadbal) when we compare the strength between planets, or do we see the shadbal score in rupas only?

So I am confused in both, one is whether we take the minimum requirements for Sun as 5.0 or 6.5? And do we consider the ratio or shadbal in rupas while comparing two planet’s strength?

So I was reading Shri BV Raman ji “graha and Bhavbal”, where he explained the concepts well. But when I dived also referenced some other books, I saw some confusion.
Like BV Raman ji states that the minimum requirement of Shadbal for Ravi (Sun) needs to be 5.0 Rupas. While in some other book, its saying that Sun needs to have 6.5 Rupas as minimum.

Also, in methods like ayurdaya techniques using mathematical models, most texts unanimously agree to consider the strongest between Sun, Moon and Lagna (based on the Shadbal and Bhavbal) to select the method.

Yet I saw one astrologer on youtube using the Lagnesh for it, and rather, used the Shadbal ratio instead of the Rupas.

So I am confused in both, one is whether we take the minimum requirements for Sun as 5.0 or 6.5?

And, do we use Lagnesh instead of Lagna, and do we see the ratio? Because Bhavbal doesn’t have any “minimum requirements” to it, till what I know. And no text (from BPHS and Saravali) says to use Lagnesh. But I could be wrong here. Just need some clarity on these doubts.