D1 Rasi chart: how do you read your Vedic birth chart?

What is the Rasi chart in Vedic astrology?

Rasi, or rashi, means “sign” in Sanskrit: the D1 is the chart of the sign itself, the one that is not divided. It shows the body, the temperament and the course of the whole life, and each house keeps its area there: the 1st is you, the 4th the home, the 7th partnership, the 10th career.

All the divisional charts start from it: the D9 splits each of its signs into nine, the D10 into ten. A divisional chart refines a promise of the D1; it does not invent one. That is why the D1 opens first when you switch to Vedic on the site.

Sidereal zodiac: why do your signs change?

The D1 is calculated in the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the stars, while the Western chart follows the tropical zodiac, anchored to the seasons. With the precession of the equinoxes, the two have drifted about 24° apart: this is the ayanamsa, and the site uses Lahiri’s, the official Indian reference.

In practice, most of your planets move back one sign. A Sun at 5° Gemini in the tropical zodiac sits around 11° Taurus in the sidereal one; an Ascendant at 21° Leo becomes an Ascendant around 27° Cancer. A planet beyond roughly 24° of its tropical sign keeps its sign. The tropical or sidereal page explains what each zodiac reads best.

Whole-sign houses: the 1st house is the Ascendant’s sign

In Vedic astrology, houses are not cut by degrees. The 1st house is the whole sign where the Ascendant rises, from 0° to 30°; the 2nd house is the next sign, and so on up to the 12th. Each house is a sign, and each sign has a single lord.

Take the Ascendant at 27° Cancer: all of Cancer forms the 1st house, Leo the 2nd, Virgo the 3rd. A Moon at 2° Cancer is in the 1st house, even though it rose before the Ascendant’s degree, whereas a degree-based division, common in Western astrology, would most often put it in the 12th. The houses do not have the same outline from one system to the other.

The seven planets and the nodes of the Vedic chart

The D1 reads the nine grahas, “those that seize”: the Sun (Surya), the Moon (Chandra), Mars (Mangala), Mercury (Budha), Jupiter (Guru), Venus (Shukra), Saturn (Shani), and the two lunar nodes, Rahu, the north node, and Ketu, the south node. The site uses the mean nodes, and Ketu is always exactly opposite Rahu.

Rahu pushes towards what you do not know yet and brings desires in bursts: order is your antidote. Ketu shows what you already know how to do and are learning to let go of. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are shown as well, set back: classical Vedic astrology reads only the visible planets and the nodes. So Mars rules Scorpio there, Saturn Aquarius and Jupiter Pisces.

Exaltation, own sign, debilitation: the dignities of the D1

A planet does not have the same strength in every sign. Exalted, it gives the best of what it signifies; in its own sign, it is at home and acts freely; debilitated, it struggles to express itself and asks for conscious effort, which often ends up becoming a strength.

• Sun: exalted in Aries, own sign Leo, debilitated in Libra.
• Moon: exalted in Taurus, own sign Cancer, debilitated in Scorpio.
• Mars: exalted in Capricorn, own signs Aries and Scorpio, debilitated in Cancer.
• Mercury: exalted in Virgo, own signs Gemini and Virgo, debilitated in Pisces.
• Jupiter: exalted in Cancer, own signs Sagittarius and Pisces, debilitated in Capricorn.
• Venus: exalted in Pisces, own signs Taurus and Libra, debilitated in Virgo.
• Saturn: exalted in Libra, own signs Capricorn and Aquarius, debilitated in Aries.

A debilitation is not a sentence. When certain conditions are met, for instance the lord of the sign well placed from the Ascendant or the Moon, or the planet exalted in the D9, tradition speaks of a cancelled debilitation (neecha bhanga): the difficulty becomes a driving force.

The Moon and its nakshatra: the heart of the Vedic chart

In Vedic astrology, the Moon counts as much as the Ascendant. Its sign, the janma rasi, is the one people in India mention first, and its lunar mansion, the janma nakshatra, sets the calendar of your life. The nakshatras divide the zodiac into 27 mansions of 13°20′, each in four padas (quarters) of 3°20′.

An example: a Moon at 18° Taurus is in Rohini, which runs from 10° to 23°20′ Taurus, in pada 3. Rohini is ruled by the Moon: your life begins in the Moon’s period, and since the Moon had already covered 8° of Rohini’s 13°20′, four of the period’s ten years remained at birth. This is the starting point of the Vimshottari dashas.

The Atmakaraka: the planet of the soul

Jaimini, the other great name of Jyotish, ranks the seven planets, from the Sun to Saturn, by their degree within their sign, whatever that sign is. The most advanced is the Atmakaraka, “the significator of the soul”: it shows what your soul has come to accomplish. If your Mars is at 26° Aries and no other planet exceeds that degree in its sign, Mars is your Atmakaraka: the courage to act is your life’s work.

The sign of the Atmakaraka in the D9 is called the Karakamsha; the site gives it with the D1. The other karakas, from career to spouse, are explained in the Jaimini karakas.

Rasi chart and Western chart: what are the differences?

Both charts describe the same birth, through two ways of reading. Here is what changes when you move from one to the other.

• The zodiac: sidereal, about 24° behind; most planets move back one sign.
• The houses: whole signs from the Ascendant, where Western astrology often cuts them by degrees.
• The planets: the seven visible ones and the nodes; Uranus, Neptune and Pluto stay in the background.
• The aspects: every planet aspects the seventh sign from its own, Mars also the 4th and 8th, Jupiter the 5th and 9th, Saturn the 3rd and 10th; Western astrology measures its aspects in degrees.
• Timing: Vedic astrology divides life into planetary periods, the dashas; Western astrology mostly follows transits.

The site keeps the Western chart as the default and offers the Vedic charts as well. Read both: what comes back from one chart to the other is your surest signature, and that is the whole art of crossing the charts.

What the site shows in your D1

On your chart page, choose Vedic (sidereal) at the wheel: the D1 opens by default. You need your exact birth time: without it, the Vedic charts stay switched off, since the Ascendant and the houses depend on it. The Ascendant changes sign every two hours on average, but the minute matters for its degrees and for the finer charts.

• For each planet: its sidereal sign, its degree, its house, its nakshatra and its pada.
• The line that gives the chart’s meaning: the body, the whole life, the mother chart.
• The nakshatra of the Moon and that of the Ascendant.
• The Vimshottari dashas: the current period and the next ones, with their dates.
• The Atmakaraka and the Karakamsha.

From the D1, the list of charts opens the nineteen other divisional charts, from D2 to D60; the first one to look at next is the D9 Navamsha.