What is a horoscope? A simple guide to the Jathakam

At the moment you were born, the Sun, the Moon and the planets each stood in a particular part of the sky. A horoscope, the jathakam, is a careful record of that moment, drawn as a chart and read according to the rules of Jyothisham.

No two moments are the same. Twins born twenty minutes apart can have different charts. That is why a horoscope begins with three facts, and why each one has to be exact: the date, the time and the place of birth.

The South Indian chart

In Kerala the chart is drawn as a square of twelve boxes around an empty centre. Each box is one rasi (sign), and the signs never move: Meenam is always top left, Medam next to it, and they run clockwise round to Kumbham. What changes from person to person is which planets sit in which box.

In the chart above, each short label is a planet: Su for the Sun, Mo for the Moon, Ma for Mars, and so on. Lag marks the lagna. Malayalam reports use the traditional letters, such as ര for the Sun, ച for the Moon and ല for the lagna.

The three pillars: rasi, nakshatra and lagna

• Rasi (koor) is the sign the Moon was in. When someone in Kerala asks “what is your koor?”, this is the answer.
• Nakshatra (birth star) is the star the Moon was passing through. There are 27, from Aswathi to Revathi, and the birth star decides the order of your dasa periods.
• Lagna is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at your birth. It changes about every two hours, so it is the part of the chart most sensitive to the birth time.

What a horoscope can help with

Families have long used the jathakam to understand a child’s nature, to plan important steps such as education and marriage, and to choose good times to begin things. The dasa periods give a timeline of life’s chapters, and the predictions describe tendencies and strengths.

What it cannot do

A horoscope does not replace your own effort, or the advice of a doctor, a lawyer or a financial adviser. Astrology guides; it does not decide. A good reading shows possibilities and cautions, and the choices remain yours.

All guides