Kundali Casting and Chart Interpretation
Kundali casting tests whether you can turn birth data into a defensible chart and then read it without overclaiming. The exam values a documented calculation chain: birth date, time, place, time zone, universal time, Julian Day, sidereal longitudes, ascendant, bhavas and vargas.
Casting sequence
- Record the birth date, clock time, place and time-zone rule, including daylight saving.
- Convert to universal time and then to Julian Day.
- Obtain geocentric planetary longitudes and apply the chosen ayanamsa.
- Compute the ascendant from local sidereal time, latitude and obliquity.
- Fix the house scheme: whole sign, equal house, bhava chalit or Placidus.
- Record the node convention, true or mean, and the ayanamsa value.
Worked example
Suppose the Sun’s sidereal longitude is 16° Sagittarius and the lagna is 10° Aquarius. By whole-sign counting, Aquarius is the first house, Pisces the second, and Sagittarius the eleventh; the Sun is in the 11th bhava. If the bhava chalit cusp places Sagittarius partly in the 10th, the Sun may be read in the 10th under that scheme. A good answer states the scheme before giving the judgment.
Interpretation discipline
Read the lagna, its lord, the Moon and the Sun first; then the relevant bhava, its lord, karaka and occupants; then dashas and transits. Vargas refine but do not replace the rashi chart.
Traps
- Ignoring daylight saving time or using the wrong latitude sign.
- Mixing true and mean nodes between software runs.
- Failing to state the ayanamsa and house system.
- Treating a divisional chart as an independent birth chart.
- Reading a single placement as a fixed event.