Reference

Glossary

Last updated: 26 August 2026

A reading uses the vocabulary of classical Jyotisha, largely in Sanskrit, because most of these terms have no single-word English equivalent. This page defines them plainly, in the order you are likely to meet them.

Two things worth saying up front. Every entry below describes what the tradition means by a word, not a claim that the thing described is real: the predictive claims of Jyotisha have no empirical support, and defining a term is not endorsing it. And the astronomy is separable from the interpretation. Positions, nakshatras, dignities and dasha dates are arithmetic, and they are exact. What the texts then say those positions signify is tradition, and should be read as such.

The chart itself

Janma kundali · janma patrika: The birth chart: a map of where the nine grahas stood, as seen from the place of birth, at the moment of birth.
Lagna · ascendant: The sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. It changes about every two hours, which is why an accurate birth time matters so much, and it fixes where every house begins.
Rashi · sign: One of the twelve signs. Each spans 30° of the zodiac and has a ruling graha, called its lord.
Bhava · house: One of twelve divisions of the chart, counted from the lagna, each governing a domain of life: the 1st the person, the 2nd resources and speech, the 4th home and foundations, the 7th partnership, the 9th fortune and principle, the 10th work, and so on.
Whole-sign houses: The house system used throughout these readings, and the oldest one: the sign containing the lagna is the entire 1st house, the next sign the entire 2nd, and so on. It is why a graha's house can be read straight off its sign.
Nakshatra · lunar mansion: One of twenty-seven divisions of the zodiac, each of 13°20′, each with its own ruling graha, deity and body of imagery. The nakshatra the Moon occupies at birth is the janma nakshatra, and it sets the whole dasha timeline.
Pada · quarter: A quarter of a nakshatra, 3°20′ wide. “Rohini 3” means the third quarter of Rohini.
Sidereal zodiac / ayanamsa: These readings measure positions against the fixed stars (sidereal) rather than against the equinox (tropical, as used in Western astrology). The ayanamsa is the offset between the two, currently about 24°. The Lahiri value is used here.

The panchanga

The panchanga is the “five limbs” of the day: the calendar of the moment of birth, reckoned from the Sun and Moon rather than from a civil clock.

Vara · weekday: The weekday, but measured from sunrise rather than midnight. A birth before sunrise therefore belongs to the previous vara, which is why a chart sometimes names a different day than the calendar does.
Tithi · lunar day: One of thirty phases of the lunar month, each the time the Moon takes to gain 12° on the Sun. Shukla paksha is the waxing fortnight, Krishna paksha the waning one.
Nithya yoga and karana: Two further divisions of the day, computed from the Sun and Moon together. They are recorded for completeness; the readings make little of them.

The nine grahas

Graha is usually translated “planet”, though it means something closer to “the one that seizes”. There are nine: seven visible bodies and the two lunar nodes, which are mathematical points rather than objects.

Surya · Chandra · Mangala · Budha: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury.
Guru · Shukra · Shani: Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. Guru is also called Brihaspati.
Rahu and Ketu · the lunar nodes: The two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. They are always exactly opposite each other and always move backwards. The tradition treats Rahu as amplifying and unconventional, Ketu as detaching and subtracting.
Karaka · significator: The graha that naturally stands for a subject, independently of where it sits: the Sun for authority and the self, the Moon for the mind, Budha for intellect and speech, Guru for counsel and learning, Shani for work and endurance.

The condition of a graha

Much of a reading turns on how well or badly placed a graha is. These are the standard measures, and all of them are arithmetic rather than interpretation.

Exalted · uchcha: A graha in the sign where the tradition holds it strongest. Each has exactly one: the Sun in Mesha, the Moon in Vrishabha, Mangala in Makara, Budha in Kanya, Guru in Karka, Shukra in Meena, Shani in Tula.
Debilitated · neecha, fallen: The opposite sign to a graha's exaltation, where the tradition holds it weakest. It is a statement about a placement, not a verdict about a person, and it is very often cancelled (see Neecha Bhanga).
Own sign, friendly, neutral, inimical: A graha in a sign it rules is at home and reads strongly. Otherwise its comfort depends on whether the sign's lord is its natural friend, neutral, or enemy, by a fixed classical table.
Combust · astangata: A graha too close to the Sun to be seen. The tradition reads its independent voice as absorbed into the Sun's. The orbs differ by graha, from about 8° to 17°. Being combust is the most common quiet discount on an otherwise strong placement.
Retrograde: Apparent backward motion as seen from Earth. Read as a faculty that turns inward before it turns outward, and as matters that tend to be revisited. Rahu and Ketu are always retrograde, so it is never remarked on for them.
Vargottama: A graha occupying the same sign in the birth chart and in the navamsa. Read as consistency: the same in the inner chart as in the outer.
Dispositor: The lord of the sign a graha sits in. A graha's dispositor matters because the condition of the host colours the guest, and because several cancellation rules depend on it.
Digbala · directional strength: The house in which each graha is held to be strongest regardless of sign: the Sun and Mangala in the 10th, Guru and Budha in the 1st, the Moon and Shukra in the 4th, Shani in the 7th.

Groups of houses

Kendra · angle: houses 1, 4, 7, 10: The four pillars of the chart, and the houses of action and standing.
Trikona · trine: houses 1, 5, 9: The houses of fortune and dharma. The 1st belongs to both groups, which is why the lagna lord matters so much.
Upachaya · houses 3, 6, 10, 11: The “growing” houses, where difficulty is held to improve with time. Shani and the nodes are read favourably here.
Dusthana · houses 6, 8, 12: The difficult houses: contest and obligation, what is hidden or held jointly, and what is withdrawn or spent.
Lord of a house: The graha ruling the sign that forms that house. Most of a reading is about where each lord has gone, since that links one domain of life to another.
Yogakaraka: A graha that rules both a kendra and a trikona at once, and so carries a raja yoga within itself. Only some ascendants have one: Shani for Tula and Vrishabha, Shukra for Makara and Kumbha, Mangala for Karka and Simha.

Divisional charts

Varga · divisional chart: A further chart made by subdividing each sign and re-mapping the result. Sixteen are in classical use; a reading normally leans on two.
Navamsa · D9: Each sign divided into nine. Traditionally the second chart anyone looks at, read as the inner chart, and as the strength behind what the birth chart shows. A graha strong in the navamsa and weak in the birth chart is read very differently from one weak in both.
Dashamsha · D10: Each sign divided into ten. The varga the tradition uses for the texture of working life.
The others: Hora (D2), drekkana (D3), saptamsha (D7), dwadashamsha (D12), trimshamsha (D30) and shashtiamsha (D60) are computed and recorded, and mentioned only where they say something the main chart does not.

Yogas

A yoga is a named combination: a rule of the form “if these placements occur, the texts call it this and read it so”. They are applied mechanically, by checking the definition, not by impression.

Pancha Mahapurusha yogas: Five configurations formed when Mangala, Budha, Guru, Shukra or Shani stands in its own sign or exaltation, in a kendra. Named respectively Ruchaka, Bhadra, Hamsa, Malavya and Shasha, and read as portraits of character: the commander, the scholar, the sage, the cultivated person, the enduring one.
Raja yoga: Broadly, a combination the texts associate with standing and authority. The commonest form is a kendra lord associating with a trikona lord, by conjunction or by exchange.
Dhana yoga: A combination associated with wealth, typically involving the lords of the 2nd, 5th, 9th or 11th.
Gaja Kesari yoga: Guru in a kendra from the Moon. Read as standing derived from counsel and learning rather than from force.
Budhaditya yoga: The Sun and Budha together in one sign: intellect joined to authority. Common, and usually discounted when Budha is combust, which it often is.
Chandra–Mangala yoga: The Moon and Mangala conjoined. Read as a producer of resource: enterprise joined to feeling.
Anapha, Sunapha, Durudhara: The chandra yogas, formed by grahas placed in the 12th from the Moon, the 2nd from it, or both. Durudhara is the fullest of the three, and all are read as a well-supported mind.
Neecha Bhanga · cancellation of debility: A set of rules under which a debilitated graha's fall is considered undone, most often when its dispositor stands in a kendra. Phaladeepika's gloss is a beginning under handicap that ends in strength. The rules vary between authorities, so a reading should say which one it is applying.
Parivartana · sign exchange: Two grahas each occupying the sign the other rules. The texts allow each to be read as though standing in its own sign. Classified as Maha when kendra and trikona lords are involved, Dainya when a 6th, 8th or 12th lordship is, and the two classes read quite differently.
Viparita Raja Yoga · Harsha, Sarala, Vimala: Formed when the lord of the 6th, 8th or 12th house occupies one of those same houses. The logic is inversion: the lords of difficulty, confined to houses of difficulty, are read as spending their harm on each other. Associated with advantage won on contested ground rather than smooth ground.

Timing

Vimshottari dasha: The standard system of periods. The nine grahas each govern a stretch of life in a fixed order and fixed lengths totalling 120 years, and where you begin in that cycle is set by the Moon's nakshatra at birth. This is why the birth time and the janma nakshatra matter to every date in a timing document.
Mahadasha and antardasha: The major period and the sub-period running inside it. A reading names both, since the sub-period colours the years more closely than the major one does.
Gochara · transit: Where the grahas are now, read against where they stood at birth. Positions are counted both from the natal Moon and from the lagna, and the two do not always agree; an honest reading keeps both.
Sade Sati: The seven and a half years during which Shani transits the sign before the natal Moon's sign, that sign itself, and the one after. The classical literature on it is severe in tone; the more measured reading in the same literature is a period of weight and consolidation. It arrives two or three times in a long life, and it always ends on a computable date.
Ashtama Shani: Shani transiting the 8th sign from the natal Moon. Counted separately from Sade Sati.

The texts

BPHS · Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra: The most cited classical compendium of Jyotisha, attributed to the sage Parashara. It is the source of most yoga definitions used here.
Phaladeepika: A later classical work by Mantreswara, valued for its compact statements of interpretation. Where a reading says “the tradition reads this as”, the source is usually one of these two.

What these readings will not do

For completeness, since the vocabulary above can suggest otherwise: a Codestiny reading describes structure and does not predict events. It offers no remedies, gems, rituals or scores, and it makes no statement about health, marriage, children, or the compatibility of any two people. Dasha periods and transits are given as chapters of emphasis, never as forecasts.