How to Read Your Kundali: A Simple Guide to Understanding Your Life with Astrology

You have heard your mother saying, “Get your kundali analysed by an astrologer” after every small inconvenience in your life, and you always had that thought, “What is the meaning of kundli and how can this yellow piece of paper tell what exactly is wrong in your life?” 

Well, that piece of paper is actually your kundali (and now you can even get your own kundli online with our kundali calculator tool). The kundli (birth chart) is based on the time you were born and tells you about different aspects of your life. It carries all your answers that you had from your life, like “Will I actually get that job, or will I keep struggling for years? Will my marriage be a happy one, or the kind where two people just adjust their whole lives? Why does everything come easy to some people and take so long for me?”

So let’s find these answers in this Janam Kundali guide that keeps roaming in your head…

First, What Is a Kundli Actually?

A kundli is a picture of the sky at the exact moment you were born. It includes everything, where the moon, planets, and the sun was.

"Janam" means birth and "Kundali" means chart. So Janam Kundali simply means your birth chart. Imagine that someone took a picture of the sky the exact time you were born. 

That picture is your kundli. The only difference is that you get small 12 boxes instead of a photograph

One thing that you need to keep in mind before going forward is that the birth time has to be correct. Even a minute difference can change the reading. That's why two people can have different kundalis even after being born on the same day.

Step 1 - Find Your Lagna, The Activation Button

Your lagna is a very important factor in your kundli, without this, nothing else matters in your chart. So, let’s know what makes your lagna this important. 

First, let’s find where your lagna is,  

• Get your kundali, either online or offline. 
• Look at the top centre box that has a diamond shape ( in the north indian chart ) 
• If it is a south indian chart, it has the plain square box marked as “ASC” or “lagna”.

Inside that box, you will see a number between 1 and 12. That number is your rising sign.

1 is Aries, 2 is Taurus, 3 is Gemini, 4 is Cancer, 5 is Leo, 6 is Virgo, 7 is Libra, 8 is Scorpio, 9 is Sagittarius, 10 is Capricorn, 11 is Aquarius, 12 is Pisces.

This is your lagna, your lagna works as an activation button for you. 

This is your Lagna. It works exactly like an activation button. Two people can have every single planet in the same position, but if their Lagna is different, they will live two completely different lives. This is why an astrologer asks for your birth time before anything else.

Step 2 - Number Your 12 Houses

Now that you have found your Lagna box, that box becomes House 1. Everything gets counted from there.

In a North Indian chart, count anti-clockwise. In a South Indian chart, count clockwise. Keep going until you have labelled all 12 boxes.

And what are these houses? Houses in kundli are simply 12 areas of your life. That is it. No mystery. One box for your career, one for your marriage, one for your money, and so on.

Step 3 - Meet the 9 Planets

Now look inside your boxes. You will see short forms written in them like "Su, Mo, Ma, Me, Ju, Ve, Sa, Ra, Ke".

These are your nine planets, and each one carries a different aspect that guides your life. 

Now Read It. Planet + House = Your Answer

This is the part where your kundli finally starts talking to you.

Take any planet, see which house number it is sitting in, and put the two meanings together. That is called reading.

Saturn in your 10th house?

Saturn means slow and steady hard work, the 10th house means career. So your career grows late, but it grows strong. That could mean nothing comes to you at 22, but at 35 you are the one people depend on.

Venus in your 7th house?

Venus means love and comfort, the 7th house means marriage. Your married life will be affectionate, and your partner will bring beauty and comfort into your home.

Mars in your 4th house?

Mars means fire and arguments, the 4th house means home and peace of mind. There is a good chance of tension at home, or a restless mind that never fully switches off.

Go through your own chart now and do this for every planet you can see. Write it down in one line each. You will be surprised how much of it already matches your life.

Step 5 - The Empty Houses! Where Most People Give Up

Now you will notice something. Some of your boxes are completely empty, with no planet in them at all. And usually those are the exact houses you wanted to know about.

An empty 7th house does not mean no marriage. An empty 10th house does not mean no career. Every house carries a sign, and every sign is owned by one planet. That owner is called the house lord. When a house is empty, you read it through its lord instead.

So the question becomes very simple: where is that house's lord sitting?

If your 10th house lord is sitting in the 11th house, your career effort turns into good income. If your 7th house lord is sitting in the 12th house, your marriage may involve distance, a partner from another city, or even another country. If your 2nd house lord is sitting in the 6th house, money keeps leaking into loans and medical costs.

Where to Look for the Question You Actually Have

Nobody opens their kundali to read all 12 houses. You open it for one question. So here is exactly where to look.

For any of these, run the same routine. Look at the house, look at where its lord is sitting, then look at who is sitting beside it.

Mistakes Almost Every Beginner Makes

Getting scared of Rahu, Ketu and Saturn

Saturn is the planet that helps in building long careers, and Rahu is often related to fame. Their position matters, you don’t need to be afraid of their reputation. 

Deciding your whole life from one planet

You need to understand this, one planet does not decide anything. To understand a person's kundli, you need to focus on everything - its lord, the planet around it, you need to read everything together. 

Mixing your Instagram sun sign with your kundali

Western astrology and Vedic astrology have different ways to calculate readings. Your Vedic sign is often not the one you keep posting about in your stories.

How to Learn Kundli Reading Properly

If you want to learn kundali reading for others, this is the correct way to start:   

• Learn the 12 houses first.
• Then learn the 9 planets and what each one brings.
• Then learn which planet has which sign. 
• Then practise on your own family's charts, because you already know their real life story and can check if your reading actually matches.
• Only after that, move to dashas, divisional charts and transits.

Your Chart Holds More Than You Think

Your kundali is the map of your own life, you just read the way to read it today, with your lagna, the numbers of your house and the planets' placement. If this made you interested in knowing more about the secrets your charts have, you can enroll in our Vedic astrology course at All India Institute of Occult Science.