Kundali (astrology)
Indian term for birth chart or horoscope / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kuṇḍali (also called janmapatra) is the Indian term for the astrological chart or diagram representing the positions of the navagraha-s of Indian astrology at a particular moment like the moment of the birth of a child. The navagraha-s are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the two nodes of the Moon. The nodes of the Moon are the points on the celestial sphere where the orbit of the Moon intersects the orbit of the Sun. At a particular moment the navagraha-s will be at different points in the sky and they will be located in one of the 12 zodiacal signs (rāśi-s in Indian astrology), namely:
- 1. Meṣa (Aries), 2. Vṛṣabha (Taurus), 3.Mithuna (Gemini), 4. Karka (Cancer), 5. Siṃha (Leo), 6. Kanyā (Virgo), 7. Tulā (Libra), 8. Vṛścika (Scorpio), 9. Dhanuṣa (Sagittarius), 10. Makara (Caprocornus), 11. Kumbha (Aquarius), 12. Mīna (Pisces)
A kuṇḍali will show diagrammatically which one of the navagraha-s are located in which one of the rāśi-s at a particular moment. A kuṇḍali has twelve cells to represent the 12 zodiacal signs. Practitioners of astrology in different parts of India follow different conventions regarding the exact form in which the kuṇḍali is constructed. Essentially there are three different ways in which these cells are represented in a kuṇḍali, the one followed by people of South India, the one followed by people of North India and the one followed by people of Eastern India (West Bengal and Odisha). [1]
The practice of constructing a kuṇḍali per se is not unscientific or pseudo-science as the kuṇḍali is only a diagram depicting the positions in the zodiac of the nine entities called the navagraha-s at a particular moment of time, and the navagraha-s are associated with true astronomical entities. But, the practice of "reading" a kuṇḍali and interpreting or using it to predict the future events or the personality traits of individuals, has no scientific basis and is a pseudo-science.[2][3][4]