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Astrology glossary

Twenty-four terms that cover most of what you will meet — Western and Vedic both, in plain language.

Ascendant (rising sign)

The zodiac sign rising on the eastern horizon at your birth. It sets your chart’s twelve houses and describes how you meet the world. It changes every two hours, which is why birth time matters.

Aspect

An angle between two planets — conjunction (0°), sextile (60°), square (90°), trine (120°), opposition (180°). Trines and sextiles read as ease; squares and oppositions as friction that produces growth.

Bazi (Four Pillars)

Chinese astrology’s core method: the year, month, day, and hour of birth become four "pillars," each a stem-and-branch pair of elemental energy. Read together they map temperament, timing, and luck cycles.

Birth chart (natal chart)

The map of where every planet stood at the moment and place of your birth. The input document for everything astrology concludes about you.

Dasha

Vedic timing system: planetary periods (Vimshottari is the most used) that divide life into chapters ruled by specific planets — Jyotish’s answer to "when," which Western astrology has no direct equivalent for.

Ephemeris

The table of planetary positions for every date, computed from orbital mechanics. Every chart ever drawn starts here.

House

One of twelve life departments in a chart — money, family, partnership, career — set by your birth time and place. A planet’s house shows where its energy lands in your life.

Kundli

The Vedic birth chart: lagna, rashi, nakshatra, and dasha sequence computed from birth data using the sidereal zodiac.

Lagna

The Vedic name for the ascendant — the sign on the eastern horizon at birth, and the backbone of the kundli.

Mangal dosha

A Mars affliction in a kundli (Mars in certain houses) traditionally checked before marriage. Cancellations and exceptions matter more than the headline.

Midheaven (MC)

The highest point of the chart — career, public role, reputation. The cusp of the tenth house.

Muhurat

An elected auspicious moment — the Vedic practice of choosing timing for weddings, launches, and moves from the sky.

Nakshatra

One of 27 lunar mansions dividing the Vedic zodiac. Your Moon’s nakshatra fine-tunes temperament and starts your dasha sequence.

North Node (Rahu) / South Node (Ketu)

The two points where the Moon’s orbit crosses the Sun’s path — the eclipse axis. Read as appetite and release, future and past.

Precession

The slow wobble of Earth’s axis — about one degree per 72 years — that has drifted the tropical and sidereal zodiacs ~24° apart. The root of "your Vedic sign differs."

Rashi

Vedic Moon sign — the anchor of Jyotish personality reading, used for daily predictions and kundli matching.

Retrograde

Apparent backward motion of a planet as Earth overtakes it (or is overtaken). An astronomical illusion, an astrological review period.

Sade Sati

The 7.5-year stretch when Saturn transits the sign before, of, and after your natal Moon. Vedic astrology’s most famous testing period — and its most feared, usually unfairly.

Sidereal zodiac

The zodiac anchored to the actual constellations, used by Vedic astrology.

Synastry

Chart-to-chart comparison for relationships — how one person’s planets land in the other’s chart.

Transit (gochar)

Where a planet is now, measured against your birth chart. The moving weather over your fixed map.

Tropical zodiac

The zodiac anchored to the seasons (Aries begins at the spring equinox), used by Western astrology.

Vimshottari dasha

The 120-year Vedic dasha cycle that assigns your life’s timing chapters from your birth nakshatra.

Zodiac

The belt of sky the Sun, Moon, and planets travel through, divided into twelve signs. Which twelve depends on which zodiac you use.

Want these applied to an actual chart? Ask the Oracle, browse the free tools, or start with what a birth chart contains.