What to enter
- The date and the clock time exactly as the birth record gives them, in the local time of the place — do not convert to Indian time.
- The place: the town or city, chosen from the list (horoAstro's gazetteer has the world's places with their coordinates and time zone, so a birth in Jersey City is not read as Jersey, nor Cambridge, Massachusetts as Cambridge, England).
- Morning or evening (AM or PM) — a 12-hour clock without it is the commonest error in a foreign record.
- Nothing else: no offset, no 'GMT+5:30'. The zone and the daylight-saving rule of that place on that date are looked up; a wrong offset typed by hand is the second commonest error.
What horoAstro does with the time
The clock time is turned into universal time with the IANA time-zone database, the same one every phone and computer keeps: it holds every zone's history — when a country adopted daylight saving, the years it suspended it, the shifts of a boundary. So a birth in Phoenix (no daylight saving), in Indiana before 2006 (several counties on different rules), in the UK during the 1968–71 British Standard Time experiment, or in the Gulf (no daylight saving) is read by the clock that was actually running. The planets are then computed for that instant from NASA JPL's DE440 ephemeris, sidereal with the Lahiri ayanāṃśa, and the lagna from the place's latitude and longitude.
Viṣṇu, whose nature is unmanifest, is Time in form; his limbs are, in order, the signs beginning with Aries. The sign of them rising in the east at the moment and place of birth is the lagna, from which the houses are counted.
Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra 4.2
The two nights a year the clock lies
- Clocks set back (the end of summer time): the hour from 1:00 to 2:00 happens twice. A birth at 1:30 that night is one of two instants, an hour apart. horoAstro computes both, shows both readings side by side, and asks which — the hospital's record sometimes says 'DST' or 'standard' beside the time.
- Clocks set forward (the start of summer time): the hour from 2:00 to 3:00 never happens. A record that says 2:30 that night was written by a clock not yet moved, or moved; horoAstro says the time did not exist and reads it both ways.
- India before 1955: Bombay and Calcutta kept their own time while the railways ran on IST; a birth record from those cities before 1955 is flagged, and you are asked which clock it follows.
The reading is the same reading
Nothing else changes with the country. The chart is read by the same rules of Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra, each result with its verse; the periods run from the same Moon; the transits (Gochar) are computed for the sky over your own place and given in your own clock, with the planets' sign changes on the dates they happen for you. The reading is in English or Hindi, and the plans are paid in US dollars by PayPal from outside India.
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- Your kundli (birth chart) and navāṃśa
- All sixteen divisional charts
- Every planet's sign, degree, nakṣatra and house
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- When: each result placed in your periods and ages
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- A summary in short, plain lines
- Every line with its verse
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Questions
I was born in the USA; should I convert the time to IST?
No. Enter the time as the US birth certificate gives it, with AM or PM, and the city; horoAstro converts it, with the daylight-saving rule of that state on that date.
My birth was in the Gulf; is daylight saving a concern?
The Gulf states do not keep daylight saving, so the certificate's time is standard time all year; enter it as written. The place still matters for the lagna.
What if I only know the Indian time my mother remembers?
Enter the clock time of the place of birth. If the only time known is an Indian clock for a birth abroad, convert it carefully to that place's local time first — or, better, find the record; an hour's error moves the lagna by half a sign.
Can I pay from outside India?
Yes. Readers outside India pay in US dollars by PayPal; the plans and the introductory offer are shown in dollars on the page.
Is the kundli free for NRIs?
Yes — the kundli and its divisional charts are free, with no sign-in, wherever you are. The full reading opens with a plan on that kundli.