Enter your birth date, time and place above and this free KP chart calculator gives the twelve house cusps and the nine planets the way Krishnamurti Paddhati (KP) reads them: each with its sign lord, star lord and sub lord, in the KP ayanamsa with Placidus cusps. You also see the KP house of each planet, and the window of clock time in which your 1st cusp keeps the same sub lord. It is a free taster of the KP tool in Nidarshana Vedh Pro, which goes on to the significators, the promise of a matter, the ruling planets and the dasha windows.
How it works
KP is the system K. S. Krishnamurti set out in his six KP Readers. The chart here follows KP Reader I, Casting the Horoscope, in three steps.
The zodiac. Positions are sidereal in the KP ayanamsa, which on this site is the Lahiri ayanamsa minus 348.669 arc-seconds, about 5 minutes 49 seconds of arc, on every date from 1900 to 2074. The planets come from the NASA JPL DE440 tables on this site, with the true node for Rahu and Ketu, as in the Pro KP tool.
The cusps. The twelve cusps are Placidus cusps, worked out for the moment and the place of birth and moved to the KP ayanamsa. The 1st cusp is the ascendant, the degree of the zodiac rising in the east; outside the polar circles it is the same degree our ascendant calculator gives, moved by the small KP gap. A planet’s KP house is the house between the cusp it has passed and the next one.
The lords. The sign lord is the ruler of the sign. The star lord is the lord of the nakshatra, in the Vimshottari order: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. Each nakshatra of 13 degrees 20 minutes is then cut into nine subs in proportion to the Vimshottari years (Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17, out of 120), starting with the nakshatra’s own lord. That gives 243 subs around the zodiac, from 40 minutes of arc for a Sun sub to 2 degrees 13 minutes 20 seconds for a Venus sub. The lord of the sub a point falls in is its sub lord.
Reading the result
The headline gives the sub lord of the 1st cusp, and the line under it the KP Lagna and the Moon’s star and sub lords. In KP each house is read mainly through the sub lord of its cusp: the sub lord of the 7th cusp for marriage, of the 10th for work, and so on. The cusp table gives all twelve, with the 1st cusp row marked, and the planet table gives the nine planets with their KP houses, with the Moon’s row marked.
The cusps move fast. The ascendant passes through the whole zodiac in a day, about one degree every four minutes on average, so a sub lord can hold for only a few minutes. The result tells you, to the second, when your 1st cusp entered its sub and when it leaves it, so you can see how much your birth time can be off before the sub lord changes.
A planet near a cusp can fall in a different KP house from the whole sign house our other calculators use, where house 1 is the whole rising sign. The result lists any planet that shifts. Both are honest answers to different questions, because the house systems differ.
Where traditions differ
KP astrologers do not all use the same settings. Some use a later reconstruction of the KP ayanamsa, called KP New, after D. Senthilathiban, which differs from the one used here by about 1 minute 12 seconds of arc; the Pro tool offers it, and this page uses the KP ayanamsa above. Some use the mean node for Rahu and Ketu instead of the true node; the two can be up to about two degrees apart, so a node’s sub lord can change. Placidus is the KP standard, but it is not defined close to the poles, and there this page uses Porphyry cusps and says so. Later KP writers also use the sub-sub lord and a four-step reading of each planet, which are not part of this free chart.
What it does not do
It does not name the significators of the houses, judge whether a matter is promised, give the ruling planets or the dasha windows, or say what will happen. It needs the birth time, because without it there are no cusps. For all of that, see the KP tool in Nidarshana Vedh Pro. For a number-based question chart, use the KP horary number calculator, and for your nakshatra in the usual Lahiri zodiac, the nakshatra calculator.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is a sub lord in KP astrology?
Each nakshatra is cut into nine unequal parts, called subs, in proportion to the Vimshottari dasha years, starting with the nakshatra's own lord. The planet that rules the part a cusp or a planet falls in is its sub lord. KP reads a house mainly through the sub lord of its cusp.
↳ Which ayanamsa does this KP chart use?
The KP ayanamsa, taken as the Lahiri ayanamsa minus 348.669 arc-seconds on every date. We checked it against the Krishnamurti ayanamsa of the Swiss Ephemeris (mode 5) from 1900 to 2075, and the two agree to within 0.001 arc-second.
↳ Why is my KP Lagna a little more than on the ascendant calculator?
The KP ayanamsa is about 5 minutes 49 seconds of arc smaller than Lahiri, so every sidereal position, the Lagna included, comes out that much further on. If your Lahiri ascendant is within that distance of the end of a sign, the KP Lagna falls in the next sign.
↳ Why is a planet in a different house here?
KP houses run from one Placidus cusp to the next, while our other calculators take each whole sign as one house. A planet near the edge of a house can fall in a different house in the two systems. The result lists every planet where this happens.
↳ How exact does my birth time need to be?
As exact as you can get it. The 1st cusp often keeps its sub lord for only a few minutes, and the result shows that window for your chart to the second. If your recorded time could be off by more than that, the sub lord may be different.
↳ Can I use it without a birth time?
No. Without the time there are no cusps and no houses. The nakshatra calculator works without the time.
↳ Does it use the true node or the mean node?
The true node, as the Pro KP tool does by default. Our other calculators use the mean node, so Rahu and Ketu can sit a little apart here, and now and then in another sub.
↳ Is this the full KP method?
No. It gives the cusps, the planets and their lords, which is where every KP reading starts. The significators, the promise of a matter, the ruling planets and the timing are in the KP tool in Nidarshana Vedh Pro.