Enter your birth date, time and place above and this free calculator draws your Sudarshan chakra: your chart three times in one wheel, from the rising sign, from the Moon sign and from the Sun sign. A table lists the twelve houses from all three with their signs and planets, the result says whether your chart meets the condition under which the classical text reads the chakra, and it shows which house rules the present year of your life by the chakra’s own year count.
How it works
The chakra is described in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, ch. 74 (Santhanam’s edition). Verse 4 asks for three circles around one point, each cut into twelve houses. Verses 5 and 6 fill them: the innermost circle holds the twelve houses from the Ascendant with their planets, the next the twelve houses from the sign of the Moon, and the third the twelve houses from the sign of the Sun. So every house of the wheel carries three signs, one in each ring.
The calculator works out the rising sign and the planets from the NASA JPL DE440 tables with the Lahiri ayanamsa and the mean node, counts the houses as whole signs from each of the three, and draws the wheel with the 1st house at the top and the houses running anticlockwise, as the translation’s drawing counts the signs.
Verses 21 to 23 add a count of years: the 1st house rules the first year of life, the 2nd house the second, and so on, starting again after twelve years. The result shows the house for the year you are in now, counted from each of the three, using years of 365.2425 days from the moment of birth, as every dasha on this site does. The translator’s note after verses 24 to 26 says the periods of this system are reckoned by solar months. If a year is taken as the Sun’s return to its place at birth, it ends a little later than the year shown here: in our check of 18 charts, by less than a day up to age 70 and by about 1.4 days at age 100. Near a birthday, keep that in mind.
Reading the result
The first line gives the three starting signs and the house that rules the present year of your life, counted from each of them. Verses 7 to 9 say the Ascendant, the Moon and the Sun each represent the 1st house, and the 2nd, 3rd and later houses from the Moon and the Sun deal with the same subjects as from the Ascendant. Verses 10 to 14 then judge each house by the planets in it and those aspecting it. Reading one house across the three rings shows how that subject looks from all three starting points at once.
Verses 19 and 20 limit the method: the results are to be read from the Sudarshan chakra when the Sun and the Moon are in separate signs, each different from the sign of the Ascendant. When two or all three share a sign, the birth chart alone is read. The result tells you which case your chart is.
Where traditions differ
The verses put the Ascendant in the innermost ring. Some drawings, including the Sudarshan chakra panel of our free kundali, put the Ascendant in the outer ring and the Sun in the inner one, and run the houses clockwise from the top, where this page runs them anticlockwise as the translation’s drawing does. The signs and planets in each house are the same; only the order of the rings and the direction differ. The same chapter also gives each house a month within the year, and shorter periods within that; this page shows the year only.
What it does not do
It does not grade the houses as good or bad, and it does not show the monthly and shorter periods of the chakra. It needs the time of birth, because the inner ring starts from the rising sign. To see the three charts drawn separately, use the Chandra and Surya kundali page.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is the Sudarshan chakra in astrology?
It is a wheel of three rings that shows the birth chart from the rising sign, from the Moon's sign and from the Sun's sign at the same time. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra describes it in ch. 74.
↳ Which ring is which?
Following the verses, the inner ring holds the houses from the Lagna, the middle ring the houses from the Moon, and the outer ring the houses from the Sun. House 1 of every ring is at the top.
↳ When should the Sudarshan chakra be used?
Verses 19 and 20 of ch. 74 say to read results from it when the Sun and the Moon are in separate signs, both different from the sign of the Ascendant. When two or three of them share a sign, the birth chart alone is read. The tool checks this for you.
↳ What is the Sudarshan year?
In verses 21 to 23 each house rules one year of life in turn, from the 1st house in the first year to the 12th in the twelfth, and then the count starts again. The house of the year is read as the 1st house for that year.
↳ Why do I need a birth time?
The inner ring starts from the rising sign, which changes several times a day. Without the time the Moon and Sun charts can still be drawn; the Chandra and Surya kundali page shows them.