What the Varshphal is
Varshphal means the fruit of the year. In Tajika astrology, the branch of Indian astrology that grew from Perso-Arabic methods, a separate chart is cast every year for the moment the Sun comes back to the exact degree, minute and second it held at your birth. That moment is the Varsha pravesh, the entry of the year, and it falls within a day or so of your birthday. The chart for it is read for the twelve months that follow, alongside the birth chart and the running dasha.
The annual chart is built from the same parts as any chart: a rising sign (the Varsha lagna), the planets in the signs and houses, and a few special points of its own. This tool finds the return moment, casts the chart, and works out the two most used special points, the Muntha and the year lord.
How the tool works
You enter your birth date, time and place, and a year after the year of birth. The tool reads the Sun’s position from the Swiss Ephemeris tables on this site and searches the days around your birthday in that year for the instant the Sun’s longitude equals your birth longitude, to a fraction of a second. It then casts the chart for that moment at your birth place, or at another place if you tick the box, using whole-sign houses and the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa.
The result gives the date and time of the Varsha pravesh in the local time of the place, the Varsha lagna, a table of the planets with their signs, degrees, houses and retrograde marks, the Muntha, and the year lord table.
Where Tajika teachers differ
The first difference is the zodiac of the return. Indian practice measures the return in the sidereal zodiac, and the Sun then returns to the same sidereal degree a little later each year, because the sidereal year is slightly longer than the tropical one. By the age of 36 the two moments are about twelve hours apart. A tropical return, as used in Western solar return work, is offered as an option. The two are almost the same in the first years of life and drift apart as you grow older.
The second difference is the place. Many Tajika books cast the annual chart for the birth place, and some modern teachers use the place where you live in that year. The tool lets you choose.
The third is the year lord. Tajika names five office-bearers, called the Panchadhikari: the lord of the Janma lagna, the Varsha lagna lord, the Muntha lord, the Dinaratri lord and the Tri-rashi lord. The year lord, the Varshesha, is chosen from them. The tool uses the first three and the Tri-rashi lord, whose rule is the same in the books it follows (fire signs: Sun by day, Jupiter by night; earth: Venus, Moon; air: Saturn, Mercury; water: Venus, Mars). It leaves out the Dinaratri lord because books give it in different ways. It then asks which of these see the Varsha lagna by a Tajika aspect, which is read between signs: the 3rd, 5th, 9th and 11th signs are friendly aspects, the 4th, 7th and 10th hostile ones. If exactly one sees the lagna, that planet is the year lord. If several do, the tool names one only when a single candidate is in the lagna or has a friendly aspect, and says plainly that this is the simple answer. Most books go on to compare the planets by strength (Panchavargiya bala), and the tool does not, so that last step is for an astrologer who follows the Tajika method.
The Muntha
The Muntha is a point that starts at the birth rising sign and moves forward one sign for every completed year of life. In the year you turn 30, for example, it has moved 30 signs, which is two full circles and six signs more, so it stands in the sign opposite your rising sign. The house it falls in on the annual chart is read as the area of life in focus that year, and the lord of its sign is the Muntha lord. Books often count the 6th, 8th and 12th houses as harder places for it and the others as easier, but its aspects and the strength of its lord count for more than the house alone.
Reading the result
Treat the result as one more way to look at timing, not as a forecast. A planet in a good house in the annual chart does not promise a good year, and a harder Muntha is a reason to be a little more careful, not a verdict. The annual chart is meant to be read with your birth chart and your running dasha, so use the Mahadasha calculator and the personal transit report beside it. If you want to check the rising sign, the ascendant calculator and the planet position calculator show it for any moment.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is Varshphal in Vedic astrology?
It is the annual chart, cast for the moment each year when the Sun returns to its exact birth position. The chart is read for the year ahead, together with the birth chart and the dasha. The method belongs to Tajika astrology.
↳ Is the Varsha pravesh the same moment as my birthday?
It falls on or within a day of your birthday, but not at the same hour. The Sun's return to your birth degree can come several hours earlier or later than your birth time, and the sidereal return drifts later as you grow older.
↳ What is the Muntha?
It is a point that begins at your birth rising sign and advances one sign for each completed year. Its house on the annual chart shows the area of life that is in focus for the year, and the lord of its sign is the Muntha lord.
↳ Why does the tool sometimes not name a year lord?
The rule needs a choice among planets that see the annual rising sign, and when several do, the books compare their strength by a method this tool does not work out. In those cases it lists the candidates and says what it could not settle.
↳ Should I use the sidereal or the tropical return?
Indian practice uses the sidereal return, which is the default here. The tropical option is for readers who follow Western solar returns, and the two moments differ by about 20 minutes for each year of age.