Kundali Matching: What the Free Guna Milan Tool Actually Scores

Kundali matching, or Guna Milan, compares the Moon’s position in two birth charts against a fixed eight-part scoring system called Ashtakoota, worth 36 points in total. The free kundali tool runs that system on the two charts you enter, then adds three panels of its own: a Mangal dosha comparison, a closer look at Yoni and Nadi, and spouse indicators read from the male partner’s chart. This page documents what those panels actually check, koota by koota, so a result can be read rather than accepted.

Every one of the eight kootas is read from the Moon, the Chandra Kundali, not the Lagna or any other point in the chart. Classically the Moon is the karaka for the manas, the mind and emotional temperament, which is why a matching system built for day-to-day compatibility starts there rather than with the ascendant or the Sun.

What the matching panel actually shows

The compatibility form asks for a full birth date, time and place for a male partner and a female partner, the same detail the single-chart tool asks for. Once both are entered, the results screen opens with a circular score display, a number out of 36, coloured and accompanied by a one-line summary such as Good Compatibility or Average Compatibility, plus a short line of context that comes from the matching service itself.

Below the score sits the Ashtakoota (Kuta) Breakdown, a table with five columns: the koota’s name, its result (Good, Bad or Neutral), the male partner’s specific value for that koota, the female partner’s value, and a short description. This is the table the rest of this page is about.

If the matching service returns anything beyond the eight kootas, it appears in a separate Additional Factors card, shown with whatever verdict and description the service provides. This site’s own tool overview describes this as covering a few further classical checks; because that card is populated entirely by the service’s own labels, this guide does not put names to those extra items beyond what the service itself prints on screen.

Four more cards follow, and these are computed independently, not fetched as part of the 36-point score:

• Dosha Compatibility Warnings. If the Nadi or the Bhakoot koota comes back unfavourable, a card explains what that means and lists the classical exceptions worth checking. No other koota gets a dedicated warning card this way.
• Mangal Dosha Comparison. Each partner’s chart is checked separately for Mangal dosha, then the two results are read together.
• Nakshatra and Yoni Compatibility. A second, independent look at the Yoni animal for each partner’s nakshatra, plus a second, independent check of Nadi.
• Spouse Indicators (from Male Chart). The seventh house, its lord, Darakaraka and Venus, read from the male partner’s chart only.

An optional AI Compatibility Narrative can also be generated on request. That narrative is free-text and generative, not a rule-based result, and it sits outside everything described on this page.

The score and the eight-kuta table come from the site’s ephemeris service in a single call once both birth details are entered. The Mangal comparison, the Yoni and Nadi recheck, and the spouse indicators are computed afterwards, in the browser, from each partner’s planetary positions and house placements, fetched as a second set of calls. That split matters: the 36-point score is fixed the moment the service returns it, and the three panels built afterwards can fail independently of it without affecting the score or table above them.

The eight kootas, and what each one measures

Ashtakoota, literally the eight kootas, or eight compartments, is the specific point system this tool runs. Four of the eight are read from the Moon’s rashi, its zodiac sign. The other four are read from the Moon’s nakshatra, its lunar mansion, one of 27 fixed segments of the sky the Moon occupies at birth. Knowing which of the two a koota comes from explains why some scores move together and others do not: two people can share a Moon sign and still fall in different nakshatras, or share a nakshatra that straddles the edge of two signs.

Add the maximum points and the total is 36, the ceiling the score display is always measured against.

A little more on how each one works, in the tool’s own terms:

Varna sorts the Moon’s rashi into one of four tiers by element: water signs read as Brahmin, fire signs as Kshatriya, earth signs as Vaishya, and air signs as Shudra. Convention holds that the male partner’s varna should sit at or above the female partner’s; it is the smallest koota on the table and the one least discussed outside classical texts.

Vashya looks at which partner’s temperament tends to lead in the relationship, using five broad groupings drawn from animal categories: quadruped, human, aquatic, wild and insect natures. Certain pairings are read as naturally balanced, others as one-sided.

Tara, also called Dina, counts nakshatras. Starting from one partner’s birth nakshatra and counting to the other’s, in both directions, lands on one of nine tara. Some of these are read as favourable for daily harmony and health, others as difficult. Because the count runs in both directions, the two partners can land on different tara from each other’s point of view, part of why this koota carries only three points.

Yoni assigns each of the 27 nakshatras an animal, one of fourteen used across the full set, each with a gender. Where both partners’ nakshatras carry the same animal, the koota scores its full four points. Where the two animals are a recognised natural-enemy pair, such as horse and buffalo, or cat and rat, it scores zero. Any other pairing scores a middle value. This is the koota most directly about physical fit, and the one this tool checks twice: once inside the main score, and again by name in the Nakshatra and Yoni Compatibility card below.

Graha Maitri, sometimes called Rasyadhipati, does not look at the Moon signs directly but at their rulers. Each rashi has a ruling planet, and classical Jyotisha treats the seven planets as holding fixed natural friendships, neutralities and enmities with each other, not always mutual in both directions. Where the two Moon sign lords are friends, or the same planet, the koota scores well; where they are enemies, it scores poorly. This is the koota most directly about how two people think and decide together.

Gana groups all 27 nakshatras into three temperament types: Deva, gentle and refined; Manushya, mixed and ordinary; and Rakshasa, intense and independent. Two Deva or two Manushya or two Rakshasa nakshatras score the full six points. A Deva paired with a Rakshasa nakshatra is the combination classical texts treat as hardest, though, as covered below, several authorities weigh it far more leniently than Nadi or Bhakoot.

Bhakoot, also shown as Rasi, looks at the angle between the two Moon signs rather than either sign on its own. Where the two signs sit second and twelfth from each other, sixth and eighth, or fifth and ninth, the koota is read as unfavourable regardless of how well the other seven score, because these three relationships are held to strain finances, health or children specifically. Any other angular relationship scores the full seven points.

Nadi, worth eight points, the largest single weight on the table, sorts all 27 nakshatras into three constitutional types, Adi, Madhya and Antya, corresponding loosely to the classical Vata, Pitta and Kapha groupings. The assignment runs through the nakshatra order in a zigzag of six: Ashwini is Adi, Bharani Madhya, Krittika Antya, then Rohini Antya again, Mrigashira Madhya and Ardra Adi, and the same six-step pattern repeats through to Revati. Tools that simply count one, two, three in a loop get one nakshatra in every three wrong. Where both partners land in the same Nadi, the koota scores zero. Where they differ, it scores the full eight.

Take a hypothetical pair to see the Nadi and Yoni mechanics together. A groom with the Moon in Ashwini falls in Adi Nadi and carries the horse as his Yoni animal. A bride with the Moon in Bharani falls in Madhya Nadi and carries the elephant. The Nadis differ, so this pairing scores the full eight points there, and horse and elephant are not a listed enemy pair, so Yoni scores a middle value. Had the bride’s Moon instead fallen in Ardra, also Adi Nadi, the two would share a Nadi and the panel would report Nadi Dosha at zero of eight, with the exceptions below worth checking against the actual chart.

Reading a total honestly

A guna score is information about eight specific, narrow comparisons. It is not a verdict on a relationship, and the tool’s own wording avoids that word entirely. What it does use is five descriptive bands, tied to the percentage the matching service returns before it is converted to the 36-point display:

The figures on the right are approximate because of rounding, but close enough to be useful. It is worth sitting with what this table says about the number people repeat most often: 18 of 36 is a widely followed convention for the minimum acceptable score, and it is convention rather than a rule fixed in any text, since regions and families apply it differently, some treating it as a hard floor and others as one input among several. On this tool’s own five-band scale, 18 sits inside Average Compatibility, not at the boundary of anything: a score that clears the popular cutoff by a comfortable margin, and a score just under it, can both land in that same middle band. The honest use of the number is to read the band it falls in, read the table above it for which kootas pulled the score up or down, and treat 18 as a reference point rather than a pass or fail line.

The other point worth making plainly: this score is one comparison run on one part of two charts, the Moon’s position. It says nothing yet about the rest of either chart, which is covered later in this page.

The doshas everyone asks about

Four names come up most often in kundali matching: Nadi, Bhakoot, Gana and Mangal. Two get their own dedicated warning card on this tool; two do not, worth knowing before assuming silence means nothing was checked.

Nadi dosha

Nadi dosha fires when both partners’ nakshatras fall in the same Nadi, and it carries the single largest weight on the table, eight of 36 points, lost entirely when present. When the eight-kuta table returns an unfavourable Nadi result, a Dosha Compatibility Warnings card opens and states plainly that this is the most serious of the eight kootas to lose in full.

That card also lists classical exceptions worth checking: if the partners’ nakshatra padas differ, or their rashi lords turn out to be friends, the tradition it draws on treats the dosha as weakened rather than absolute; and where the total score is comfortably above 25 with a strong Bhakoot result, the same guidance treats it as counterbalanced. These are general classical conditions to check, not conditions this card re-tests against the two birth charts in front of it, so confirming pada or rashi-lord friendship for a specific pair means looking at the planetary positions directly rather than reading it off this card.

Separately, the Nakshatra and Yoni Compatibility card does re-test Nadi directly from each partner’s nakshatra, using the same classical table, and states outright whether the two share a Nadi. That check is chart-specific in a way the exceptions list is not, even though it does not go on to test the pada or rashi-lord exceptions itself.

Traditions vary on how strictly Nadi dosha should be weighed on its own, particularly where the concern is framed around the health of future children: some treat other strong compatibility across the chart as sufficient reassurance, others hold Nadi as close to a veto regardless of the rest of the score.

Bhakoot dosha

Bhakoot dosha fires when the two Moon signs sit second and twelfth from each other, sixth and eighth, or fifth and ninth, patterns the tradition associates with strain on finances, health or children. When the eight-kuta table returns an unfavourable Bhakoot result, its own warning card opens, distinct from the Nadi one.

The exceptions it lists: if the two Moon sign lords are friends or the same planet, the dosha is treated as cancelled outright; a strong Nadi and Graha Maitri result is treated as compensating for it; and an overall score comfortably above 25 out of 36 is treated as generally acceptable even with Bhakoot present. As with Nadi, these are classical conditions to check, not conditions this card re-tests and confirms on its own.

Gana, the one without its own card

A Deva-Rakshasa pairing under the Gana koota is one people worry about most, but this tool does not raise a separate Gana Dosha warning the way it does for Nadi and Bhakoot. A poor Gana result simply shows up as a low score in that one row of the table, worth up to six points. Classically, a Deva-Rakshasa mismatch is treated as the hardest of the three Gana combinations, but several authorities weigh it far more leniently than Nadi or Bhakoot, and matching practice generally treats it as one input to read alongside the rest of the table, not a standalone dosha needing its own remedy.

Mangal dosha, compared across both charts

Mangal dosha, also called Kuja dosha, is checked for each partner separately and then read together. The version used here counts Mars from the Lagna alone: if Mars sits in the first, second, fourth, seventh, eighth or twelfth house from the ascendant, the placement is present. This is narrower than counting from the Moon and Venus as well, worth noting plainly because a full accounting of a single Mangal dosha placement can differ depending on which reference points are counted; what follows is what this specific comparison actually checks.

Where the placement is present, the panel checks several classical cancellations against the real chart:

• Mars sitting in its own sign, Aries or Scorpio, or exalted in Capricorn
• Mars conjunct Jupiter, or receiving one of Jupiter’s classical special aspects, the fifth, seventh or ninth house counted from Jupiter’s own position
• Mars in the second house while that house falls in Gemini or Virgo, Mercury’s signs
• Mars in the twelfth house while that house falls in Taurus or Libra, Venus’s signs
• Mars in the Lagna itself while it falls in Aries, Leo or Aquarius
• Mars in the eighth house while it falls in Pisces or Aquarius
• Jupiter or Venus placed in the Lagna, which is treated as weakening the dosha generally rather than cancelling it outright

Each of these is checked against the actual chart, not simply listed, and whichever ones apply are named on screen.

The two partners’ results are then read together, in one of three ways. If neither shows the placement, it says so and treats it as no concern. If both show it, it states that the two placements are read as cancelling each other out classically, the one genuinely mutual exception in this method: the tradition it draws on holds that two Mangliks, the common term for someone carrying this placement, matching each other removes the concern on its own. If only one partner shows it, with no other cancellation active, the panel’s wording leans toward the older framing that another Manglik or a Mangal Shanti ritual is preferred. Read against the practice this site follows elsewhere, that a difficult placement calls for behaviour and effort before any ritual, the steadier use of that single-partner result is as a prompt to look at both full charts together, not as a verdict that settles anything on its own.

What a guna milan score cannot tell you

The 36-point score, start to finish, is built from one part of each chart: the Moon’s rashi and nakshatra. It never looks at any of the following, and nothing about a high or low score should be read as saying anything about them.

Character and effort. No score, however high, measures how two specific people communicate, resolve conflict, or choose to show up for each other over years. Ashtakoota was built to flag a narrow set of classical risk factors, not to substitute for knowing someone.

The seventh house. Kalatra Bhava, the house of partnership and marriage, and its ruling planet describe the nature of partnership in a single chart in far more detail than any koota touches. This tool does have a Spouse Indicators card built from the seventh house, its lord, Darakaraka and Venus, but it is read from the male partner’s chart alone, described on screen as indicative, and runs entirely separately from the 36-point score. A high guna score and a difficult seventh house, or the reverse, are both possible in the same match, because neither panel is aware of the other’s result.

Venus. Shukra, the planet classically tied to love, romantic compatibility, comfort and shared pleasure, is read only inside that same Spouse Indicators card, from one chart, and never inside the Ashtakoota score.

Navamsa, the D9 chart. Classical Jyotisha turns to the Navamsa specifically for marriage, built by dividing every sign into nine parts. Guna Milan does not touch it. Two rashi charts can match well on the surface while their Navamsa charts tell a different story, and this tool has no panel that compares the two partners’ Navamsa charts against each other at all.

Dasha timing. The Vimshottari dasha, the sequence of planetary periods that runs through a lifetime, decides when a marriage is likely to be supported or delayed far more than a static score does. A strong match on paper still needs a supportive period running to actually feel supported, and matching, as this tool computes it, makes no attempt to line up either partner’s dasha timeline against the other’s.

None of this makes the eight-koota score meaningless. It is a fast, checkable read on eight specific comparisons, worth having before a fuller conversation, just not the whole conversation.

When a full reading helps

A single koota table is a reasonable first pass. It is not a substitute for a reading that looks at both full charts together: the seventh house and its lord in each chart, both Navamsa charts side by side, both Venus placements, and the dasha timeline each partner is actually running or about to enter. That is the kind of comparison a consultation is built for, reading both charts as a pair rather than running eight fixed comparisons and stopping.

Sources

• Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, the classical source for planetary dignity, natural friendship between planets, and the general basis for dosha analysis used throughout this method.
• Muhurta Chintamani, the classical text most closely associated with the Ashtakoota Guna Milan system used for marriage matching across the Jyotisha tradition.

Frequently asked questions