Way to cast a horoscope

To caste a horoscope, following accurate details are required:

Date of birth
Time of birth
Place of birth.
Time of Birth: It is recorded for India as IST - Indian Standard Time (and for other countries
as GMT - Greenwich Mean Time). GMT is 5 hours ahead of IST. But for casting a horoscope,
Local Mean Time is used, which depends on the place of birth.
Place of Birth: Logitude and latitude of the place of birth are used to find the time correction
to be applied to the IST, to find out the Local Mean Time.
Longitude: It is the arc drawn from North Pole to South Pole to mark the location in degrees
of a particular place from a central place (Greenwich). All places are located either to the
West or to the East of Greenwich. For example, the longitude of Bombay is 72 50' E.
Latitude: It is the arc drawn to mark the location in degrees of a particular place North or
South of Equator. For example, the latitude of Bombay is 18 58' N.
Sidereal Time: It is the time taken by the earth to make one full rotation. It is not exactly
24 hours, but goes on changing according to increase or decrease in the duration of days and
nights. It is called Vernal Equinox time and it is a measure of earth's rotation with respect to
the equinox, which has a very small retrograde motion. Sidereal time is used for calculation of
the Ascendant.
CALCULATION OF ASCENDANT
For making the horoscope, first of all we have to calculate the Ascendant. Ascendant is
the rising sign at the time of birth. Let us see how the Ascendant is calculated. This will be
done with the help of two books, viz. Table of Ascendants, and Annual Ephemeries, 1993 (for
the year of birth) by Lahiri. These two books can be procured from the market.
Details of sample birth are once again given below. We would calculate Ascendant
for this.
Date of birth
Time of birth
Place of birth

:
:
:

10.12.1993,
3.50 AM IST
Bombay.

We have indicated the Longitude and Latitude of Bombay as above. These were taken from
page 101 of the book "Table of Ascendants". This book contains the necessary information
about many major cities of India and abroad. If the city required is not given therein, kindly
see the Atlas for these details. And, if Atlas is not handy, nearest city can be taken. But for
accurate casting of horoscope, accurate details are required.
As made clear earlier, in a northern horoscope, Ascending sign is written in the top centre and
then zodiac signs are continued anti-clockwise. Later on planets are placed in the horoscope.
So, to calculate the Ascendant sign, the first Step is to find out the Local Mean Time (LMT).
Step 1
Convert the IST to LMT. There are two ways to find out the correction time to IST to obtain
LMT::
i. Take the Longitude of Bombay, i.e. 72 50' N.

Formula for getting the correction time to IST to find out LMT is 15 = 1 hour, or 1 = 4
minutes
(Please note, Longitude is given in degrees (), minutes (') and seconds (''), [ 1 = 60', 1' =
60''), whereas the time is given in hrs, minutes and seconds [1 hr = 60 minutes, 1 minute =
60 seconds]. Do not confuse the minutes of Longitude with the minutes of time.
As per above formula, divide Longitude 72 50' by 15 to know the LMT. It comes to: 4 hr 51
mt 20 secs. How? This is shown below to facilitate your understanding of the calculations.
{72/15 = 4 12/15 (i.e. 4 hrs + 12/15 hrs)
12/15 x 60 (to make minutes) = 48 minutes
Hence, 4 hr 48 minutes
Now 50' /15 = 3 5/15 (i.e. 3 minutes + 5/15 or 1/3 minutes).
1/3 x 60 (to make seconds) = 20 seconds.
Hence, 4 hrs, 48+3 minutes, 20 seconds = 4 h 51 m 20 s.
Now deduct 5 h 30 m 0 s (as GMT is +5h 30 m 0 s of IST) from 4 h 51m 20s:
4h
51 m 20 s
- 5 h 30 m 0 s
- 0h
38 m 40s
This means, 38 m 40 s should be deducted from IST to find LMT.
Step II
The next step is to find out the sidereal time for the given date, time and place of
birth.
Sidereal time for 10th December
(From page 3, Table of Asc)
17 h 14 m 07 s
Correction to Indian sidereal time for Bombay (From page 101, last column, Table of
Asc)
+
06 s
Correction for 1993 (From page 4, Table II, Table of Asc)
+
1 m 52 s
Sidereal time for 12 Noon on 10.12.1993 for Bombay
17 h 16 m 05s ..B
Now, let us calculate sidereal time for the time of birth on 10.12.1993 for Bombay: As the
birth is before 12 Noon, deduct from 12 h 00 m 00 s
LMT
3 h 11 m 20 s
8h

48 m 40 s ... C

(For afternoon birth, there is no need of this deduction. Correction to increase the time
interval is apllied straight to the LMT).
Now apply correction to increase the time interval (From page 5, Table IV, Table of Asc):
for 8 hr

+ 1 m

19 s

for 48 m

8s

for 8 hr 48 m: 1 m

27 s ..... D

Now, add C and D. This comes to 8 h 50 m 07 s.

Sidereal time at 12 Noon
Less corrected time interval

17 h 16 m 05 s
8 h 50 m 07 s

(For birth in the afternoon, this should be added.)

Sidereal Time for the given

8h

25 m 58 s ...E

birth time:
Step III
Now to find out the Ascendant, refer to Tables given in the book Table of Ascendants
for various latitudes. Search for the latitude of Bombay (or its nearest place, if the same is
not available). On page 29, Table for Latitude 19 N is given. As given earlier, the latitude for
Bombay, the required place of birth, is 18 58' N (say, 19
N).
In this page, we have to search for the Ascendant for the Sidereal Time given above as, 8 hr
25 m 58 s as at E.
Ascendant for
For 8 h 24 m

6s

100

46'

For 8 h 28 m
6s
110 41'
Hence for 4 m
55'
('s' is the zodiac sign, Degree () and minute (') already explained above).
If we deduct the former from the latter, we get 4 minutes = 55 m but we need 2 minutes (8h
24 m + 1 m 58' (1 m 58' is approximately equal to 2') = 8 h 26 m. So for 2 minutes, we get
28 m (55/2: 27.5, say 28).
Therefore, Ascendant for 8 h 25 m 58 s (Or say, 8 h 26 m)
=

6s
+
6s

10
11

46'
28'
14'

Step IV
Now, apply correction for Ayanamasha for 1993, as per page 6 of Tables of Ascedants,
which is -46'.
Therefore, Ascendant for the required birth: 6 s

11

14'
-

Ascendant(I):

6s

10

46'

28'

This means, Ascending sign is Libra (7), and it has travelled 10 28'in Libra.
CALCULATION OF LONGITUDE OF PLANETS
Now to place the planets in the horoscopes, longitudes of planets have to be calculated.
For this, we proceed as under:
1.Refer to Annual Ephemeris, 1993. Longitudes of different planets for the entire year,
month-wise, day-wise, have been given as at 5.30 AM IST. On page 30, search the required
date, i.e. 10th December. Against this the longitudes for planets on 10.12.1993 at 5.30 AM
are given. But our required birth time is 3.50 AM, i.e. 22h 20 m after 9.12.1993 at 5.30 AM.
2.Find out the longitudes of planets as on 9.12.1993 at 5.30 AM from page 30, and add the
distance covered by planets in 22 h 20 m. This can be done in the following way :

Find out the longitudes of planets as given below :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9.12.1993
10.12.1993
Difference
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------s
'
s
'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sun
7 - 23 - 08
7 - 24 - 09
1 1'
Moon
5 - 24 - 07
6 - 8 - 36
14 29'
Mars
7 - 27 - 58
7 - 28 - 43
45'
Mercury
7 - 9 - 10
7 - 10 - 41
1 31'
Jupiter
6 - 12 - 01
6 - 12 - 12
11'
Venus
7 - 13 - 46
7 - 15 - 02
1 16'
Saturn
10- 1 - 20
10- 1 - 24
4'
Rahu
7 - 9 - 12
7 - 9 - 14
2'
Ketu
1 - 9 - 12
1 - 9 - 14
2'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Calculation of Longitude of Sun
Now we would use the proportional logarithms tables provided in the Annual Ephemeris, 1993
in the end. Horizontally, degrees or hours are given, and vertically, minutes are given.
As calculated above, speed of Sun comes to 1 1'.
Log for 1 1' (From the above Table)
Add log for the difference of 22 h 20 m
(Take horizontally 22 h and vertically 20',
and see them meet at 0313)

1.3730
0.0313
1.4043

Now, search this figure (1.4043) in the above Table. The nearest figure is 1.4025. This is
written at the cross-section of 0 57'. This means Sun has traveled 57' in 22 h 20'.
Longitude of Sun on 9.12.1993
Add the distance covered in

7 s 23 08' at 5.30 AM

0 s 00 57' 22 hr 20 m

Longitude of Sun at the given birth time

7s 24 05'

Similarly, we can calculate for other planets

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