Core concepts
The vocabulary Ascendant shares across its API and guides, from Located Moments and Placements to schools and provenance.
Ascendant calculates positions once, then derives everything else from them. The same few terms appear in every function name, type, and guide, so they are worth learning first.
Input
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Moment | The instant at which positions are calculated. It can be a birth, a transit, or any other event. It is always UTC and is separate from settings. |
| Located Moment | A Moment paired with a latitude and longitude. It is the input to every chart calculation. |
| AstroParams | The two settings of a calculation: the ayanamsa and the house system. They live outside the Moment, and every result records them. |
The ayanamsa aligns tropical longitudes to the fixed zodiac, and Ascendant ships 47 predefined ones. The house system decides the cusps of D1, and Ascendant supports 13. The default is KrishnamurtiVP291 with Placidus. See Choose a school and settings.
Positions and charts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Placements | The exact sidereal longitudes and motion states of the Lagna and the grahas at a Located Moment, with each star and pada. Every chart and every other calculation is derived from them. |
| Chart calculation | The Placements plus the requested charts, derived together under one set of AstroParams. It always contains D1. |
| Division | A chart's identity in the divisional system: D1, D2, D3, and so on up to D60. |
| D1 chart | The chart whose houses start at the house system's cusps. Only D1 carries the chart angles, the KP star, sub and sub-sub lords, significations, and ruling planets. |
| Divisional chart | A chart made by mapping the Lagna and grahas through a Division. Its houses are whole signs counted from the mapped Lagna, whatever the house system. It has no angles or KP data. |
| Planet | A graha as placed in one chart: its longitude, degree, sign, dignity, and retrograde state. Its star and pada stay on the Placements. |
| Sign | One of the twelve zodiac signs, with its lord. |
| Degree | A position within a sign, from 0 up to but not including 30. In a divisional chart it is the degree the mapping produces. |
Rahu and Ketu are grahas that behave like planets in every way except that they do not rule a sign.
Relationships run one way. A house lists its planets, but a planet does not carry its house. To find a planet's house, scan the chart's houses for it.
Because you may know these ideas by other names: a kundali, a horoscope, or a natal chart is a Chart calculation. "Natal" is a meaning you give a calculation made for a birth moment, not a kind of chart.
Schools
Ascendant implements more than one tradition, and a single judgment never mixes them.
| School | Typical settings | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| KP | KrishnamurtiVP291 ayanamsa, Placidus houses | The default. It uses D1's cusps, star lords, sub lords, and significators. |
| Parashari | Lahiri ayanamsa, whole-sign houses | Used for promise, quality, and divisional charts. |
Always state the school and settings alongside a result.
Timing and scoring
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Dasha | A timeline of periods. Vimshottari gives planetary Mahadashas and Antardashas. Chara and Sthira give Jaimini sign periods. You can ask which period is active at any date. |
| Ashtakavarga | A Parashari scoring system built from the sign positions of the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Lagna. |
| Bhinnashtakavarga (BAV) | The twelve sign scores for one of those eight entities, counted in bindus (benefic points). |
| Sarvashtakavarga (SAV) | The twelve sign scores formed by adding the seven planetary BAV tables. It totals 337 under the classical table. |
| Shodhya Pinda | A weighted total for one planet, from its reduced BAV after Trikona and Ekadhipatya reduction. |
| Transit search | A time-ordered search for the next or previous events of one graha. The events are sign ingresses, longitude hits, house-cusp crossings, and retrograde stations. |
Jaimini
Jaimini is a school, not a single calculation. You request each result by name.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Chara Karakas | Seven planetary roles assigned in descending order of degree within a sign. Planets at the same degree share the roles they tie for. |
| Rashi Drishti | The signs a reference sign influences under Jaimini's sign aspects. |
| Karakamsha | The D9 sign occupied by each planet holding the Atmakaraka role. |
| Arudha Pada | The sign reached by repeating the distance from a house's sign to its lord. |
| Upapada | The Arudha Pada of the twelfth house. |
| Argala | The supporting and obstructing relationships around a reference sign, or around Ketu in the reverse direction. |
Provenance
Every result carries its provenance: a school, a method, and a version.
Each one points to a method specification in the library's registry, which
lists the calculation steps and the criteria used to verify it. That is how a
result can be checked and repeated. See
Provenance and verification.