Chart basics

Lagna in Vedic astrology

The lagna, or ascendant, is the sign that was rising over the eastern horizon when a person was born. It is house 1 of the chart, and every other house is counted from it. The rising sign changes about every two hours, so the lagna needs an accurate birth time.

Updated Nov 3, 2026

More terms in Chart basics

Lagna: how the API computes it

The API finds the lagna from the sidereal ascendant at the moment of birth. Sidereal means it is measured against the fixed stars, the way Vedic astrology measures. The lagna is house 1 in whole-sign houses (CH-06).

The rising sign is the whole first house, the next sign is house 2, and so on. So there are no house cusps (exact house borders) to argue about. The ascendant moves through a whole sign in about two hours. So the birth time matters more here than anywhere else in the chart.

The API uses the time zone rules that applied at the birth moment, including daylight saving time. When clocks change, a local time can happen twice or not at all. The API rejects such a time instead of guessing.

POST /v1/ascendant returns only the ascendant, with its sign, degree, nakshatra (birth star) and pada (quarter of the nakshatra). POST /v1/planets returns it with all nine planets. Show the sign name from the response, and use sign_number in your code.

Lagna in a real API answer

POST /v1/ascendant200 OK

{
  "ascendant": {
    "sign": "Virgo",
    "degree_in_sign": 19.934155,
    "house": 1,
    "nakshatra": "Hast",
    "pada": 3
  }
}

John Doe's lagna (ascendant): the rising sign, how far into the sign it was, and its nakshatra and quarter (pada). Real output for John Doe, born Aug 15, 1990, 10:30 AM, New York.

Get it from the API

The ascendant only. Here is the call to API for Astrology (apiforastrology.com) for our sample, John Doe, born Aug 15, 1990, 10:30 AM, New York.

POST /v1/ascendant

# John Doe, born Aug 15, 1990, 10:30 AM, New York
curl -X POST "https://apiforastrology.com/api/astrology/v1/ascendant" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ASTROLOGY_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"year":1990,"month":8,"day":15,"hour":10,"minute":30,"second":0,"latitude":40.7128,"longitude":-74.006,"timezone":"America/New_York"}'

Answer (long lists shortened)200 OK

{
  "meta": {
    "ayanamsa": "lahiri",
    "ayanamsa_value": 23.7260727,
    "julian_day": 2448119.10483,
    "ephemeris": "JPL DE440s",
    "node": "true",
    "timezone": {
      "source": "zone",
      "offset_hours": -4,
      "zone": "America/New_York",
      "abbreviation": "EDT",
      "dst": true,
      "dst_hours": 1,
      "ambiguous_resolved_by_fold": null,
      "note": "read from the IANA tz database at this instant, so daylight saving and historical offset changes are included"
    }
  },
  "ascendant": {
    "name": "Ascendant",
    "longitude": 169.934155,
    "sign": "Virgo",
    "sign_number": 6,
    "degree_in_sign": 19.934155,
    "degree_dms": "19 : 56 : 03",
    "house": 1,
    "nakshatra": "Hast",
    "nakshatra_lord": "Moon",
    "pada": 3,
    "speed": 0,
    "retrograde": false,
    "combust": false,
    "dignity": "n/a",
    "vargottama": false,
    "pushkara": {
      "navamsa": false,
      "navamsa_number": 6,
      "bhaga": false,
      "bhaga_degree": 9,
      "bhaga_by_element": false,
      "bhaga_degree_by_element": 14,
      "sources_agree": true,
      "orb_degrees": 1
    }
  }
}

Where the API returns it

POST	/v1/ascendant	The ascendant only
POST	/v1/planets	Planet positions and the ascendant
POST	/v1/varshaphal	The Tajik annual chart (varshaphal) for one year
POST	/v1/varshaphal/dina	Tajik daily return (dina pravesh) for a day or a short window
POST	/v1/chart/chalit	Bhava chalit: houses by the Sripati method
POST	/v1/chart/svg	The birth chart or any divisional chart as an SVG or PNG image

What the API reference says

Each line is quoted from the reference page of the endpoint named above it.

POST /v1/planets · Planet positions and the ascendantReturns the ascendant (the sign rising in the east at birth) and all nine grahas (planets).
POST /v1/ascendant · The ascendant onlyReturns only the ascendant (the sign rising in the east at birth).
POST /v1/varshaphal/dina · Tajik daily return (dina pravesh) for a day or a short windowEach return has its moment in UTC and local time, day_of_year (1 is the varsha pravesh, up to 360), the Sun's target longitude, whether the Sun was up, and the lagna (ascendant) at that moment.

Feature page: Kundli and birth charts. Who uses it: Astrology apps. The classical rules the API follows are in the rulebook.

How we check the numbers

Every value here starts from planet positions worked out from NASA JPL planet data (DE440). We test them against NASA JPL Horizons, NASA's planet position service. On 25,571 positions from 1850 to 2149, the Sun and planets agree within 0.001 arc seconds. The Moon agrees within 0.011. On 2,000 random birth charts, the rising sign agrees with Swiss Ephemeris within 0.004 arc seconds. An arc second is 1/3,600 of a degree. A practicing astrologer reviews the rules behind these answers. See how we test.

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Your first answer

John Doe, New York

POST /v1/planets200 OK

RisingVirgoHast
SunCancerAshlesha
MoonTaurusMrigashira
MarsAriesKrittika

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