Chart basics
Upachaya in Vedic astrology
Updated
Upachaya: how the API computes it
The word upachaya means growth or increase. The upachaya houses are 3, 6, 10 and 11, counted from the ascendant with whole-sign houses. The idea is that a planet in these houses gives better results as the years pass.
House 3 is effort and courage, and house 6 is service and the power to beat obstacles. House 10 is work and status, and house 11 is gains and friends. This is the one group where tradition welcomes malefic planets.
Mars, Saturn, the Sun, Rahu and Ketu are said to do well in an upachaya house. They are harder to live with in houses 1, 4, 7 and 8. The API does not give this group a score of its own. It tells you each planet's house in POST /v1/planets.
The reading rules at POST /v1/reading/rules apply the upachaya idea when they judge a placement. House groups like this one also feed parasparam matching, which compares two full charts.
Get it from the API
POST /v1/planets
# John Doe, born Aug 15, 1990, 10:30 AM, New York
curl -X POST "https://apiforastrology.com/api/astrology/v1/planets" \
-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"}'{
"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
}
},
"positions": [
{
"name": "Sun",
"longitude": 118.7753409,
"sign": "Cancer",
"sign_number": 4,
"degree_in_sign": 28.7753409,
"degree_dms": "28 : 46 : 31",
"house": 11,
"nakshatra": "Ashlesha",
"nakshatra_lord": "Mercury",
"pada": 4,
"speed": 0.9610665,
"retrograde": false,
"combust": false,
"dignity": "friend",
"vargottama": false,
"pushkara": {
"navamsa": false,
"navamsa_number": 9,
"bhaga": false,
"bhaga_degree": 8,
"bhaga_by_element": false,
"bhaga_degree_by_element": 7,
"sources_agree": true,
"orb_degrees": 1
}
},
{
"name": "Moon",
"longitude": 54.5750352,
"sign": "Taurus",
"sign_number": 2,
"degree_in_sign": 24.5750352,
"degree_dms": "24 : 34 : 30",
"house": 9,
"nakshatra": "Mrigashira",
"nakshatra_lord": "Mars",
"pada": 1,
"speed": 14.258194,
"retrograde": false,
"combust": false,
"dignity": "mulatrikona",
"vargottama": false,
"pushkara": {
"navamsa": false,
"navamsa_number": 8,
"bhaga": false,
"bhaga_degree": 14,
"bhaga_by_element": false,
"bhaga_degree_by_element": 14,
"sources_agree": true,
"orb_degrees": 1
}
},
{
"name": "Mars",
"longitude": 27.7149328,
"sign": "Aries",
"sign_number": 1,
"degree_in_sign": 27.7149328,
"degree_dms": "27 : 42 : 54",
"house": 8,
"nakshatra": "Krittika",
"nakshatra_lord": "Sun",
"pada": 1,
"speed": 0.5753266,
"retrograde": false,
"combust": false,
"dignity": "own sign",
"vargottama": false,
"pushkara": {
"navamsa": true,
"navamsa_number": 9,
"bhaga": false,
"bhaga_degree": 21,
"bhaga_by_element": false,
"bhaga_degree_by_element": 21,
"sources_agree": true,
"orb_degrees": 1
}
}
],
"planetary_war": []
}Where the API returns it
| POST | /v1/planets | Planet positions and the ascendant |
| POST | /v1/matching/parasparam | Each person's planets placed in the other's chart |
| POST | /v1/reading/rules | Rules this chart triggers, ranked |
What the API reference says
Each line is quoted from the reference page of the endpoint named above it.
- POST /v1/reading/rules · Rules this chart triggers, ranked
upachayaadds 1 point for a malefic planet placed in the 3rd, 6th, 10th or 11th house (the upachaya, or growth, houses); ruling one of those houses adds nothing (PR-08).
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.
Related terms
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Your first answer
John Doe, New York
- RisingVirgoHast
- SunCancerAshlesha
- MoonTaurusMrigashira
- MarsAriesKrittika
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