The twelve houses in Vedic astrology
The twelve houses organise a traditional chart reading around different areas of life. In the D1 whole-sign chart, house 1 is the lagna sign and the next signs become houses 2 through 12. House 1 is not automatically Aries.
House directory
| House | Traditional topics |
|---|---|
| 1st house | self and body |
| 2nd house | resources and speech |
| 3rd house | effort and siblings |
| 4th house | home and foundations |
| 5th house | learning and children |
| 6th house | service, debts and disputes |
| 7th house | partnership |
| 8th house | continuity and disruption |
| 9th house | teachers and guiding principles |
| 10th house | work and public responsibilities |
| 11th house | gains and associations |
| 12th house | expenditure and withdrawal |
A topic identifies what a reading considers. It does not establish a future event or a score for that part of life.
House groupings
| Group | Houses | Use in a rule |
|---|---|---|
| Kendra | 1, 4, 7, 10 | Angular positions |
| Trikona | 1, 5, 9 | Trinal positions; some rules name 5 and 9 separately |
| Dusthana | 6, 8, 12 | A traditional difficult-house grouping |
| Upachaya | 3, 6, 10, 11 | Houses associated with increase or development |
| Panaphara | 2, 5, 8, 11 | Houses following the angles |
| Apoklima | 3, 6, 9, 12 | Houses preceding the next angle |
These sets overlap. House 6, for example, is both an upachaya and a dusthana. Check the specific rule instead of treating a group name as a complete verdict.
Empty houses
An empty house has no plotted occupant, but it still has a sign and a house lord. It may also receive aspects. An empty seventh house does not mean an absence of relationships; a chart cannot contain an occupant in every house when only nine grahas are being counted.
State the reference
Some rules count from the Moon or Venus rather than lagna. The transit table explicitly provides two counts. Bhava chalit uses another set of house boundaries. These references should be named before comparing apparently different house placements.
The signs versus houses example shows all twelve houses for a non-Aries lagna.
See the chart and its tables on the Kundli page.