Lagna Calculator: Find Your Ascendant
Enter your date, exact time and place of birth. The lagna is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at that moment, so the time and place matter; it changes roughly every two hours.
Guide
What this calculator does
The lagna is the point of the ecliptic rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth, and the sign it falls in is the ascendant. In a Vedic chart it is the first house, so everything else is counted from it. The calculator computes local sidereal time for your birthplace, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and from those the rising degree, then subtracts the Lahiri ayanamsa and names the sign.
How is the lagna calculated?
- Convert the birth time to universal time, then to Greenwich sidereal time.
- Add the birthplace's longitude to get local sidereal time, the right ascension of the meridian.
- Combine it with the latitude and the obliquity of the ecliptic to find the ecliptic degree on the eastern horizon.
- Subtract the ayanamsa and divide by 30° for the sign.
The result matches Swiss Ephemeris house output to a fraction of an arcsecond.
Worked example
Born 14 August 1990 at 12:00 in Mumbai (19.08° N, 72.88° E). Local sidereal time gives a tropical ascendant of 219°58′; minus the ayanamsa of 23°44′ that is 196°14′, which is 16°14′ of Tula (Libra). The lagna's nakshatra is Swati.
The twelve rashis as lagna
| Moon sign | Western name | Lord | Element | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mesha | Aries | Mars | Fire | Direct, energetic, quick to start. |
| Vrishabha | Taurus | Venus | Earth | Steady, sensual, loyal to comfort. |
| Mithuna | Gemini | Mercury | Air | Curious, verbal, many-sided. |
| Karka | Cancer | Moon | Water | Protective, emotional, home-centred. |
| Simha | Leo | Sun | Fire | Proud, warm, built for the centre. |
| Kanya | Virgo | Mercury | Earth | Precise, helpful, analytical. |
| Tula | Libra | Venus | Air | Fair, relational, drawn to balance. |
| Vrishchika | Scorpio | Mars | Water | Intense, private, transformative. |
| Dhanu | Sagittarius | Jupiter | Fire | Optimistic, principled, far-seeing. |
| Makara | Capricorn | Saturn | Earth | Disciplined, ambitious, patient. |
| Kumbha | Aquarius | Saturn | Air | Independent, idealistic, unconventional. |
| Meena | Pisces | Jupiter | Water | Compassionate, imaginative, fluid. |
How to read your result
The rising reading describes manner and presence, how a person meets the world, as distinct from the rashi, which describes the inner, emotional style. The degree tells you how settled the answer is; a lagna at 0° or 29° deserves a double-check of the birth time. Nothing here predicts events.
Place data: GeoNames, CC BY 4.0.Updated October 29, 2026