Most people who ask about a relationship do not have a birth time, or have one that was rounded to the hour, and the answer they are usually given is either a full reading on a guessed time, which is a reading of the wrong chart, or nothing. There are three honest routes, and this page sets out what each can answer. The day chart, the planets by sign for the date alone, reads the Moon’s sign on most days, Venus and Mars by sign, the nodes, the sign-level dignities, and most of the synastry between two people; it cannot read the houses, the seventh lord, the Navamsa, or the dasha dates to better than a year or two. The horary, a chart cast for the moment the question is sincerely asked or from a number between 1 and 249, in which the querent is the first house and the other person the seventh, answers a specific question, will we be together, will they come back, is this the one, with a timing; it cannot describe a life. And rectification, which recovers the birth time from dated events, gives back the whole natal reading, and is the route for anyone who wants more than one question answered. This article gives the three with their limits in a table, the sincerity rule, the Moon in the horary, the KP form and the Parashari form, timing from the horary, the two-person question with only one time known, and a horary for “will we be together” that answered no for now with a date.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide, as its last spoke. The KP horary for relationship questions in its own technical form, with the cusp sub-lords, is the earlier KP page, Horary for Relationships When the Birth Time Is Unknown; the horary for the ex’s return is the ex-return horary guide; the two-chart reading when both times are known is Synastry in Vedic Astrology; and the recovery of a birth time from events is the birth time rectification guide.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha for the natal layers; the day chart as the planets by sign for the date with the Moon’s sign checked for the day’s boundary; the horary in two forms, the Parashari prashna cast for the moment the question is put and the KP horary cast from a number between 1 and 249, the querent as the first house and the other person as the seventh in both; the Moon in the horary as the querent’s own mind. A horary answers one sincere question once; a natal reading on a guessed time is not offered here. Nothing on this page is a remedy.
No birth time is not no reading: the day chart, a horary for your one question, or the time recovered from your events.
A relationship consultation without a birth time reads what the day chart can truly hold, casts a horary for the question you actually have, will we be together, will they come back, is this the one, and reads it with its timing; and where you want the whole natal reading, it tells you what the rectification route needs and whether your events can support it.
In this article
- Three honest routes, and the one this site does not take
- The day chart: what the date alone reads
- What the day chart cannot read, and why
- The horary: a chart for the question itself
- The sincerity rule, and the Moon as the querent’s mind
- The two forms: the KP cusp sub-lord, and the Parashari lords’ reception
- Which relationship questions each route can answer
- Timing from the horary
- The two-person question with only one time known
- The rectification route: recovering the time from events
- A worked horary: “will we be together”, answered no for now, with a date
- Frequently asked questions
Three honest routes, and the one this site does not take
The route this site does not take is the full natal reading on a noon chart or a guessed hour, presented as if the time were known. The houses change every two hours, the Moon’s sign changes every two and a half days and can change on the birth date itself, the Navamsa lagna changes every quarter of an hour or so, and the dasha balance moves by months for every degree the Moon travels, which is about one degree every two hours; a reading on a guessed time is therefore right about the slow things and wrong about the fast ones, and the fast ones are the ones a relationship question needs. The three routes that are honest are the day chart, which reads only what the date fixes and says so; the horary, which does not need the birth time at all because it is a chart of the question and not of the person; and rectification, which recovers the time and then reads the natal chart properly. Each answers a different kind of question, the day chart the “what am I like in love” kind, the horary the “will this happen” kind, and rectification everything, and the reading’s first job with a native who has no time is to say which kind their question is and send it down the right route, which is usually cheaper than the native expected and more honest than what they were offered before.
The day chart: what the date alone reads
For a given date and place, the slow planets are fixed by sign whatever the hour: Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu do not change sign within a day, Venus and Mars almost never do, the Sun changes only on the day it enters a sign, and Mercury rarely. The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, so on about two days in five it is in one sign all day and on the rest it changes at some hour, and the reading says which, since a Moon that changes sign on the birth date is the one uncertainty the day chart has to carry. From the planets by sign the day chart reads a great deal about the native in love: Venus’s sign, which is the way of loving the Venus page reads; Mars’s sign, the way of wanting; the Moon’s sign on a clear day, the heart’s needs; the nodes’ signs; the sign-level dignities, exaltation, own sign and debilitation; the conjunctions by sign, Venus with Rahu, Venus with Saturn, Mars with Venus; and the mutual relations between planets, which do not depend on the lagna. Between two people the day chart reads most of the synastry: the two Moons’ signs and their distance, the two Venuses, Mars to Venus, Saturn on the other’s Venus or Moon, the nodal overlays, all by sign, which is the level the synastry page reads them at anyway. It also reads the Moon-sign compatibility that the matching tradition uses, and the site’s own kundali calculator will compute the day chart for any date with the time left approximate, marking what the time affects.
What the day chart cannot read, and why
The day chart cannot read the houses, because the houses are counted from the lagna and the lagna is the hour; so it cannot say which house Venus is in, whether the seventh lord is dignified or afflicted, whether the fifth and seventh are joined, or which planet rules the seventh at all, which is the whole of the geometry page and most of the spouse description. It cannot read the Navamsa, whose lagna moves every quarter of an hour, so the Navamsa seventh and the marriage’s inner layer are closed. It cannot read the dasha to better than a year or two, since the Moon’s degree fixes the balance at birth and the Moon moves about thirteen degrees in a day, which in a Saturn or Rahu period is a swing of three or four years and in a Sun period a few months; a day chart’s dasha is a range and not a date, and a reading that gives a native with no birth time a dasha date to the month has guessed. And it cannot read the timing questions at all, when will I meet someone, will they come back, when will we marry, since all of those need the dasha and the houses. The honest day chart reading, then, is a description of the native and of the pair, with the Moon’s sign flagged if the day is a boundary day, and the sentence that the timing questions need the horary or the time, which is where the page goes next.
The horary: a chart for the question itself
The horary does not need the birth time because it is not a chart of the native; it is a chart of the question, cast for the moment the question is put to the astrologer or, in the KP form, from a number between 1 and 249 the querent gives, and it reads the question’s own houses: the querent is the first house and its lord, the other person the seventh and its lord, the romance the fifth, the loss the twelfth, the fulfilment the eleventh, and the Moon is the querent’s mind and the question’s timing. The site’s horary cluster sets out the method in the introduction to KP horary, the number’s selection in how to select a horary number, and the mathematics of the 249 divisions in the 1 to 249 horary number system. What the horary answers is a specific question with a yes, a no, or a not yet, and a timing: will we be together, will they come back, will this become a marriage, is this person serious, will the family agree. What it does not answer is the description of a life, the native’s way of loving, the pattern behind their choices, which are the natal chart’s, and a horary asked “what am I like in love” produces a chart of the asking and not of the asker. The horary is also the right instrument for the native who has a birth time but is asking about a person whose details they do not have, which is the tier the reconciliation page describes, and for the native whose question is urgent and single, which is most relationship questions on a bad night.
The sincerity rule, and the Moon as the querent’s mind
A horary is valid when the question is sincere, single, and asked once, and the chart itself says whether it was, which is the check the horary pages call the radicality of the chart and read in rectifying the horary chart: a question asked idly, or asked for the fourth time this month, or asked with the answer already decided, produces a chart that describes the idleness, the repetition or the decision, and the reading reads that and reports it as the querent’s own mind rather than as an answer about the other person. The Moon is the querent’s mind in the horary, and its condition is the first thing read, as the Moon in horary sets out: the Moon void, making no further aspect before it leaves its sign, is the question with nothing coming of it, or the querent who has already decided; the Moon separating from the seventh lord is the querent moving away from the other person whatever they say; the Moon applying to it is the querent moving toward them; the Moon in the twelfth is the querent asking about a loss they already know. The sincerity rule is stated to every native before the horary is cast, and a native who cannot ask the question once and mean it is told to wait until they can, which is not a refusal but the method: the horary charts the moment of a real question, and a question that is not yet real has no moment.
The two forms: the KP cusp sub-lord, and the Parashari lords’ reception
The KP form reads the seventh cusp’s sub-lord, and the rule the KP pages give is the cluster’s spine: the seventh cusp sub-lord signifying the second, seventh or eleventh houses promises the union, the formula in the 2-7-11 formula; signifying the first, sixth, tenth or twelfth denies it, the combination in the 6-10-12 denial; and the timing comes from the dasha of the horary’s own significators with the ruling planets as confirmation. For a relationship rather than a marriage, the fifth cusp’s sub-lord is read the same way for the romance, and the eleventh’s for the fulfilment. The Parashari form reads the lords: the first lord and the seventh lord, their reception, each in the other’s sign, in a friend’s sign, or in an enemy’s, and the aspect between them, applying or separating, with the Moon’s aspects as the movement; two lords in mutual reception applying to each other is the union, two in enemy signs separating is the parting, the first lord in the twelfth is the querent’s loss, the seventh lord combust is the other person unavailable or hidden. The two forms usually agree, and the reading casts both when the question is a large one and reports the agreement, or the disagreement, which is itself information: a KP promise with a Parashari separation is a union the querent is walking away from, which is a real and common answer to “will we be together”.
Which relationship questions each route can answer
| The question | Day chart, date only | Horary, cast for the question | Needs the birth time, by rectification |
|---|---|---|---|
| What am I like in love; what do I need? | Yes: Venus, Mars and the Moon by sign, the conjunctions | No; the horary charts the asking | Fully, with the houses and the Navamsa |
| Are we compatible? | Mostly: the synastry by sign, the two Moons, Venus and Mars, the overlays | Partly: the reception between the 1st and 7th lords | Fully, with the seventh lords and both Navamsas |
| Will we be together; will this become a marriage? | No | Yes: the 7th cusp sub-lord, or the lords’ reception and aspect, with timing | Yes, with the dasha and the double window |
| Will they come back? | No | Yes: the movement between the 1st and 7th lords, the Moon | Yes, with the period check and the doors |
| Does this person feel the same? | No | Partly: the 7th lord’s condition and its aspect to the 1st, read with the horary’s limits | Only from their own chart, read with their knowledge |
| When will I meet someone? | No; the dasha is a range of years | Partly: a timing for the next meeting, if the question is sincere | Fully: the carrier’s sub-period and Jupiter’s year |
| Why does this pattern repeat in my relationships? | Partly: Venus with Rahu or Saturn by sign, the nodes’ signs | No | Fully: the 5th and 7th lords’ houses, the axis |
| Will the family agree? | No | Yes: the 4th and 9th of the horary, their lords’ aspects to the 7th | Yes, with the fourth and ninth lords and their seasons |
The day chart describes, the horary decides one question, and the rectified natal chart does both; a native with no time and one question needs the horary, and one with no time and many questions needs the time.
Timing from the horary
The horary gives a timing, and the method is in determining time in horary: in the Parashari form, the distance in degrees between the applying planets, converted to days, weeks or months by the signs they are in, movable signs for the shortest unit and fixed for the longest, with the Moon’s next aspect to the seventh lord as the nearest date; in the KP form, the dasha and sub-period of the horary’s own significators, and the transit of the Sun, Moon or Jupiter over the significators’ positions as the trigger, with the ruling planets at the time of the reading as the confirmation. The timing of a horary is for the question’s own event, and its range is the horary’s: days to a year or two, rarely longer, since a horary charts a live question and a live question resolves within its own season. A horary that gives a timing beyond two years is usually a horary for a question that is not yet ripe, and the reading says so. The horary’s timing is also the answer to “not yet”, which is the horary’s third answer alongside yes and no: a seventh lord applying to the first but not yet within orb, a Moon that must change sign before it aspects, is the union that is coming and not here, and the timing says when, which is the answer most relationship horaries actually give and the one the native least expects.
The two-person question with only one time known
The commonest situation is the native with their own time and none of the other person’s, and the reading has a fixed shape for it. The native’s own chart is read fully: the period, the doors, the carrier’s sub-period, the spouse description, the pattern. The other person’s day chart is read for what it holds: their Venus, Mars and Moon by sign, their nodes, and the synastry with the native by sign, which is most of the compatibility reading. And the horary is cast for the question about the two of them, will we be together, in which the other person’s side, which the day chart cannot time, is the seventh house and its lord and can be. The reconciliation page’s tiers describe this as the middle case, and it is a good reading; what it cannot do is the double window, the overlap of two dasha tables, since the other person’s dasha is a range without their time, and the reading says so and gives the native’s own window with the horary’s timing as the other side’s stand-in. Where the other person’s time can be narrowed, by their own events, to within an hour or two, their dasha becomes a date and the double window returns, and the reading says what events would narrow it, which is often two or three the native already knows.
The rectification route: recovering the time from events
Rectification recovers the birth time from the native’s dated events, the marriage, the child, the job, the move, the parent’s death, the accident, by finding the hour at which the dasha and the houses put each event in a sub-period and a house that could have produced it, and narrowing the hour until the events agree; the method for a native’s own use is in the DIY rectification guide, and the service that does it with a certified time and a written report is the birth time rectification service. For a relationship reading, rectification is the route for the native who has more than one question, who wants the spouse description, the timing, the pattern and the double window rather than a single yes or no; it is also the route for the native whose recorded time is rounded to the hour or the half-hour, which is most Indian birth records before the last two decades, since a rounded time fails the check the reconciliation page runs first and the reading cannot proceed on it in good faith. A rectification needs at least four or five dated events, and the more of them fall in relationships, the beginning and ending of each, the better the seventh house is fixed; a native with those events can have their time back, and with it the whole cluster’s reading, which is the answer to the question this page began with: no birth time is not no reading, it is a choice between the horary for the one question and the rectification for all of them.
A worked horary: “will we be together”, answered no for now, with a date
A woman with no birth time of her own and none of his asked, particulars altered, whether she and a man she had been seeing for eight months would be together, meaning a marriage; the question was sincere, asked once, on a day it was real, and the chart was cast in the Parashari form for the moment she put it, with the KP form cast from her number beside it. The prashna lagna was Gemini, the querent Mercury; the seventh Sagittarius, the other person Jupiter. Mercury stood in Virgo in the fourth, exalted, the querent strong and at home; Jupiter stood in Taurus in the twelfth, in Venus’s sign, the other person in the house of loss and the far, and in the querent’s own dispositor’s sign, so that the reception ran one way, his lord in a sign friendly to hers and hers in her own. The aspect: Mercury and Jupiter were in signs that make no aspect to each other, Virgo and Taurus, trine by sign and so in a friendly relation but with no applying aspect in the horary sense, and the Moon, in Aquarius in the ninth, was separating from an aspect to Jupiter and applying, at a distance of eleven degrees, to Mercury: the querent’s mind moving away from him and toward herself. Venus, the fifth lord and the romance, stood in Leo in the third, the romance in the house of messages, which was where the relationship mostly lived. The KP form agreed: the seventh cusp’s sub-lord signified the first and the twelfth and the third, and not the second, seventh or eleventh, the denial combination for the marriage as asked, with the fifth cusp’s sub-lord signifying the fifth and eleventh, the romance promised and fulfilled as a romance.
The answer was the horary’s third kind, and it was given with its date. The union as a marriage was not shown: the other person’s lord in the twelfth, the reception one-sided, no applying aspect between the two lords, and the KP cusp denying the second, seventh and eleventh. The romance was real and was shown as a romance, by the fifth lord and the fifth cusp, and it lived in the third, in messages, which she confirmed. And the Moon, the querent’s own mind, separating from him and applying to her own lord at eleven degrees in a fixed sign, gave the timing: eleven months, for her own resolution and not for his, the season in which she would know her own mind and act on it. The reading said: this is a romance and not a marriage, he is in the house of the far and it is one-sided in the lords, and you already know it, since your Moon is leaving him; the date is eleven months, and it is the date you will decide, not the date he will. Ten months later she wrote to say she had ended it, and asked for the day chart’s reading of herself, which was the right next question, and the one after that was the rectification, which her events supported; and the whole of this cluster then became available to her, which is what the three routes are for.
Frequently asked questions
Can a relationship be read in astrology without a birth time?
Yes, by three honest routes: the day chart, the planets by sign for the date alone, which reads the native in love and most of the synastry between two people; the horary, a chart cast for the moment the question is sincerely asked or from a number between 1 and 249, which answers one specific question, will we be together, will they come back, with a timing; and rectification, which recovers the time from dated events and gives back the whole natal reading. What is not honest is a full natal reading on a guessed hour.
What can be read from a birth date alone for love and relationships?
Venus, Mars and, on most days, the Moon by sign, the way of loving, wanting and needing; the nodes; the sign-level dignities and the conjunctions, Venus with Rahu or Saturn, Mars with Venus; and between two people most of the synastry, the two Moons, the two Venuses, Mars to Venus, Saturn on the other’s Venus or Moon, and the Moon-sign compatibility the matching tradition uses. Not the houses, the seventh lord, the Navamsa, or the dasha to better than a year or two, and none of the timing questions.
How does a horary chart answer whether we will be together?
The querent is the first house and the other person the seventh; in the KP form the seventh cusp’s sub-lord signifying the second, seventh or eleventh promises the union and signifying the first, sixth, tenth or twelfth denies it, and in the Parashari form the reception and the aspect between the first and seventh lords, mutual and applying for a union, enemy and separating for a parting, with the Moon as the querent’s own mind. The horary gives yes, no, or not yet, and a timing from the applying aspect’s distance or the horary’s own dasha.
Does the horary need my birth time?
No; it is a chart of the question and not of the person, cast for the moment the question is put or from a number the querent gives, and it needs only a sincere question asked once. It answers that one question with a timing and cannot describe a life, so “what am I like in love” is the day chart’s or the natal chart’s question, and “will this happen” is the horary’s; a question asked idly or repeatedly produces a chart of the idleness or the repetition, which the reading reports as the querent’s own mind.
What if I have my birth time but my partner does not?
Your own chart is read fully, the period, the doors, the carrier’s sub-period, the spouse description and the pattern; their day chart is read for their Venus, Mars and Moon by sign and the synastry with you; and a horary is cast for the question about the two of you, in which their side is the seventh house and can be timed. What is lost is the double window, the overlap of two dasha tables, since their dasha is a range without their time; the reading says which of their events would narrow it, which is often two or three you already know.
Is birth time rectification worth it for a relationship question?
For one question, the horary is usually enough and cheaper; for more than one, the spouse description, the timing, the pattern and the double window, rectification is the route, and it is also the route when the recorded time is rounded to the hour, which fails the check a serious reading runs first. It needs four or five dated events, and the more of them are the beginnings and endings of relationships, the better the seventh house is fixed; with the time recovered, the whole of this cluster’s reading becomes available.
Why does my Moon sign matter if I do not know my birth time?
The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, so on about two days in five it is in one sign all day and on the rest it changes at some hour of the birth date; the day chart reads the Moon’s sign on a clear day and flags a boundary day as its one uncertainty, since the Moon is the heart’s needs, the Moon-sign compatibility and the dasha’s starting point. On a boundary day the two possible Moons are read side by side and the native usually recognises their own, which is itself a small rectification.
One question, one horary, one timing; or the time recovered and the whole reading: the honest choice when the birth time is missing.
A relationship consultation without a birth time casts a horary for the question you actually have and reads it with its timing in both forms, reads your day chart and your partner's for what the date can truly hold, and, where you want the spouse description, the pattern and the double window, tells you what the rectification route needs and whether your events can support it.