Kundali matching counts thirty-six points from two Moons and answers one question, whether the two are compatible by the tradition’s measure. Synastry lays one chart over the other and answers a different one: what happens between these two people when they meet. The partner’s planets fall into the native’s houses and on the native’s planets, and each overlay brings something out that neither chart shows alone. Their Saturn on your Moon is the weight you feel in their company. Their Jupiter on your seventh is the sanction, the sense that the bond is right. Their Rahu on your fifth is the obsession, the feeling you have never had before and will not have after. Their Venus on your seventh is the ease. Their seventh lord in your seventh, or yours in theirs, is the recognition that the bond is mutual. This article gives the overlays in their order of weight, the two seventh lords first, then the two Moons, the two lagna lords, Venus and Mars, the malefic overlays and the Navamsa; a ten-overlay table with what each brings out and whether it is a bond or an attraction; the difference between synastry and matching and why a couple needs both; what synastry cannot do; and a pair of charts whose thirty-six points were poor and whose overlays were the best the method sees.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide. The matching itself, the ashtakoota and its eight tests, is the matching cluster’s, beginning at the complete ashtakoota guide and done in software in the Gun Milan guide for Jagannatha Hora; the KP method of matching by cusps is cuspal matching; and the timing question that synastry does not answer, whether two charts’ windows overlap, is the earlier page, Will I Marry the Person I Love?.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa; one chart laid over the other by sign, so that the partner’s planet in a sign falls in whichever house that sign is in the native’s chart, and conjunctions between the two charts’ planets taken within about eight degrees; the overlay read both ways, each chart over the other, since synastry is never symmetrical. Overlays are read as what each person brings out in the other, never as a verdict on either; synastry gives no score and predicts no marriage, which the dasha and the Navamsa do. The partner’s chart is read with their knowledge.
Not thirty-six points but ten overlays, read both ways: what actually happens between the two of you.
A relationship consultation lays your partner's chart over yours and yours over theirs, reads the two seventh lords, the two Moons, the two lagna lords, Venus and Mars and the malefic overlays in their order of weight, and tells you what each of you brings out in the other, which overlays are bond and which are attraction, and where the two charts go past each other.
In this article
- What synastry is, and what matching is
- First: the two seventh lords
- Second: the two Moons
- Third: the two lagna lords and the reception between them
- Fourth: Venus and Mars across the charts
- Fifth: the malefic overlays, Saturn, Rahu, Ketu and Mars on the other’s planets
- Ten overlays: what each brings out, and whether it is bond or attraction
- The partner’s planets in your houses
- Sixth: the Navamsa overlay
- What synastry cannot do, and why a couple needs both methods
- A worked pair: poor points, fine overlays
- Frequently asked questions
What synastry is, and what matching is
Matching, the ashtakoota, takes the two Moons, their signs and nakshatras, and tests them eight ways for the tradition’s measure of compatibility: whether the two temperaments, the two natures, the two lines will suit, and it produces a number that the families use. It is a real method, with a real reading, and its parts are set out on the matching pages: the Moon signs in Bhakoot and Graha Maitri, the nakshatras in Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi, the last of which, in the Nadi dosha guide, is the one that stops most matches. What matching does not do is look at anything but the Moon, so that two charts can score thirty and be a disaster and score fourteen and be the marriage everyone envies, because the seventh houses, Venus, Mars, the lagna and the dasha were never consulted. Synastry consults them. It lays one chart over the other, both ways, and reads what each person’s planets do in the other’s houses and to the other’s planets, and it produces not a number but a description: this is what you bring out in each other, this is where you meet, this is where you go past each other. The two methods answer different questions and a couple needs both, the matching for the tradition’s measure and the synastry for the description; a reading that gives only the points has counted and not read.
First: the two seventh lords
The single strongest synastry indicator of a bond, as opposed to an attraction, is the mutual placement of the two seventh lords: where your seventh lord falls in their chart, and where theirs falls in yours. Your seventh lord in their first or seventh house is the recognition that you are the partner their chart describes; theirs in yours is the same the other way; both together is the mutual recognition, the couple who knew, and it is the overlay behind most of the marriages that surprised the families. Your seventh lord in their fifth is the partner who is their romance; in their eleventh, the partner who is their friend and gain; in their ninth, the partner who is their fortune. And the difficult ones: your seventh lord in their sixth, eighth or twelfth is the partner who is, to their chart, a dispute, a crisis or a loss, which does not end a relationship but names its weather. The two seventh lords’ own relationship matters too, friends, neutrals or enemies by the planetary friendships that the Graha Maitri koota uses for the Moon signs: Jupiter’s seventh lord with Venus’s seventh lord is a bond between planets that dislike each other’s ways, and the reading says so. This overlay is read first because it is the bond’s own signature, and a synastry that has fine Venus-Mars contacts and no seventh-lord contact is an attraction, however it feels.
Second: the two Moons
The two Moons are what the matching counts, and synastry reads them as needs rather than as points, in the way the Moon page of this cluster sets out: which sign each Moon is in and therefore what each heart needs, and where each Moon falls in the other’s chart. Your Moon in their seventh is the heart that finds its partner in them, and theirs in yours the same; your Moon in their fourth is the heart that feels at home with them; your Moon in their twelfth is the heart that is lost or hidden with them, the relationship in which you cannot quite be yourself; your Moon in their eighth the heart that is transformed and tested. The Moon-to-Moon relation is the Bhakoot the matching counts, trines and same-sign as the easy ones, sixth-eighth and second-twelfth as the crossed ones, and synastry reads the crossed Moons not as a dosha but as the mismatch of needs the Moon page describes, one needing to be felt and the other to be told, and gives the couple the two sentences. The Moons are read second because the bond, once it exists, is lived in the two hearts’ needs daily, and a couple with the seventh lords joined and the Moons crossed has a real bond with a daily mistranslation in it, which is a common and workable marriage once named.
Third: the two lagna lords and the reception between them
The lagna lord is the person, and where each lagna lord falls in the other’s chart says how each person is received by the other’s life. Your lagna lord in their seventh is you as their partner; in their fifth, you as their pleasure; in their tenth, you as their standing; in their fourth, you as their home; in their twelfth, you as their private life or their loss. The reception between the two lagna lords is the horary idea used natally: your lagna lord in a sign ruled by theirs, or in its exaltation, is you disposed toward them as a person; theirs in yours is the reverse; both is the mutual reception that the horary pages treat as the bond both hold. The two lagna lords in mutual friendship, by the planetary friendships, give the couple who like each other, which is different from love and outlasts it in the long marriages; the two in enmity, Saturn’s lagna with the Sun’s, Mars’s with Mercury’s, give the couple who love and irritate each other, and the reading names the irritation as the planets’ and not the persons’. The lagna lords are read third because a bond between two people who do not like each other is a bond under strain, and the strain has a planetary name.
Fourth: Venus and Mars across the charts
Venus and Mars across two charts are the attraction layer, the chemistry, and the cluster’s Venus and Mars pages have given each planet’s part; the calculator at the Venus-Mars synastry calculator computes the contacts and the Venus-Mars compatibility page reads them. Your Venus on their Mars, or theirs on yours, is the classical attraction, and both ways is the couple who cannot keep their hands off each other; your Venus in their sign, their Venus on your Moon, your Mars on their Venus, each is a form of the pull. The reading’s rule is that Venus-Mars contacts without the seventh-lord overlays are an attraction and not a bond, and that an attraction is a real thing that relationships begin with and marriages do not run on; a couple with the chemistry and nothing else are told so, and a couple with the bond and no chemistry are told the other thing, which is that the seventh lords make a marriage and the fifth-house pleasure inside it is the eleventh lord’s sub-period’s to bring, as the geometry page says. The Venus-to-Venus relation is the two love languages side by side, the Venus page’s reading, and a couple with Venus in the same element give and receive in one tongue.
Fifth: the malefic overlays, Saturn, Rahu, Ketu and Mars on the other’s planets
The malefic overlays are the ones a couple most needs named, because each is felt and none is understood. Their Saturn on your Moon is the weight, the relationship in which you feel judged, restrained, older; it is the overlay of the couple who last and are not light, and it is bearable once it has a name and unbearable while it is read as their coldness. Their Saturn on your Venus is the love that is tested, the partner who cools what you warm; their Saturn on your seventh lord the bond that is delayed and made permanent by them. Their Rahu on your fifth or Venus is the obsession, the feeling you have never had, and it reverses when Rahu’s season does; their Rahu on your seventh is the outsider partner, which they are, to your chart. Their Ketu on your seventh or Venus is the fade, the relationship in which you feel unneeded, and it is Ketu’s calm and not their indifference, as the Ketu page says. Their Mars on your Moon is the heat and the quarrel, on your Venus the desire, on your fourth the fight at home. Each overlay is read both ways, since your Saturn on their Moon is a different marriage from theirs on yours, and the reading of the malefic overlays is the reading of what each of you costs the other, which is the thing couples most want to know and are least often told. Where the overlays are Mars, Saturn and Rahu together on one partner’s Moon or seventh, the reading stops and sends the reader to The Relationship That Harms.
Ten overlays: what each brings out, and whether it is bond or attraction
| Overlay (read both ways) | What it brings out | Bond, attraction, or weight |
|---|---|---|
| Their 7th lord in your 1st or 7th, or yours in theirs | Recognition: you are the partner their chart describes | Bond; the strongest single indicator |
| Their Moon in your 7th or 4th | Their heart finds its partner or its home in you | Bond, lived daily |
| Their lagna lord in your 7th, or reception between the two lagna lords | They are received as your partner; you like each other as persons | Bond; outlasts the love in long marriages |
| Their Venus on your 7th or 7th lord | Ease; they make the bond pleasant | Bond with pleasure in it |
| Their Venus on your Mars, or theirs on yours | Chemistry; the classical attraction | Attraction; real, and not what a marriage runs on |
| Their Jupiter on your 7th, 5th or Moon | Sanction and protection; the sense that it is right; the families agree | Bond; the marriage the elders bless |
| Their Saturn on your Moon or Venus | The weight; judged, restrained, tested; cooled where you warm | Weight; bearable once named, and the couple that lasts |
| Their Rahu on your 5th, 7th or Venus | Obsession; the outsider; the feeling you have not had before | Attraction of Rahu’s kind; reverses with its season unless a bond overlay holds it |
| Their Ketu on your 7th or Venus | The fade; feeling unneeded; their calm read as indifference | Neither; Ketu’s completion, and a bond only if chosen on purpose |
| Their Mars on your Moon, Venus or 4th | Heat, desire, the quarrel, the fight at home | Attraction with conflict; a match if both charts have Mars, a war if one does not |
Three bond overlays and one weight is the ordinary good marriage; three attractions and no bond is the affair; and the reading counts them both ways before it says which, since an overlay that is a bond from your side and an attraction from theirs is the shape of the relationship in which one is in the seventh and the other in the fifth.
The partner’s planets in your houses
Beyond the named overlays, every planet of the partner’s falls in one of your houses and colours that house while they are in your life, and the reading walks the twelve. Their planets in your first change who you are with them, and a partner with three planets in your first is a partner who remakes you. Their planets in your second enter your family and your money, for good with benefics and with dispute with malefics. In your third, they are in your words and your daily errands, the partner who is your communication. In your fourth, they are in your home, and their Saturn there is the heavy house and their Venus the comfortable one. In your fifth, they are your pleasure, your creativity and, if children come, the children’s house. In your sixth, they are your work and your quarrel, the partner who is a task. In your seventh, they are your partner, plainly. In your eighth, they are your transformation, your intimacy and your crisis; their Sun there is the partner who changes you utterly. In your ninth, they are your fortune and your tradition, the partner who is your luck or your other faith. In your tenth, your standing, the partner seen with you. In your eleventh, your gain and your friend. In your twelfth, your private life and your loss, the partner who is your secret or your sacrifice. The house count is the fastest synastry there is, three minutes with two charts, and a partner whose planets cluster in your seventh, ninth and eleventh is one the chart welcomes, while one whose planets cluster in your sixth, eighth and twelfth is one the chart is going to work for.
Sixth: the Navamsa overlay
The Navamsa is the marriage chart, and the two Navamsas laid together say what the two charts become in the marriage itself, which the birth-chart overlays only promise. The D9 lagna of each in the other’s D9, the two D9 seventh lords’ mutual placement, and the D9 Moons repeat the first three overlays at the marriage’s own level, and a bond that shows in the birth charts and repeats in the Navamsas is the one that settles, while a bond in the birth charts alone is the love that marries and stays restless. The D9 seventh of each describes the spouse each was built for, in the Navamsa marriage guide, and the partner whose D1 lagna sign is the other’s D9 seventh sign is the partner the marriage chart was expecting, an overlay that is worth more than most of the birth-chart ones. The Darakaraka and the Upapada add the last check: whether each partner matches the spouse the other’s Darakaraka describes, in the Darakaraka guide, and the Upapada’s description of the spouse’s family in the Upapada guide. The Navamsa is read sixth because it needs the birth time to be right to within a few minutes, and a synastry done on two rounded birth times has a D9 layer that belongs to two other people; the birth-chart overlays survive a rounded time, and the D9 does not.
What synastry cannot do, and why a couple needs both methods
Synastry describes; it does not predict. It says what two charts bring out in each other and where they meet and go past each other, and it says nothing about whether the two will marry, which is the dasha’s, the two windows overlapping as the double-window page reads, or about whether the marriage will last, which is the seventh lords’ dignity, the Navamsa and the periods. A synastry with every bond overlay in the table can belong to two people whose windows never coincide, and the reading says so; a synastry with weight in every row can belong to a couple whose seventh lords are dignified and whose periods carry, and the marriage lasts with the weight in it. Synastry also gives no score, and a couple who ask for the number are given the matching’s, which has one, and told what the number leaves out. And synastry is not symmetrical: your chart over theirs and theirs over yours are two readings, and a couple with a bond one way and an attraction the other is the couple in which one partner is in the seventh house and the other in the fifth, which is the asymmetry the cluster’s earlier pages have read from each side. A couple needs both methods, and the timing, and the reading that gives all three has given them the tradition’s measure, the description, and the season, which is the whole of what two charts can say to each other.
A worked pair: poor points, fine overlays
Her chart: Leo lagna, particulars altered; the Moon in Scorpio in the fourth, Saturn in Libra in the third, exalted, the seventh lord, Venus in Virgo in the second, debilitated, the Sun in Libra in the third, Jupiter in Sagittarius in the fifth, Mars in Capricorn in the sixth, exalted, Rahu in Aquarius in the seventh. His chart: Aquarius lagna; the Moon in Taurus in the fourth, exalted, the Sun in Leo in the seventh, his seventh lord in its own sign, Saturn in Capricorn in the twelfth, his own lagna lord, Venus in Cancer in the sixth, Jupiter in Gemini in the fifth, Mars in Aries in the third, its own sign, Rahu in Libra in the ninth. The matching: Moons in Scorpio and Taurus, opposite, which Bhakoot allows, but Nadi, Gana and Varna against them, and the total under eighteen; the families had been told no.
The overlays, both ways. Her seventh lord is Saturn, and Saturn falls in his chart in Libra, his ninth: she is his fortune and his tradition, the partner from the far side who is his luck. His seventh lord is the Sun, and the Sun in his chart is in Leo, which is her first house: his partner’s lord sits on her self, the recognition, the strongest overlay the method has, one way. Her Moon in Scorpio falls in his tenth, her heart in his standing, the partner seen with him; his Moon in Taurus falls in her tenth likewise, the two hearts each in the other’s public life, a couple who are a couple in the world, and the opposite Moons read as the Moon page reads them, two needs in complementary elements, water and earth, hers to be felt and his to be safe, each supplying the other’s without trying. Her lagna lord, the Sun, in Libra, falls in his ninth beside her Saturn; his lagna lord, Saturn, in Capricorn, falls in her sixth, and both lagna lords are in each other’s charts in houses that are difficult one way, her sixth, and fortunate the other, his ninth, which is the asymmetry: he is a task to her chart and she is a blessing to his. Venus and Mars: her Mars in Capricorn on his Saturn, his Mars in Aries on nothing of hers, her Venus in Virgo on nothing of his, his Venus in Cancer in her twelfth, the attraction layer thin, the chemistry quiet, which they confirmed. The malefic overlays: his Saturn in Capricorn on her Mars, the weight on her force, the relationship in which her drive is restrained by his structure; her Saturn in Libra on his Rahu, her structure holding his appetite, which is the good direction for that overlay; no Rahu on either’s fifth, no Ketu on either’s seventh. The Navamsa: her D9 seventh in Aquarius, his lagna sign, the partner her marriage chart was expecting, and his D9 seventh lord in her D9 first.
The reading, given to a couple whose families had the number: the points are poor and the overlays are among the best the method sees; the bond is mutual by the seventh lords one way and by the Navamsa the other; the two hearts are complementary and each in the other’s public life; the chemistry is quiet and the friendship is not; the weight is his Saturn on her Mars, which she will feel as restraint and should hear as structure; and the asymmetry is that she is his fortune and he is her work, which is a marriage that gives him more than it gives her and that she should enter knowing. The windows, from the two dashas, overlapped for a year and a half two years on, and they married in it. Nine years later the description holds in every line, the weight included, and the number the families were given is still under eighteen, which is why a couple needs both methods and the reading that says what the number leaves out.
Frequently asked questions
What is synastry in Vedic astrology?
Laying one chart over the other, both ways, and reading what each person’s planets do in the other’s houses and to the other’s planets: the two seventh lords’ mutual placement, the two Moons, the two lagna lords, Venus and Mars across the charts, the malefic overlays and the Navamsa. It produces a description of what the two bring out in each other, where they meet and where they go past each other, not a number, and it is a different method from kundali matching, which counts thirty-six points from the two Moons.
What is the difference between synastry and Gun Milan?
Gun Milan takes the two Moons only and tests them eight ways for the tradition’s measure of compatibility, producing a number the families use; synastry consults the seventh houses, Venus, Mars, the lagna, the Navamsa and the malefic overlays, and produces a description. Two charts can score thirty and be a disaster or fourteen and be the marriage everyone envies, because the points never looked past the Moon. A couple needs both, and a reading that gives only the points has counted and not read.
What is the strongest synastry indicator of a bond?
The mutual placement of the two seventh lords: your seventh lord in their first or seventh house, and theirs in yours, is the recognition that each is the partner the other’s chart describes, and both together is the couple who knew. After it, their Moon in your seventh or fourth, their lagna lord in your seventh with reception between the two lagna lords, and their Venus or Jupiter on your seventh. Venus-Mars contacts without any of these are an attraction and not a bond.
What does it mean when a partner’s Saturn is on my Moon?
The weight: the relationship in which you feel judged, restrained, older, and in which they cool what you warm. It is the overlay of the couple who last and are not light, bearable once it has a name and unbearable while it is read as their coldness, and the reading gives it the name. It is read both ways, since your Saturn on their Moon is a different marriage from theirs on yours, and the malefic overlays as a group are the reading of what each of you costs the other.
Can synastry predict marriage?
No. It describes what two charts bring out in each other and says nothing about whether the two will marry, which is the dasha’s question, the two marriage windows overlapping, or whether the marriage will last, which is the seventh lords’ dignity, the Navamsa and the periods. A synastry with every bond overlay can belong to two people whose windows never coincide, and the reading says so; the timing is read separately, and a couple needs the matching, the synastry and the timing together.
What does it mean when my partner’s planets fall in my 7th house?
That they are, to your chart, your partner plainly: their planets in your seventh colour the bond’s house while they are in your life, benefics with ease and sanction, malefics with weight or heat. Their planets clustering in your seventh, ninth and eleventh is a partner your chart welcomes; clustering in your sixth, eighth and twelfth is a partner your chart is going to work for. The house count is the fastest synastry there is, three minutes with two charts, and it is read both ways.
Does synastry need an accurate birth time?
The birth-chart overlays by sign survive a birth time rounded to the half hour, since a planet’s sign rarely changes; the lagna overlays need the ascendant sign right, which a rounded time usually gives; and the Navamsa overlay needs the time right to within a few minutes, since the D9 lagna changes every thirteen minutes or so, which is why it is read sixth and only on charts whose times have been checked. A synastry done on two rounded times keeps its first five layers and loses the sixth.
What the number leaves out: the ten overlays, both ways, and the sentence about what each of you costs the other.
A relationship consultation reads your two charts laid over each other in the order of weight, the seventh lords, the Moons, the lagna lords, Venus and Mars, the malefic overlays and the Navamsa, tells you which overlays are bond and which are attraction, names the weight each of you feels, and gives the timing the synastry itself cannot, from the two dashas.