D2 Chart Calculator (Hora)

Two halves, two luminaries

A hora is 15°, half of a sign. Parashara's text gives each half to one of the two lights. In an odd sign — Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius — the first fifteen degrees are the Sun's hora and the second fifteen the Moon's. In an even sign — Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces — the order flips, so the Moon's hora comes first.

The Sun's hora is placed in Leo and the Moon's in Cancer, the signs those two own. That is the whole rule: there is no counting forward, no starting sign to look up. Its D2 degree is the distance a body has travelled inside its half, doubled, so a body at 7°30′ of a sign is at 15° of its hora sign and a body at 22°30′ is at 15° as well.

This hora is derived from the birth-chart positions by Parashara's rule. The full workspace's D-2 tab uses a cyclic hora scheme, so its signs can differ. Both are called hora in the literature; only the one on this page is the two-sign chart that BPHS describes.

What the texts give the hora

Chapter 7 of BPHS, which allots each division a subject, gives the hora to wealth. The idea behind it is old and blunt: the Sun's half is solar, active and outward, the Moon's half lunar, receptive and inward, and a chart's resources are read by asking which half its significant points lean towards.

A common practice is to look first at the lords of the 2nd and 11th houses of the birth chart, the houses of accumulated and incoming money, and note which hora each falls in; then at the lagna lord and at Jupiter. These are points a reader collects and weighs with the birth chart. The hora on its own does not report an income, and no figure for one appears here.

The 1961 hora, body by body

Start with the 1961 lagna, Scorpio 11°23′. Scorpio is an even sign and 11°23′ is in its first half, so the lagna takes the Moon's hora and the hora lagna is Cancer, at 22°47′ — twice the arc covered inside the half, which is a little over 11°23′.

Four bodies sit in the back half of Scorpio: the Sun (27°25′), Mars (27°54′), Mercury (25°34′) and Venus (16°33′). All four are in the second half of an even sign, which is the Sun's, so all four go to Leo. The Moon, 3°18′ into odd Aquarius, is early in its sign and also lands in Leo. Rahu at Cancer 27°41′ and Ketu at Capricorn 27°41′ are both in the second half of even signs and join them.

Only Jupiter, at Capricorn 13°07′, and Saturn, at Capricorn 4°17′, stay with the lagna: first half of an even sign, the Moon's hora, Cancer. The chart therefore reads as a Cancer lagna holding Jupiter and Saturn, and a crowded Leo in the second house with the other seven bodies.

Close calls in the example

A hora line is a single point at 15°, and two of the example's bodies sit near it. Jupiter at 13°07′ is less than two degrees shy of it; Venus at 16°33′ has crossed it by about a degree and a half. Jupiter moves slowly, so its hora is secure for any birth time that day, but the comparison shows how a sign's middle decides everything in this chart.

The lagna is different. It moves through a whole hora in about an hour on average, though the rate depends on the birth latitude and on which sign is rising. The example's rising degree, 11°23′, is about 3°36′ from the line, so a birth time a little later the same morning would have turned the hora lagna from Cancer to Leo and re-counted every house.

Reading two houses

Because every body is in Cancer or Leo, a Parashara hora chart has only two occupied houses. With Cancer rising they are the first and the second; with Leo rising, Cancer becomes the twelfth, so they are the first and the twelfth. Every other house is necessarily empty, and nothing should be read into it.

So the useful facts are the hora lagna itself, which half each graha landed in, and how the bodies split between the two lights. The table under the chart sets that out row by row: the birth position, the half, whose hora and the D2 sign. The three outer planets sit outside Parashara's scheme, so the table skips them.

As with every division, the hora refines the birth chart; it never replaces it. Timing belongs to the dashas, and a reading that leans on one coarse division alone is leaning on very little.

Why are all the planets in Cancer or Leo in my D2 chart?

Because that is Parashara's hora. Each sign is split into two halves; one half belongs to the Sun, whose hora is Leo, and the other to the Moon, whose hora is Cancer. Every body in the chart is in one half or the other, so every body lands in one of those two signs.

How do I calculate the hora chart by hand?

Take a body's degree inside its sign. In an odd sign, 0° to 15° is the Sun's hora (Leo) and 15° to 30° the Moon's (Cancer); in an even sign it is the other way round. For the D2 degree, take the distance into the half and double it.

Why does the workspace show different D2 signs?

The full workspace's D-2 tab uses a cyclic hora scheme, which spreads bodies across all twelve signs. This page draws Parashara's two-sign hora from the same birth-chart positions. Both are called hora; they answer to different rules, so their signs can differ.

What is the D2 chart used for?

Parashara assigns the hora to wealth. Readers commonly note which hora the lords of the 2nd and 11th houses, the lagna lord and Jupiter fall in, and read that alongside the birth chart. It describes; it does not forecast an amount.

Is the hora chart the same as the planetary hours called hora?

No. The planetary hours of the day, also called hora, divide the time from sunrise into periods ruled by the seven planets. The D2 hora divides each zodiac sign into two halves. They share a name and nothing else.

How exact does the birth time need to be?

For the planets, not very: they rarely cross a hora line within a day, the Moon apart. The lagna crosses into the other hora about once an hour on average, so a birth time good to within half an hour is usually enough unless the rising degree is close to 15°.