Five steps from a birth time to a typeset PDF.
Every calculator on Kaalveda — Janam Kundli, Numerology, Tarot, BaZi, Western Natal, all twenty-four — runs the same pipeline. What changes is which sub-engine handles step three. The structure underneath is identical.
Section 01 · The pipeline, at a glance
One deterministic flow. Same inputs, same outputs, every time.
Two different users running the same DOB and time and place will see the same Lagna degree to the same arc-second. There is no per-account "personalisation" applied to the math itself — only to the language and the prose.
Section 02 · What you enter
What every calculator asks for.
Numerology calculators
- ·Full name (the name on the birth certificate, by convention)
- ·Date of birth (DD-MM-YYYY)
- ·A target name (for Business Name, Baby Name, address analysis)
- ·A target number (for Mobile, Vehicle, Address)
- —Time of birth (Numerology does not use it)
- —Place of birth (Numerology does not use it)
Vedic / Western chart
- ·Date of birth
- ·Time of birth (HH:MM in 24-hour, local time at the place)
- ·Place of birth (pincode for India, or city + country)
- ·Ayanamsa override (defaults to Lahiri for Vedic, none for Western)
- ·House system override (whole-sign for Vedic, Placidus for Western)
Daily / matching / specialty
- ·A date (defaults to today)
- ·A place (defaults to your account's saved location)
- ·Two full chart inputs — bride and groom
- ·Optional intention text
- ·Spread choice (1 / 3 / 10 card)
- ·Same as Vedic — DOB, time, place
Section 03 · What the engine does
Five things happen between the form and the PDF.
Place → coordinates → time zone.
The place you enter is converted to latitude, longitude, elevation, and time zone. For India, the lookup is against Kaalveda's local seed of approximately 150,000 pincodes — sourced from the Government of India's open dataset on data.gov.in. For the rest of the world, the fallback is Nominatim, the open geocoder built on OpenStreetMap.
The time zone is resolved against the IANA tz database, which encodes the full historical record of every region's daylight-saving changes back to 1970, and the standard-time changes before that.
INPUT → "Jaipur, India" OUTPUT → 26.9124°N, 75.7873°E, 431m TZ → Asia/Kolkata · UTC+5:30 CONFIDENCE → exact pincode match
Skyfield reads JPL DE441 for the moment.
MOMENT → 1990-12-28T04:42 IST UTC → 1990-12-27T23:12Z FILE → de441.bsp · 115 MB SUN → 12° 43′ 19″ Sag MOON → 21° 11′ 02″ Vir AYANAMSA → Lahiri · 23°45′21″
Skyfield is called with the UTC-converted moment and the geocoded coordinates. It reads from the JPL DE441 ephemeris file — the same dataset NASA uses for mission planning — and returns the positions of Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu (lunar nodes) for the Vedic chart. Western charts add Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Chiron, and the four chart angles.
For Vedic charts, the engine subtracts the Lahiri ayanamsa (currently around 24°06′) to convert tropical positions to sidereal. The ayanamsa is computed for the exact moment, not held as a single constant.
Three calculators do not call the ephemeris.
- ·Numerology runs the Pythagorean and Chaldean engines on the input numbers and letters. Master numbers (11, 22, 33) are preserved when a Life Path, Expression, or Birth Day is computed; reduced when a year value is requested. Karmic-debt numbers (13, 14, 16, 19) are flagged.
- ·BaZi runs the Chinese sexagenary cycle on the DOB, time, and place — sixty Heavenly-Stem-and-Earthly-Branch combinations cycling on year, month, day, and hour. The Day Master, Four Pillars, ten gods, and five-element balance fall out of this calculation. No ephemeris needed; the cycle is calendrical.
- ·Tarot draws from
random_int()over/dev/urandom. Cryptographically secure. Two draws are independent. The seed is system entropy, not your account ID.
Raw positions become a chart.
For a Janam Kundli:
- ·Lagna (the rising sign at the eastern horizon) is computed from the local sidereal time at birth.
- ·House cusps are computed under the chosen house system (whole-sign by default for Vedic; Placidus for Western).
- ·Each planet is placed in its Rashi, house, and Nakshatra-pada. Its state — exalted, debilitated, own-sign, combust, retrograde — is determined by classical rules.
- ·Vargas (D2, D3, D7, D9, D10) are computed by the standard divisional formulas.
- ·Yogas — around 20 of the most-cited yogas (Raj, Dhana, Pancha Mahapurusha, Gajakesari, Neech-Bhanga, Vipareeta Raja, Sunapha, Anapha, Adhi, Kemadruma) are detected by pattern-matching.
- ·Vimshottari Dasha is computed from the Moon's Nakshatra-pada. The 120-year cycle is laid out; current Mahadasha/Antardasha/Pratyantardasha are highlighted.
- ·Numerology overlay — the same chart's owner has a Life Path, Expression, Soul Urge, Personality, Maturity. Shown as a cross-system panel inside the Kundli.
Free preview on-screen. PDF on Paid.
The free preview shows the chart graphic, the Lagna/Rashi/Nakshatra anchors, and the top two or three readings. The PDF unlocks everything — 30 to 100 pages depending on the calculator, in your chosen language.
The PDF is rendered by the Laravel queue via barryvdh/laravel-dompdf. Crimson Pro for prose, JetBrains Mono for figures. Seven-language typography (Inter for English, Noto Sans Devanagari for Hindi and Marathi, Noto Sans Tamil for Tamil, Noto Sans Telugu for Telugu, Noto Sans Bengali for Bengali, Noto Sans Malayalam for Malayalam). Downloadable, printable, share-linked for 30 days.
Section 04 · What you get
Three deliverables. Always the same three.
On-screen preview
The chart graphic, drawn in both South Indian (square) and North Indian (diamond) styles where relevant. The three anchors (Lagna · Rashi · Nakshatra-pada for Vedic; Sun · Moon · Rising for Western). The top two or three readings. A "Save to account" button. No PDF, no share-link.
Saved chart in your account
Once you create a free account, the chart is saved permanently. Your dashboard lists every chart you have ever run, searchable. Cross-system: your Kundli is visible on the Dasha page; your Numerology shows up next to your Kundli.
The full PDF
30 to 100 typeset pages — ephemeris table, full Bhava analysis, every yoga, the entire Vimshottari Dasha timeline, the Numerology overlay, remedies, glossary. In your chosen language. Downloadable, printable, share-linked for 30 days. See the sample report for a real one.
Section 05 · The 24 calculators, by engine
Same pipeline. Four engines. Twenty-four calculators.
| Calculator | Category | Engine | Ephemeris |
|---|---|---|---|
| Life-Path / Expression suite | Numerology | Pythagorean + Chaldean | — |
| Mobile-number analyser | Numerology | Pythagorean + Chaldean | — |
| Address / house-number | Numerology | Pythagorean + Chaldean | — |
| Vehicle-number | Numerology | Pythagorean + Chaldean | — |
| Business-name analyser | Numerology | Chaldean (Indian convention) | — |
| Lucky baby-name | Numerology | Pythagorean + Nakshatra rules | • |
| Janam Kundli | Vedic | Skyfield + DE441 + Lahiri | • |
| Lagna · Rashi · Nakshatra | Vedic (free) | Skyfield + DE441 + Lahiri | • |
| Panchang | Vedic daily | Skyfield + DE441 + Lahiri | • |
| Choghadiya | Vedic daily | Skyfield + DE441 + Lahiri | • |
| Kundli Matching (Gun Milan) | Marriage | Two Janam Kundli + Ashtakoot | • |
| Mangal Dosha | Marriage | Janam Kundli + classical rules | • |
| Nadi Dosha | Marriage | Janam Kundli + Nadi rules | • |
| Muhurat | Marriage | Panchang + event rules | • |
| Sade Sati | Timing | Janam Kundli + Saturn transit | • |
| Vimshottari Dasha | Timing | Janam Kundli + 120-year cycle | • |
| Solar Return (Varshphal) | Timing | Janam Kundli + return chart | • |
| Transits (Gochar) | Timing | Janam Kundli + future ephemeris | • |
| Western Natal Chart | Western | Skyfield + tropical + Placidus | • |
| Synastry / Composite | Western | Two natal charts + midpoint | • |
| Big Three (Sun · Moon · Rising) | Western (free) | Skyfield + tropical | • |
| Tarot | Specialty | random_int() / /dev/urandom | — |
| BaZi (Chinese Four Pillars) | Specialty | Sexagenary cycle (in-PHP) | — |
| Numero Vastu | Specialty | Numerology + Lo-Shu directional | — |
Section 07 · Edge cases & honesty
The five edge cases we want you to know about.
Time within 3° of a sign boundary
If your stated birth time gives a Lagna degree within 3° of a sign change, the chart includes a rectification appendix. Those are the cases where 15 minutes of error flips the entire chart's foundation. We do not silently pick a side; we show both candidate charts.
Daylight-saving transitions
Births during the "spring forward" or "fall back" hour are handled per the local rule for that historical date. The tz database is the source of truth; if a region observed DST historically and abolished it later, the historical chart honours the historical rule.
The 1947 partition and India's time-zone unification
Before 15 August 1947, parts of India observed Bombay Time, Calcutta Time, and Madras Time. After 1947, the country unified on IST (UTC+5:30). Births before that date are computed against the local time observed at the place of birth on that date, not against modern IST.
Births at the polar regions
Vedic and Western house systems behave differently near the poles where the celestial sphere can produce singular cusps. Kaalveda uses whole-sign by default for Vedic and Equal House as the fallback for Western charts cast above ~67° latitude.
Unknown birth time
If the time is truly unknown (some birth records do not capture it), the Lagna cannot be computed. The chart we can show is the solar chart — the chart with the Sun on the Lagna. Many readings are still possible. The PDF for an unknown-time chart is clearly labelled as such on the cover.
Section 08 · A note on speed
Fast — but not because we cut corners.
A full Janam Kundli computes in under two seconds on the server side. This is not because the engine skips computation; it is because the ephemeris is loaded into memory once at boot, the Skyfield sidecar is hot, and the geocoding for India is a local SQL lookup, not an external API call. The PDF takes longer — typically 8 to 15 seconds for a 30-to-50-page report — because we use a queue and a typesetting renderer, not a screenshot.
From form submit to chart graphic. Skyfield sidecar over loopback. Ephemeris pre-loaded in RAM. Geocoding from local SQL.
Typesetting 30–100 pages with Crimson Pro, JetBrains Mono, seven-language fallback fonts. Progress card shows status; the link arrives when ready.
The pipeline takes two seconds. The chart is yours forever.
Already running a chart elsewhere? Send the comparison to [email protected] and we will walk through the difference.