Pitra Dosha Calculator

If you have ever been told that Pitra Dosha applies to you, you probably noticed how little explanation came with the claim. One astrologer points to the Sun and Rahu together, another points to the 9th house, a third points to the 9th lord in a difficult house, and none of them shows you the chart facts behind the words. The Pitra Dosha Calculator on this page is built to fix that one problem. It takes your birth date, birth time, birthplace and timezone, computes your sidereal birth chart with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and checks 5 classical Pitra Dosha indicators one by one, showing the exact chart facts for each check. You can see which indicators are present, which are absent, and why, without taking any claim on trust.

Before you use the tool, the most important sentence on this page is this one: this is an indicator check, not a diagnosis. Presence of indicators does not confirm Pitra Dosha. Classical texts describe these combinations differently, different schools weigh them differently, and a full reading needs an experienced astrologer who can weigh benefics, dasha periods, divisional charts and family history alongside the 5 checks. The headline result therefore never claims that Pitra Dosha applies to you. It says something much smaller and much more honest, for example 3 of 5 classical indicators present, followed by the per-indicator breakdown. If any website tells you otherwise from a single automated check, treat that claim with caution, because it is claiming more than a chart calculation can support.

The calculator is free, it needs no signup, and all of the math runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server by this tool. You only need your birth details, and the result appears on the same page, with a copy button and a print button if you want to keep it or show it to an astrologer. The rest of this page explains what Pitra Dosha means in the tradition, what each of the 5 indicators is, how the calculation works, and how to read the result without over-reading it.

What is Pitra Dosha

In Vedic astrology, the word Pitra means father or forefather, and Dosha means a defect, imbalance or fault. Pitra Dosha is therefore described as an ancestral imbalance: a karmic debt or unfinished duty connected with the paternal line that is said to show up in the birth chart of a descendant. The tradition behind the idea is that ancestors who were not properly honoured, whose last rites were incomplete, or whose duties were left unsettled, leave a burden that the family carries forward. That burden is not described as a curse sent by an angry ancestor. In the sources used for this page, it is described as unpaid duty, and the traditional response is duty itself: remembrance, offerings, charity and respect for elders.

The chart side of the idea rests on two significations. The Sun is the karaka, or significator, of the father and the paternal line, so an afflicted Sun is read as a strain on the ancestral line. The 9th house is the house of father, dharma, fortune and ancestors, so an afflicted 9th house, or an afflicted lord of the 9th house, is read the same way. Almost every Pitra Dosha indicator in the published lists is some combination of those two ideas: the Sun troubled by a malefic, the 9th house troubled by a malefic, or the 9th lord placed in a difficult house. That is why this calculator checks exactly those two significations, in 5 stated forms, and nothing else. It does not invent extra indicators, and it does not check houses or planets that the tradition does not connect with the ancestral line.

It is equally important to say what Pitra Dosha is not, in the terms of this page. It is not a medical diagnosis, it is not a financial forecast, and it is not a verdict on a marriage or a career. The published lists of effects, such as delays, repeated obstacles, family disputes and financial strain, are reported in this page as traditional claims, not as verified facts about any individual. A difficult period in life has many ordinary causes, and attributing it to a chart combination without evidence would be unfair to the person and unfaithful to the tradition itself, which always reads a chart as a whole. The honest use of an indicator check is as a starting point for a conversation with a knowledgeable astrologer, not as an explanation for everything that has gone wrong.

There is also no single canonical list of Pitra Dosha indicators that every school accepts. Some lists stress the Sun with Rahu, some stress Rahu in the 9th house, some stress the 9th lord in the 6th, 8th or 12th house, and some add the 5th house or the Navamsha chart. The sources for this calculator agree on the core set used here, and they agree on the warning that matters most: a single indicator alone does not confirm Pitra Dosha, and multiple factors must align before any experienced astrologer would speak of it at all. This page follows that warning in its design. The score is a count, not a verdict, and the tool text says so at the top of every result.

How to use this calculator

Using the calculator takes less than a minute. Enter the day, month and year of your birth, then your birth time on the 24-hour clock, then the timezone that was in force at your birthplace when you were born. The timezone list includes the common standard offsets, and a custom offset box is available if your place is not listed. Offsets are standard, non-daylight times, so if your region observed daylight saving when you were born, pick the offset that was actually in force. A wrong timezone shifts the whole chart, because it shifts the UTC moment used for the planetary positions and for the Lagna.

Next, pick your birthplace from the preset city list, or enter latitude and longitude manually if your town is not listed. Birthplace is required here, and the reason is structural: without a birthplace there is no Lagna, and without a Lagna there are no houses, so the 9th-house indicators cannot be checked at all. Date-only calculators can skip birthplace, but a house-based indicator check cannot. If you do not know your birth time, the honest advice is to find it first, from a birth certificate or a family record, rather than guessing, because the Lagna changes roughly every two hours and a guessed time can move planets between houses.

Press the Check my indicators button. The result panel shows the headline count first, for example 3 of 5 classical indicators present, then the honesty note, then a table with one row per indicator. Each row gives the indicator name, a Present or Absent badge, and the chart facts behind the verdict: the signs involved, the houses involved, and the angular separations where an orb is used. Below that table, a second table lists the sidereal positions used: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus Rahu, Ketu and the Lagna, each with its sign, its longitude and its house from the Lagna. If any input is invalid, for example a day that does not exist in the chosen month, or a custom offset outside the range from minus 14 to plus 14 hours, the tool shows a friendly field error and does not produce a misleading result.

Two buttons sit under the result: Copy result and Print. Copy result places a plain-text summary on the clipboard, including the honesty note, so you can save it or share it with an astrologer without retyping. Print sends the page to your printer or to a PDF. Neither button buys anything, books anything, or sends your birth details anywhere. The calculation happens in your browser, from the details you typed.

Method explained: the 5 indicators

The calculation has three stages. First, your local birth time is converted to UTC using the timezone offset you chose. Second, sidereal longitudes are computed for the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn using the low-precision planetary theory of Paul Schlyter, minus the Lahiri ayanamsa, which is the fixed-star frame used by Vedic astrology. Rahu is the mean north node, and Ketu is placed exactly opposite Rahu, 180 degrees away. Third, the sidereal Lagna is computed from local sidereal time and your birthplace, and houses are counted whole-sign from the Lagna: the Lagna sign is the 1st house, the next sign is the 2nd house, and so on around the zodiac.

On that chart, the 5 indicators are checked by rules stated here in full, so that any result can be reproduced by hand from the positions table. Indicator 1 is Sun conjunct Rahu or Ketu within 10 degrees. The angular separation is measured the short way around the circle, so a Sun at 186.50 degrees and a Rahu at 182.28 degrees are 4.22 degrees apart, and that counts as present. A separation of exactly 10.00 degrees counts as present, because the rule is less than or equal to 10, and a separation of 10.02 degrees counts as absent. This is the only indicator that uses a degree orb. It is the most commonly cited Pitra Dosha combination in the sources, often called a Grahan Yoga when the Sun meets Rahu.

Indicator 2 is Sun in the 9th house, afflicted by a malefic aspect or conjunction. Both parts must hold. If the Sun sits in any house other than the 9th, this indicator is absent, however afflicted the Sun may be. If the Sun is in the 9th, the check looks for Saturn, Mars, Rahu or Ketu sharing the Sun sign, or aspecting it by graha drishti, the Vedic sign-based aspect system. In that system every planet aspects the 7th sign from its own sign, Mars also aspects the 4th and 8th signs from its own, Jupiter also aspects the 5th and 9th, and Saturn also aspects the 3rd and 10th. The tool shows which malefic, if any, supplies the affliction, so the verdict is checkable.

Indicator 3 is the 9th lord placed in the 6th, 8th or 12th house. The 9th sign is counted whole-sign from the Lagna, and its lord is fixed by sign rulership: Aries and Scorpio are ruled by Mars, Taurus and Libra by Venus, Gemini and Virgo by Mercury, Cancer by the Moon, Leo by the Sun, Sagittarius and Pisces by Jupiter, Capricorn and Aquarius by Saturn. If that lord sits in the 6th house of obstacles, the 8th house of rupture and loss, or the 12th house of loss and separation, the indicator is present. The sources describe this as the ancestral significator placed in a dusthana, or difficult, house, which weakens the ancestral channel.

Indicator 4 is the 9th lord conjunct or aspected by Rahu, Ketu, Saturn or Mars. Conjunction here means sharing a sign with the lord, and aspect means graha drishti as described above. One care detail matters: when the 9th lord is itself Mars or Saturn, that planet is not counted as afflicting itself, so a Mars lord is not automatically marked present by its own placement. The tool excludes the lord from its own afflicting set, and the fact string names the actual afflicting planet or planets, or reports none. This keeps the check honest for the many charts whose 9th lord is a malefic.

Indicator 5 is the Sun as significator afflicted: Sun sharing a sign with Saturn, or Sun sitting in a sign ruled by a malefic. The malefic-ruled signs are Aries and Scorpio, ruled by Mars, and Capricorn and Aquarius, ruled by Saturn. A Sun in Leo, ruled by the Sun itself, or in Libra, ruled by Venus, does not meet this indicator on rulership, and a Sun in a different sign from Saturn does not meet it on conjunction. This indicator is deliberately narrow. It catches the classical Sun with Saturn combination and the weakened-Sun idea, without labelling every Sun placement as afflicted.

The score is simply the count of indicators present, out of 5. It is not weighted, it is not a percentage of severity, and it is not a probability. A score of 5 does not mean a stronger dosha than a score of 3 in any measured sense, because the sources do not assign weights, and because benefics, dasha periods and divisional charts, which this calculator does not check, can change a reading entirely. Treat the score as an inventory: this many of the 5 classical checks fired, here are the facts, and here is what an astrologer would still need to look at.

Worked example

The preloaded worked example is 24 October 1995, 10:00 in Delhi, timezone UTC plus 5:30, which converts to 04:30 UTC. It is worked out here from the tool output, so you can check the calculator against the arithmetic rather than trusting it blindly. The Lahiri ayanamsa for this moment is 23.7984 degrees. The sidereal Lagna is Scorpio at 231.1831 degrees, which is 21.1831 degrees into Scorpio. The sidereal positions are: Sun Libra 186.4989 degrees, Moon Libra 186.4168 degrees, Mars Scorpio 218.5789 degrees, Mercury Virgo 169.0124 degrees, Jupiter Scorpio 230.6833 degrees, Venus Libra 203.4683 degrees, Saturn Aquarius 324.9007 degrees, Rahu Libra 182.2808 degrees, and Ketu Aries 2.2808 degrees.

Counting whole-sign houses from Scorpio as the 1st house gives the following houses: Sun 12th, Moon 12th, Mars 1st, Mercury 11th, Jupiter 1st, Venus 12th, Saturn 4th, Rahu 12th, Ketu 6th. The 9th sign from Scorpio is Cancer, counted as Scorpio 1st, Sagittarius 2nd, Capricorn 3rd, Aquarius 4th, Pisces 5th, Aries 6th, Taurus 7th, Gemini 8th, Cancer 9th. The lord of Cancer is the Moon, and the Moon sits in Libra, which is the 12th house from Scorpio. That single chain of counting decides two indicators, as shown below.

Indicator 1 is present. The Sun to Rahu separation is 186.4989 minus 182.2808, which is 4.2181 degrees, shown as 4.22 degrees, well within the 10-degree orb. The Sun to Ketu separation is 175.78 degrees, which does not matter, because only one node needs to be within orb. Indicator 2 is absent. The Sun is in the 12th house, not the 9th, so the first condition fails, even though Rahu shares the Sun sign and Ketu aspects it from Aries. The tool reports the affliction facts honestly and still marks the indicator absent, because both conditions are required.

Indicator 3 is present. The 9th lord is the Moon, and the Moon sits in Libra, the 12th house, which is one of the three dusthana houses named in the rule. Indicator 4 is present. The 9th lord Moon sits in Libra with Rahu, and Ketu aspects Libra from Aries as the 7th sign from its own sign, so the lord is both conjoined and aspected by malefics. Indicator 5 is absent. The Sun is in Libra, ruled by Venus, which is not a malefic ruler, and Saturn sits in Aquarius, a different sign from the Sun, so neither branch of the rule fires. The score is therefore 3 of 5 classical indicators present, with indicators 1, 3 and 4 present and indicators 2 and 5 absent.

Two independent cross-checks support the positions. First, the tropical Sun for this moment is the sidereal Sun plus the ayanamsa, 186.4989 plus 23.7984, which is 210.2973 degrees, or 0.30 degrees into tropical Scorpio. The Sun enters tropical Scorpio around 23 October each year, so a tropical Scorpio Sun on 24 October is exactly what astronomy predicts. Second, the Sun and Moon are only 0.08 degrees apart, which is a new moon, and 24 October 1995 was a solar eclipse day, which is precisely what a Sun and Moon together, close to a node, predicts. If the tool ever gave a Sun far from Scorpio for this date, or a Moon far from the Sun, something would be wrong, because both facts are fixed by the calendar.

How to read your result

Start with the honesty note, not with the score. A score of 0 does not prove that no ancestral issue exists in the tradition, because this calculator checks only 5 indicators, and other schools check more. A score of 5 does not prove that Pitra Dosha exists, because benefics, dasha periods and divisional charts are not checked here, and because classical texts describe these combinations differently. The score is an inventory of 5 checks, and the right question after reading it is always the same: what would an experienced astrologer still need to look at before saying anything stronger?

Read each indicator row on its own facts. If indicator 1 is present, note the separation: a 1-degree conjunction and a 9.9-degree conjunction both count under the stated rule, but an astrologer may weigh them differently. If indicator 3 is present, note which dusthana house holds the lord, because the 6th, 8th and 12th houses carry different traditional meanings, and the remedy conversation may differ accordingly. If indicator 4 is present, note whether the affliction is a conjunction or an aspect, and by which planet, because a Rahu conjunction and a Saturn aspect are different combinations in the tradition, even though both fire the same check.

Be careful with the most common misreading: treating an absent indicator as good news in an absolute sense, or a present indicator as bad news in an absolute sense. An indicator is a classical pattern, not a measurement of your life. Two people born on the same day, at the same time, in the same town, get the same 5 checks, whatever their lives have been since. That alone shows why a chart check cannot be a biography. Used as a structured prompt for a conversation with an astrologer, it can be genuinely useful. Used as a verdict, it would be misleading, and this calculator refuses that use in both its wording and its design.

If several indicators are present, the sensible next step is a full reading by an experienced astrologer, not a rushed remedy purchase. Bring the copied result, including the positions table, and ask the astrologer to name which additional factors they are weighing: benefic aspects on the Sun and the 9th house, the Navamsha chart, the running dasha, and the family history. A practitioner who can explain those factors, and who can say plainly when the evidence is mixed, is giving you a real reading. A practitioner who repeats only the score, or who insists on an urgent payment, is not.

Variants, limits, and what this calculator does not do

The most important variant is the indicator list itself. Some lists add Rahu in the 9th house as a standalone indicator, some add the 5th house lord in a dusthana house, some check the Navamsha chart for confirmation, and some require the Sun to be debilitated or combust as well as afflicted. This calculator uses the 5-indicator set stated in the method section, because it is the core set on which the cited sources agree, and because a fixed, stated set can be checked. A different set would give a different count for the same chart, and that difference would be a difference of method, not an error in either tool.

A second variant is the orb and aspect system. This calculator uses a 10-degree orb for indicator 1 only, sign-sharing for conjunction in the other indicators, and graha drishti for aspects. A calculator that used degree orbs for every indicator, or Western aspects, or a different ayanamsa, would give different answers for borderline charts. The Lahiri ayanamsa is the standard choice for Vedic work, but other ayanamsas differ by small amounts, and a planet within a fraction of a degree of a sign boundary, or within a fraction of a degree of the 10-degree orb boundary, could flip a check under a different ayanamsa. Borderline results should always be treated as borderline.

This calculator does not check divisional charts, dasha periods, benefic mitigations, or family history. It does not read the Navamsha, it does not weigh Jupiter aspects that the sources say can mitigate an affliction, and it does not know whether a family pattern actually exists. Those are exactly the factors that the cited sources say decide severity, and they are exactly the factors that need a human astrologer. The calculator also does not use birth time rectification: if your recorded birth time is wrong, the Lagna and the houses may be wrong, and no calculator can fix that from the chart alone.

This calculator does not predict outcomes, diagnose conditions, or advise on money, health or relationships. No indicator on this page is presented as a treatment, an investment signal, a hiring decision, or a relationship verdict. Traditional remedies, such as Shradh, Tarpan, charity and honouring elders, are reported on this page as traditional practices, not as guaranteed results, and they are not prescribed here for any individual. If a pressing health, financial or personal matter is involved, the right step is professional help for that matter, and a chart reading, if used at all, sits alongside that help as a reflection exercise, not as a substitute for it.

About the author

This page was prepared by the ZodiaScope editorial team, which builds astronomy-accurate calculators and clearly labelled interpretive tools for this site. The method section names its published sources for the indicator list, the worked example is checked against hand arithmetic and against two independent astronomical cross-checks, and the tool code was tested against multiple birth dates, including an orb boundary case, before this page was written. Where published sources disagree, this page reports the disagreement rather than hiding it, and where the method itself is interpretive, this page says so in the tool, in the method section, and in the FAQ.

Published 27 October 2026. Last updated 27 October 2026. The calculation rule on this page is fixed: the same birth details always give the same indicator count under the stated rules, so a future update would only change the wording, the explanation, or the disclosure, not the arithmetic, unless a change of method version is announced on the page itself.

Related tools

• Atmakaraka Calculator – find the atmakaraka planet from your sidereal chart, the soul significator in classical Vedic astrology.
• Sidereal Natal Chart – see your full sidereal chart with planets, signs and houses before checking any single indicator.
• Rahu House Calculator – find which house Rahu occupies in your chart, since Rahu afflictions drive several checks on this page.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pitra Dosha?

Pitra Dosha is described in Vedic astrology as an ancestral imbalance, a karmic debt or unfinished duty connected with the paternal line, shown in the birth chart mainly through an afflicted Sun, the significator of the father, or an afflicted 9th house, the house of father, dharma and ancestors. This page reports that description as a traditional claim, not as a verified fact about any individual.

Does this calculator diagnose Pitra Dosha?

No. This calculator performs an indicator check only. It counts how many of 5 classical indicators are present in your sidereal chart and shows the chart facts for each one. Presence of indicators does not confirm Pitra Dosha, classical texts describe these combinations differently, and a full reading needs an experienced astrologer.

What are the 5 classical indicators this calculator checks?

The 5 indicators are: Sun conjunct Rahu or Ketu within 10 degrees; Sun in the 9th house afflicted by a malefic aspect or conjunction; the 9th lord placed in the 6th, 8th or 12th house; the 9th lord conjunct or aspected by Rahu, Ketu, Saturn or Mars; and the Sun as significator afflicted, meaning Sun with Saturn or Sun in a sign ruled by Mars or Saturn.

Why does the calculator need my birth time and birthplace?

Birth time and birthplace are needed to compute the Lagna, the rising sign, which fixes all the houses. Without houses, the 9th-house indicators cannot be checked at all. The Lagna changes roughly every two hours, so a guessed birth time can move planets between houses and change the result.

What does 3 of 5 classical indicators present mean?

It means that 3 of the 5 stated checks fired for your chart, and 2 did not, with the chart facts shown for each check. It is an inventory, not a verdict and not a measure of severity. It does not confirm Pitra Dosha, and it does not predict any outcome in your life.

Why do different websites give different Pitra Dosha results for the same birth details?

Different websites use different indicator lists, different orbs, different aspect systems and sometimes different ayanamsas. Some check divisional charts and some do not. A different stated method gives a different count for the same chart, and that difference is a difference of method, not necessarily an error. This page states its full method so its result can be checked.

What should I do if several indicators are present?

Take the copied result, including the positions table, to an experienced astrologer and ask what else they are weighing, such as benefic aspects, the Navamsha chart, the running dasha and family history. Do not rush into a remedy purchase on the strength of an automated count, and be cautious of anyone who insists on urgent payment.

Is Pitra Dosha the same as Grahan Dosha?

No, although they overlap. Grahan Dosha generally refers to the Sun or Moon eclipsed by Rahu or Ketu, which is close to indicator 1 on this page. Pitra Dosha is the wider ancestral reading, which also involves the 9th house and its lord. A Sun and Rahu conjunction can therefore fire a check in both readings, but the two readings are not identical.