Find your atmakaraka and the full chara karaka order

Last updated 25 October 2026

Enter your birth date and time to see which planet has gone furthest through its sign, the atmakaraka of Jaimini astrology, along with the rest of the karaka order. Underneath: how the ranking works, why two schemes exist, and how an astrologer actually uses the answer.

How the karakas are ranked

Jaimini astrology gives the planets two kinds of significator role. The fixed (sthira) karakas never change: the Sun always signifies the father, Venus always the spouse, and so on. The chara, or movable, karakas are different in every chart, because they depend on how far each planet has moved through its own sign at the moment of birth.

For the moment you enter, the calculator places every planet against the fixed stars (the sidereal zodiac, Lahiri ayanamsa). It then throws away the sign and keeps only the degrees and minutes inside it, a number between 0 and 30. The planet with the largest number is the atmakaraka. Second place goes to the amatyakaraka, third to the bhratrikaraka, and the list continues until the lowest figure, which marks the darakaraka. The place-of-birth list only fills in the usual UTC offset for that city; the karakas do not depend on latitude or longitude, so no rising sign is needed.

Two details catch people out. First, Rahu travels in reverse, so when it is ranked its position in the sign is subtracted from 30: a Rahu at 4 degrees counts as 26. Ketu is never ranked. Second, the comparison is to the arc-minute. Two planets a few minutes apart are in a definite order, but that order can flip if the recorded birth time is out, which is why the result warns you about close neighbours.

Seven karakas or eight: why both are shown

Both counts are discussed in the Parashari text. When eight karakas are used, Rahu joins the Sun-to-Saturn planets and there is a separate pitrikaraka (father) between the matrikaraka and the putrakaraka. With seven, only the visible planets take part, so one role has to give way. The list most practitioners use today drops the pitrikaraka; the Parashari text records another view in which the mother and children share a karaka and the father keeps fifth place.

The calculator does not ask you to choose. Its table puts the modern seven-karaka order and the eight-karaka order next to each other, adds a note on the Parashari seven-karaka order, and says when the mean and true positions of Rahu give a different eight-karaka order. For the atmakaraka itself the two schemes disagree only when Rahu's reversed figure is the highest of the eight. The first four places are identical in both seven-karaka lists.

What a Jaimini astrologer reads from it

Jaimini's sutras give the atmakaraka the rank of king among the karakas. It signifies the self at its deepest, the centre that every other indicator in the horoscope works for. A practitioner trained in this system will usually start a reading by naming it, but a name is the beginning of the analysis, not the end.

• Its sign and house in the rashi chart. An atmakaraka in a strong sign and a good house reads very differently from the same planet debilitated in the 8th. The planet's natural meaning is coloured by where it stands.
• The karakamsa. Where the atmakaraka falls in the D9 chart becomes a reference point of its own. Planets in that sign, and in the signs counted from it, are read for temperament, inclinations and spiritual direction. The ishta devata calculator shows the karakamsa and one classical use of it.
• Its relationship to the other karakas. Whether the atmakaraka sits with or aspects the amatyakaraka (career and counsel) or the darakaraka (spouse) is part of how a Jaimini reader connects the self to work and relationships.
• Timing. Many Jaimini practitioners give extra weight to periods of the sign-based dashas that involve the atmakaraka's sign or the karakamsa, so the result can feed into timing as well as description.

The most common misreading online is to treat the atmakaraka as a one-word personality type, as in “a Saturn atmakaraka means a hard life”. No careful astrologer reads it that way. The same planet at the top of two charts will be judged by its dignity, its company, its house and the karakamsa, and the conclusions can be opposite. Treat any reading that skips those steps with caution.

Ties, near-ties and the birth time

Each planet is ranked on one number, so the recorded time matters in two ways. The Moon can rise from last place to first within about two and a quarter days, so a change of an hour or two in the recorded time can move it past a neighbour. With a time entered, the calculator checks two hours either side and tells you if the atmakaraka changes inside that window. Leave the time blank and it works through the full date instead, giving every atmakaraka of that day with its start and end times.

If a pair of planets share the same arc-minute, or sit within a tenth of a degree of each other, you get a note with both possible orders. Texts and teachers disagree about breaking an exact tie, and the tool leaves that judgement to them. The same applies when a planet sits right at the start or end of its sign: a little earlier or later it would have a very different figure. If the result shows one of these warnings, mention it to your astrologer, and see our guide to birth details for astrology on finding the most reliable time.

Questions to ask your astrologer about the atmakaraka

• Do you work with seven chara karakas or eight, and why that scheme?
• My atmakaraka is in a weak sign in the birth chart: how much does that change your reading of it?
• What do you see in my karakamsa, and which planets there matter most?
• Two of my planets are almost level in degree. How do you decide which one is the atmakaraka?
• Does the atmakaraka play any part in the timing you are giving me for my question?

For help preparing a consultation so that answers like these are useful to you, read questions to ask an astrologer.

What each karaka stands for

Here are the karakas from first to last, what each Sanskrit name means and which part of life tradition assigns to it. The two right-hand columns show where each role falls in the two seven-karaka lists; in the eight-karaka scheme the rank is simply the row number.