A young woman sets a brass lamp at the centre of three concentric rings of jasmine, blue flowers and marigolds on a courtyard floor while a man holds a basket of petals.

Sudarśana Chakra

Sudarśana Chakra places one chart in three concentric circles, counting houses from the Lagna, Moon and Sun. Mạghā uses whole-sign houses and the nine grahas, so each house presents three reference signs for comparison.

Three references for the same twelve houses

Planets repeat in their sign across all three rings
Sign	Occupants
Libra · Li	Lagna, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Rāhu*
Capricorn · Cp	Moon
Virgo · Vi	Sun
Aquarius · Aq	Saturn*
Aries · Ar	Ketu*
Cancer · Cn	Mars

Inner ring: Lagna. Middle: Moon. Outer: Sun. House 1 is shaded and house 10 outlined. Libra is the Lagna reference in inner house 1. Planet placements stay in the same signs in all three rings; the table lists the occupied signs. * = retrograde. Sign key: Ar Aries, Ta Taurus, Ge Gemini, Cn Cancer, Le Leo, Vi Virgo, Li Libra, Sc Scorpio, Sg Sagittarius, Cp Capricorn, Aq Aquarius, Pi Pisces. House 1 lords: Venus, Saturn, Mercury. House 10 lords: Moon, Venus, Mercury.

Each ring counts the twelve houses from its own first sign

Each ring takes its reference sign as the first house and counts whole signs from there, so the three rings are turned against one another while the house numbers stay lined up. Planets sit in their signs in every ring, so a planet usually falls in a different house in each.

Nila Raman, was born with Libra rising, the Moon in Capricorn and the Sun in Virgo. Her first house holds Libra with the Lagna, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Rāhu in the inner ring, Capricorn with the Moon in the middle ring and Virgo with the Sun in the outer ring. From the inside out, her tenth house reads Cancer with Mars, then Libra with four planets, then an empty Gemini.

A woman astrologer holds up three nested brass rings while a teenage student kneels at a low table with his hands on a closed manuscript.

Parāśara judges a house by what all three rings hold

Parāśara reads each house from Lagna, Moon and Sun: its lord and benefics support it; malefics challenge it. The larger group prevails, strength breaks ties, and an unoccupied, unaspected house follows its lord. Rao associates the three references with body, mind and soul. Parāśara uses this chakra when all three references occupy different signs, otherwise the birth chart. His timing advances one house yearly and one monthly within it.

A young jeweller sets stones into a round gold pendant of three concentric bands while his sister holds out a tray of stones.

Compare the three rings

The Sudarshana tab compares each house from Lagna, Moon and Sun, showing its sign, classical ruler and occupants. Select a house in the drawing or use All placements for all twelve. Signs are counted whole; an asterisk marks retrograde motion.

Note: this is a birth-chart view. It does not advance houses through Parāśara’s year-by-year count.

What people ask about the Sudarśana Chakra

How do you read a Sudarśana Chakra chart?

Take one house at a time and read it in all three rings: the sign, its lord and the planets in it, counted from the Lagna, the Moon and the Sun. Parāśara favours a house that holds or receives the aspect of its lord or of benefics, and weakens one held by malefics. P. V. R. Narasimha Rao advises weighing all three rings together before drawing a conclusion.

Is the Sudarśana Chakra of astrology the same as Viṣṇu's discus?

No. Sudarśana is the name of Viṣṇu's discus, the subject of stotras, yantras and lockets. The astrological Sudarśana Chakra is a way of drawing a birth chart: three circles of twelve houses counted from the Lagna, the Moon and the Sun, which Parāśara describes in Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra.

Can the Sudarśana Chakra predict the year ahead?

Parāśara uses it for timing. Each house rules one year in turn, starting with the first house at birth and coming round again every twelve years, and each year divides into twelve monthly periods, one per house, with shorter periods inside them. The house running a year is read like a Lagna in all three rings. Mạghā's tab shows the birth rings this count starts from.