A young man kneels on a river ghat at sunrise holding a knot of a long rope on a patch of sunlight while his sister walks the rope out along the step.

Equal houses

Equal houses divide the zodiac into twelve 30° portions from the Ascendant degree. Mạghā offers both conventions: the Ascendant at the first house's beginning or its centre. Compare which planets change houses while their zodiac positions stay fixed.

The same Ascendant · two house boundaries

15° Leo15° Scorpio

Centred
- 12th house
- 1st house
- 2nd house
At start
- 12th house
- 1st house

First house boundaries
Convention	First house begins	First house ends
Ascendant centred	15°45′38″ Virgo	15°45′38″ Libra
Ascendant at start	0°45′38″ Libra	0°45′38″ Scorpio

The white marker is Nila’s Ascendant at 0°45′38″ Libra. Both rows use the same 90° longitude scale. The boundary changes the house assignment, while each planet’s longitude stays the same.

The Ascendant sits at the middle of the 1st house or at its start

Nila Raman, has her Ascendant at 0°45′38″ Libra. With the Ascendant centred, her 1st house runs from 15°45′38″ Virgo to 15°45′38″ Libra, and each later house begins 30° further on. With the Ascendant at the start, the 1st house runs from 0°45′38″ Libra to 0°45′38″ Scorpio.

The two versions sit half a house apart. Her Sun at 26°40′ Virgo, about 4° behind the Ascendant, falls in the 1st house when the Ascendant is centred and in the 12th when it starts the house. Jupiter, Venus and Rāhu, between 21° and 24° past the Ascendant, leave the 1st instead: 2nd house when centred, 1st at the start. Mercury, about 10° past it, stays in the 1st either way.

An astrologer sets a tall brass lamp down in the middle of a long hall, its glow fading toward the doorway where his granddaughter stands.

The Ascendant as house centre

Raman and Śrīpati place the Ascendant at the first house’s middle, or bhāva madhya. Raman describes influence rising from the opening sandhi, peaking at the middle and fading at the closing sandhi. Centred equal houses keep this convention with fixed 30° widths.

Parāśara permits houses spanning two signs, interpreted through both rulers. Western equal houses and KP commonly treat the cusp as a house’s beginning instead.

A woman rests a wooden bead in the middle of one coloured section of a long cord stretched across a table while her nephew holds the far end.

Both equal-house options

The Bhāva tab offers Ascendant centered and Ascendant at start. It lists changed planetary houses, occupants and detailed cusp boundaries; signs and lords retain Rāśi order. Both options also appear under House view and work for divisional charts.

Note: the Planets tab’s Bhāva column and Aspects tab’s house scores always use centred equal houses, independently of this choice.

Six planets move when the Ascendant is centred

Whole-sign and centred equal-house assignments
Planet	Whole sign / at start	Ascendant centred
Sun	12th	1st · moved
Moon	4th	5th · moved
Jupiter	1st	2nd · moved
Venus	1st	2nd · moved
Rāhu	1st	2nd · moved
Ketu	7th	8th · moved
Mars	10th	10th · unchanged
Mercury	1st	1st · unchanged
Saturn	5th	5th · unchanged

The Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Venus, Rāhu and Ketu move forward one house. Each lies more than 15°45′38″ into its sign. With the Ascendant at the start, no planet moves.

Centring the Ascendant moves six of Nila's nine planets

Compared with her whole-sign houses, the centred version moves six of Nila's planets one house forward: the Sun from the 12th to the 1st, the Moon from the 4th to the 5th, Jupiter, Venus and Rāhu from the 1st to the 2nd, and Ketu from the 7th to the 8th. Each sits more than 15°45′38″ into its sign, past the point where the next house begins. Mars, Mercury and Saturn, between 11° and 13° into their signs, stay where they were.

With the Ascendant at the start, no planet moves at all. Her houses then begin 0°45′38″ into each sign, and none of her planets lies in that narrow strip.

Questions about equal houses

Equal houses or whole sign: which should I use?

Use the one your method was built on. Whole-sign houses keep each house inside one sign, which suits sign-based rules such as yogas and Jaimini techniques. Equal houses follow the Ascendant degree, so a planet's house reflects its distance from the rising point. Some astrologers read both and look closely at the planets that change house, which Mạghā lists for you.

How do equal houses differ from Placidus?

Equal houses are always 30° wide along the zodiac. Placidus divides the time each degree takes to travel from the horizon to the meridian, so its houses vary in size with latitude, and its 10th house always begins at the Midheaven. For Nila, Placidus starts the 10th house at 29°19′35″ Gemini, while equal houses that start at the Ascendant begin it at 0°45′38″ Cancer.

Is the Vehlow house system the same as equal houses?

It is one kind of equal house system. Vehlow houses, named after the German astrologer Johannes Vehlow (1890–1958), put the Ascendant in the middle of the 1st house, which matches Mạghā's Equal option with the Ascendant centered. The other option, with the Ascendant at the start, is what Western astrology usually calls the equal house system.

Switch your chart to equal houses in Mạghā

Nila Raman's Ascendant-centred equal houses put the Sun, Lagna and Mercury in the 1st house; the web shows the switched D1 chart and the phone shows the Bhāva houses. — Nila Raman’s chart is frozen at 12 September 2026. The web switches the D1 chart tile to equal houses with the Ascendant centred, while the phone opens Bhāva and selects Equal midpoint. The phone's Changes (8) includes Uranus and Neptune; six of the nine grahas move. The sample was born on 14 October 1994 at 06:30 IST in Bengaluru and uses Lahiri. Switching shows saved calculations; the demo cannot calculate visitors' birth details.

Compare both equal-house conventions in Bhāva. The Nila Raman demo uses the Ascendant at the first house's centre and lists the changed planetary house placements.

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