Birth time is the input people are least sure of, and it matters more than most people expect. The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, which is a little over half a degree an hour. A nakshatra is 13 degrees 20 minutes wide, so a few hours can put the Moon in a different nakshatra, and that changes several koota scores. This guide lists the places to look, in order of reliability.
Sources, most reliable first
- Hospital or nursing home record. Discharge summaries and birth registers often note the time to the minute. If you were born in a hospital, call its records office. Many keep registers for decades.
- Municipal birth certificate. Certificates from a municipal corporation or panchayat usually print the time, but not always. Older ones often leave it out. If yours has it, it is almost always recorded by the hospital, so it is as reliable as the hospital record.
- Mother or another person who was there. Parents often remember details such as "just after lunch" or "early morning, before the milk arrived." Ask for an anchor, such as a TV program, a temple bell or a meal. Mothers' memories are often more exact than people expect, and an anchor helps.
- Old family documents. A horoscope drawn at birth, a naming ceremony card, a diary entry or a letter announcing the birth. A horoscope written at the time is a good source, though read the time carefully, since some record it in local time and others in other conventions.
- A family pandit's records. Many families have a pandit who drew a janam patri at the time of birth. The record may be in a family chest, or with the pandit's descendants.
- Rectification by an astrologer. This works backward from major life events to estimate a time. It is the least reliable of the six, since it depends on the astrologer's judgement, and we do not offer it.
Write down what you find
Record the time as printed, along with which source gave it. If two sources disagree by more than a few minutes, trust the written record over memory. If you only have a window, such as "between 6 and 8 in the morning," note both ends.
Check the clock convention
- Use the 12-hour or 24-hour time exactly as written, and be careful with AM and PM. A wrong half of the day moves the Moon by about 6 degrees, and a time given as "12 at night" is the start of the next date for matching purposes.
- Indian Standard Time is used for all places in India. We do not apply daylight saving, since India has none.
- If the birth was outside India, enter the local time and the place. Our place search covers Indian cities at launch.
If you only have an approximate time
Enter your best estimate and read the result with care. A nearby nakshatra boundary is what you should worry about. If the Moon is mid-way through its nakshatra at your estimated time, an error of an hour or two will not change the result. If it is near the edge, the result could move.
If you have no time at all
You can still match. Matching without a birth time computes the Moon at the start and the end of the birth date. If the nakshatra and pada are the same at both ends, every koota score is certain for any time that day. If they differ, it shows each possible Moon position, with each koota marked as certain or could change, along with its range.
Two things cannot be computed without a time: the ascendant, and the Manglik check, which depends on it. The result says "needs birth time" for these, rather than guessing.
You can also use matching by name, which gives an approximate answer from the first syllable of each name. It is marked as approximate, and it has no Manglik check.
What not to do
- Do not pick a round number, such as noon, to fill the field. If the time is unknown, say so in the form with the "Not sure?" option, so the result flags what could change.
- Do not pay for a time you cannot verify. Rectification is a judgement call, and a confident number is not the same as a correct one.
- Do not argue the point with family over minutes. If the written record is close to the remembered time, use the record.
Next
Once you have a time, run the match and read the koota list. If you want to see how the score is built, how kundli matching works walks through it, and the eight kootas explained covers each one. Birth details are never kept on our servers.