KP Astrology (KP占星（分部主星）)

Krishnamurti Paddhati — the Sub-Lord That Decides

Overview

KP astrology — Krishnamurti Paddhati — is the 20th-century system that made Vedic prediction sharp and repeatable. Its founder, Prof. K. S. Krishnamurti, kept the sidereal zodiac and the nakshatras but added one decisive refinement: he split each 13°20′ nakshatra into nine unequal 'subs', sized by the same Vimshottari-dasha proportions that govern the great time-cycles. That gives every point in the sky FOUR lords instead of two — the sign lord, the star (nakshatra) lord, the sub-lord, and the sub-sub lord — and KP's whole method rests on the claim that the SUB-LORD is the final arbiter: it decides whether a promise the chart makes will actually deliver. askTIAN computes your nine grahas (the seven classical planets plus Rahu and Ketu) in KP-sidereal longitude, gives each its full four-lord signature, and — when you supply a birth time and place — the Ascendant's sub-lord too, the single most important placement in a KP reading.

Origin & history

K. S. Krishnamurti (1908–1972) published Krishnamurti Paddhati across six 'readers' from the 1960s, drawing on nakshatra astrology, the Vimshottari dasha, and the Placidus house system he borrowed from Western practice. The system spread rapidly through South India and then worldwide because it promised what classical Jyotish often left vague — a yes/no, this-house-not-that answer keyed to a single factor, the sub-lord. KP also carries its own ayanamsa (the sidereal–tropical offset), the 'KP ayanamsa', close to but distinct from the standard Lahiri value.

askTIAN implements the deterministic spine of KP faithfully and is candid about its edges. The 249-division sub-lord table — 27 nakshatras × 9 subs, plus the six subs that straddle a nakshatra boundary — is exact: each sub's width is (that lord's Vimshottari years ÷ 120) × 13°20′, the sub sequence starts from the nakshatra's own lord and runs in Vimshottari order, and the same proportioning nested one level deeper gives the sub-sub lord. It is gold-locked in the test suite (0°00′ Aries = Ashwini, Ketu star / Ketu sub; the first Ketu sub spans exactly 46′40″). The engine uses the KP-Old ayanamsa (22°21′50″ at 1900, precessing ~50.24″/yr, about six arc-minutes less than Lahiri), and says plainly that the 'KP New' variant differs from Lahiri by roughly 22′ — and that a shift of even six arc-minutes can move a planet across a sub boundary, so KP charts built on different ayanamsas can legitimately disagree on a sub-lord. Planet longitudes come from the same Meeus ephemeris that powers askTIAN's other sidereal work; Ketu is exactly opposite Rahu.

How it works

From birth date (and, for the Ascendant, time and place) the engine converts each body's tropical longitude to KP-sidereal by subtracting the KP-Old ayanamsa, then runs the pure 249-division lookup to assign its sign, star, sub and sub-sub lords. The Ascendant is computed from the local sidereal time and latitude and read the same way. The result is the KP 'planetary significator' foundation — every graha's four-lord chain — surfaced structurally so a consumer can render the sub-lords directly, plus a best-effort LLM reading in fixed parsable sections. With a birth time and place it also computes the Placidus house cusps (the semi-arc method, gold-locked to a published chart to under two arc-minutes), each cusp's CUSPAL sub-lord, the KP 4-level house significators (planets in the star of occupants, occupants, planets in the star of the owner, the owner) and the cuspal-sub-lord promised/denied judgment across the standard KP house-groups — the 11th/10th/6th/2nd for career, the 7th for marriage, the 5th for children, and so on. The full ruling-planet event-timing method remains a further interpretive layer.

Good for

Use cases

Sub-Lord Signatures

Send birth data and receive all nine grahas with their sign, star, sub and sub-sub lords — the raw material of any KP reading — plus the Ascendant sub-lord when time and place are supplied.

Ascendant Sub-Lord Focus

The Lagna sub-lord is the single most-weighted placement in KP; surface it and its star lord to anchor a personality and life-direction read.

Ayanamsa Cross-Check

Because KP-Old sits ~6′ from Lahiri, compare a planet's sub-lord here against a Lahiri chart to see whether it sits near a sub boundary — exactly where KP practitioners debate.

249-Division Lookup

Resolve any longitude to its four lords for study, chart software, or a KP learning tool.

Key terms

Sub-lord (उपस्वामी)
The lord of the Vimshottari-proportioned sub within a nakshatra that contains a given point. In KP it is the deciding factor — whether a promised result materialises turns on the sub-lord, not the sign.
The 249 divisions
27 nakshatras × 9 subs = 243 subs, plus the 6 subs that cross a nakshatra boundary = 249 distinct sub spans across the zodiac, each with a fixed lord.
Four lords
Every zodiac point carries a sign lord, a star (nakshatra) lord, a sub-lord and a sub-sub lord — successively finer divisions, the sub and sub-sub both sized by Vimshottari proportions.
KP ayanamsa
KP's own sidereal–tropical offset. 'KP-Old' ≈ 22°21′50″ at 1900 (~6′ under Lahiri); 'KP New' differs from Lahiri by ~22′. Even a few arc-minutes can change a sub-lord.
Vimshottari proportions
The dasha year-lengths (Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17 = 120) that size both the sub and sub-sub divisions.
Lagna sub-lord
The sub-lord of the Ascendant — the most weighted single placement in a KP chart; needs an accurate birth time and place.
Cuspal sub-lord
The sub-lord of a house cusp (KP uses Placidus houses); the basis of KP's question-specific judgment — the 11th/10th for career, the 7th for marriage. Computed here from the gold-locked Placidus cusps, weighed against the house's 4-level significators.

API

The askTIAN KP endpoint computes Krishnamurti Paddhati's sub-lord signatures from birth data: the nine grahas (seven planets + Rahu/Ketu) in KP-Old sidereal longitude, each with its full sign / star / sub / sub-sub lord chain, plus the Ascendant's sub-lord when a birth time and place are given. The 249-division sub-lord math is exact and gold-locked (each sub sized by Vimshottari proportions, the sequence starting from the nakshatra lord); the ayanamsa is named explicitly (KP-Old, ~6′ under Lahiri) with an honest note that the KP-New variant differs by ~22′ and that a few arc-minutes can flip a sub-lord. Planet longitudes share askTIAN's verified Meeus ephemeris; Ketu is exactly opposite Rahu. With a birth time and place it also returns the Placidus house cusps (semi-arc method, gold-locked to a published chart to under two arc-minutes, with a Porphyry fallback inside the polar circle), each cusp's cuspal sub-lord, the KP 4-level house significators and the cuspal-sub-lord promised/denied judgment across the standard KP house-groups (career, marriage, wealth, children, education, health, travel, litigation, longevity); full nodal agency and the ruling-planet event-timing method remain interpretive. A best-effort LLM reading is returned in parsable sections; set interpretation:false for structured data only. Symbolic Vedic-heritage analysis for reflection — not a validated predictor, and not medical, legal or financial advice.

Endpoint: POST /trpc/kp.chart — 7 TIAN Points. See the API documentation and Playground.