Date of birth
The easy one — most people have this exactly.
Time of birth
As precise as possible; even a rough estimate is workable.
Place of birth
Town or city is enough — this fixes your chart's local coordinates.
Why Time Matters So Much
Your date of birth tells us which planets were roughly where. Your exact time of birth is what determines the ascendant — the specific degree of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon at the moment you were born — and that single detail reshapes which house every planet falls into. A chart built on a birth time that's off by even twenty or thirty minutes can shift the ascendant into a different sign entirely. This is standard in Vedic astrological method, not something specific to one astrologer's approach.
If You Don't Have an Exact Time
This happens more often than you'd think, especially for anyone born a generation or two back, when hospital paperwork wasn't always precise. It isn't a dead end — a rough window (morning, afternoon, a specific hour) combined with a few major life events can often be used to narrow down the true time through rectification. See the note on Kundli correction for how that process works.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a Question About This?
Get a personal, chart-specific answer from Prof. Subhas Sastri.
Written by Prof. Subhas Sastri
Astrologer & palmist, Bankura — Jyotish Padma Bhusan Award (2016)