For casting a horoscope the year, month, day, time and place of birth of a person are required. If these are available, then the astrologer takes out the Panchanga (ephemeris) of the concerned year and takes out the page of month and proceeds to record the planetary position and other details on the chart

The Hindu Ephemeris is called Panchanga because it has five most important factors known as Tithi, Vara, Nakshatra, Yoga and Karana, are recorded for each day of the year in tabulated form.

Tithi is the lunar day of the month. The bright and dark fort nights of a month have 14 tithi’s commencing from the 1st day after a full moon or new moon.

Vara is the week day which are named after the 7 planets viz Ravi (Sun) Soma (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury) Guru (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus) Shani (Saturn). Each day is of a particular significance related to certain activities of life.

Budha, Guru and Shukra are good for all auspicious functions, purchase of cloth, jewelry, signing agreements, joining a new job or post etc. Ravi is good for governmental work, Soma is good for medicines and medical work, Mangal is good for cutting redesigning changing etc (surgical operations are invariably fixed on Tuesdays) and Shanivara (Saturday) is good for all labor related work.

Nakshatra: - This means the star part at the time of Birth. Vedic astrology recognizes 27 star