---
type: Concept
bundle: jyotisha-kala
bundle_version: 0.12.0
id: jataka
title: Jātaka
iast: Jātaka
devanagari: जातक
description: 'Natal horoscopy: the horā genre that reads the chart cast for a birth moment, lagna, bhāvas, graha placements, daśās; NOT the Buddhist Jātaka tales, NOT a personality quiz, NOT an endorsed predictive method.'
darshana:
- Jyotiṣa
text_source: Bṛhat Jātaka 1
reception_note: 'Natal-chart services are the retail core of commercial astrology. This file documents the genre and its vocabulary; it does not endorse natal prediction or compatibility scoring.'
tags:
- jataka
- natal
- hora
- chart
- jyotisha
not:
- term: 'the Buddhist Jataka tales'
  why: 'Same word, unrelated genre: the Buddhist Jātakas are birth-stories of the Buddha’s prior lives; the horā jātaka is the natal-chart discipline (jāta, born). A library that shelves them together has been misled by a homonym.'
  instead: 'Render the horā jātaka as natal horoscopy and keep the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'a personality quiz'
  why: 'A jātaka reading is a rule-system over computed positions, whatever one thinks of its claims; the sun-sign personality quiz is its thinnest commercial residue. Equating them misdescribes both.'
- term: 'an endorsed predictive method'
  why: 'The corpus documents the genre’s structure and terms. It does not adjudicate whether natal configurations predict lives.'
related:
- /concepts/hora.md
- /concepts/lagna.md
- /concepts/bhava-jyotisha.md
- /concepts/dasha.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Jātaka -- जातक

**Not:** the Buddhist Jataka tales, a personality quiz, an endorsed predictive method

## What It Actually Means

Jātaka, from jāta (born), names natal horoscopy: the branch of horā that casts a chart for the moment and place of birth and reads it, lagna and bhāvas, graha placements and their configurations, and the daśā periods unfolding from the natal Moon. Varāhamihira’s Bṛhat Jātaka is the genre’s classical Indian monument, and its opening acknowledges the computational (gaṇita) base the chart is cast from. The layers are worth keeping distinct: what the chart records is astronomy, positions at a timestamp; what the reading asserts is the school’s interpretive system. This bundle supplies the vocabulary for both layers and endorses the predictive claims of neither.

## Audience Metaphor

A photograph of the sky at first breath, then developed into a reading. The genre shares a name with the Buddha’s birth-stories and nothing else. The photograph’s content, positions at a timestamp, is astronomy; what the developer prints from it is the school’s claim, and this corpus documents without endorsing it.

## Citations

1. Bṛhat Jātaka 1 on the scope of natal horoscopy -- see [references/brihat-jataka.md](../references/brihat-jataka.md)
2. Muhūrta Cintāmaṇi as the electional counterpart of the natal genre -- see [references/muhurta-chintamani.md](../references/muhurta-chintamani.md)
