KP Cusp Chart — House Cusps & Cuspal Sub Lords Online
All 12 Placidus cusps with sign, sign lord, star lord, and the cuspal sub lord — the value KP verdicts hang on. Free, no signup.
What Is a KP Cusp Chart?
A cusp chart is the half of the KP birth chart most calculators bury: the exact degrees where the 12 houses begin, and the full KP rulership chain — sign lord, star lord, sub lord — computed at each of those degrees. In Western practice a cusp is a boundary line and little more. In Krishnamurti Paddhati the cusp is the house: the degree on the cusp, read through the 249 sub-divisions, determines what the house will and will not deliver.
That is why KP astrologers routinely work from a cusp table before they even glance at the planets. The planets show what is on offer; the cusps show what the chart has authorised. This calculator computes your 12 Placidus cusps from date, time, and place, using KP New ayanamsa — the same engine and settings behind our full birth chart tool, isolated to the layer that decides verdicts.
Placidus Cusps in KP
KP mandates Placidus houses. Placidus divides the sky by the actual time it takes a degree to rise and culminate at your birth latitude, so each cusp lands at its own irregular, birth-specific degree — 23°47' Taurus on the 2nd, 19°12' Gemini on the 3rd, and so on. Two consequences follow:
- Houses are unequal. Near the equator they are close to 30° each; at higher latitudes some houses stretch past 40° while others compress. Planets shift houses relative to a whole-sign chart — a planet "in the 10th" by sign counting is often a 9th or 11th house planet by cusp.
- Every cusp gets a unique sub lord. Because the cusp degrees are irregular, each one falls in its own KP sub-division. Equal-house systems, with cusps at fixed 30° offsets, would give structurally repetitive sub lords and erase the very signal KP reads.
The cusp table this tool produces is therefore latitude-sensitive and minute-sensitive: the same date and time in Chennai and in London yield visibly different cusp charts.
The Cuspal Sub Lord — KP's Deciding Factor
Every degree of the zodiac sits inside one of 249 sub-divisions, each ruled by a planet. The ruler of the sub-division a cusp falls in is that house's cuspal sub lord (CSL) — and in KP doctrine the CSL is the single deciding factor for the house's affairs. The rule that runs this entire site's verdict engine is simple to state:
- Promise: a house's matters are promised only if its cuspal sub lord signifies houses favourable to that matter (for the 7th: houses 2, 7, or 11).
- Denial: if the CSL signifies only the negating houses (for marriage: 1, 6, 10), the matter is denied or damaged, whatever the planets otherwise suggest.
- Timing: once promised, the event fires in the joint period of dasha lords that signify the same house group.
This is the KP hierarchy in one line: planets propose, the cuspal sub lord disposes, the dasha delivers. A chart can have a magnificent 7th house full of benefics, but if the 7th CSL routes to 1-6-10, KP reads denial — and this is precisely where KP predictions diverge from sign-based readings. The sub lord column in the table below is deliberately bolded: it is the column professionals read first.
What Each Cusp Governs
Read your cusp table against the standard KP house portfolio:
| Cusp | Governs | CSL verdict decides |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (Lagna) | self, body, temperament | vitality, direction of life |
| 2 | wealth, family, speech | accumulation of money |
| 3 | courage, siblings, short journeys | initiative, writing, moves |
| 4 | home, mother, property, vehicles | property purchase, domestic peace |
| 5 | children, romance, speculation | childbirth, love affairs |
| 6 | disease, debt, service, disputes | illness, employment, litigation |
| 7 | marriage, partnership, open rivals | marriage promise & quality |
| 8 | longevity, obstacles, inheritance | crises, legacies, insurance |
| 9 | fortune, higher learning, long journeys | luck, higher education, father |
| 10 (MC) | career & status | profession, honours, authority |
| 11 | gains, friendships, fulfilment of desires | whether desires materialise |
| 12 | loss, expenses, foreign residence | emigration, hospitals, seclusion |
A Worked Example: Reading the 7th Cusp
Suppose your table shows the 7th cusp at 14°22' Scorpio, star lord Saturn, sub lord Venus. The reading proceeds in three passes:
- Identify the CSL. Venus is the 7th cuspal sub lord — Venus, not Mars (the sign lord), holds the marriage verdict.
- Check what Venus signifies. Run the significators calculator. If Venus signifies 2, 7, and 11 — say it occupies the 11th in the star of a 2nd-house occupant — marriage is clearly promised. If instead Venus routes to 1, 6, and 10, KP reads denial or chronic discord despite an otherwise "good" 7th house.
- Time it. With the promise established, marriage fires in the joint dasha of 2-7-11 significators — check your sequence in the dasha calculator.
Substitute the 10th cusp and the 2-6-10-11 group and the identical procedure answers career questions; the 5th cusp and 2-5-11 answers children. One method, twelve doors.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a cuspal sub lord and why is it KP's deciding factor?
Each house cusp falls at an exact degree, and that degree sits inside one of the 249 KP sub-divisions. The ruler of that sub-division is the cuspal sub lord (CSL). In KP doctrine the CSL holds the verdict for the house: if the 7th CSL signifies houses 2, 7, or 11, marriage is promised; if it signifies only 1, 6, or 10, it is denied. Planets propose — the cuspal sub lord disposes.
Why does KP use Placidus house cusps instead of equal or whole-sign houses?
Krishnamurti adopted Placidus because it divides the houses by actual diurnal motion at the birth latitude, giving each cusp a unique, time-sensitive degree. Whole-sign and equal-house systems produce cusps at fixed offsets, which would make every cusp share the same sub lord pattern and destroy the precision the 249 sub-divisions provide. The KP cusp chart is meaningless without Placidus.
How accurate does my birth time need to be for a cusp chart?
More accurate than for any other chart. Cusps move about 1° every 4 minutes, and a KP sub-division can be as narrow as 40 arc-minutes — so an error of a few minutes can change a cuspal sub lord outright, flipping a house verdict. If your recorded time is rounded to the nearest 15 or 30 minutes, treat borderline cusp sub lords with caution or consider birth-time rectification.
How do I read the 7th cusp for marriage in this chart?
Find row 7 in the cusp table and note its Sub Lord. Then check which houses that planet signifies (use the significators calculator). Signifying 2, 7, or 11 promises marriage; 2-7-11 together strongly so. Signifying 1, 6, or 10 — the negation group — indicates denial or separation tendencies. The same template works for any house: 10th CSL for career, 5th for children, 12th for foreign residence.
Part of the Free KP Chart Toolkit
This cusp chart is one layer of the free KP chart toolkit built around the birth chart. Each tool exposes a different slice of the same engine:
- Free KP Birth Chart — the hub: full chart with planet sub-lords, Placidus cusps, and current dasha.
- KP Significators Calculator — what each cuspal sub lord actually signifies, planet-wise and house-wise.
- Vimshottari Dasha Calculator — when the promises in your cusps fire.
- Sub-Lord Finder — manual longitude → sign/star/sub-lord lookup across the 249 divisions.
Want Every Cusp Verdict Read for You?
The table shows your cuspal sub lords. The Natal Promise Deep Dive reads all 12 of them through the full verdict engine — what each house promises, denies, and when it delivers. Or get one specific question answered from ₹99 with Ask a Question.