What an ayanamsa is doing
The tropical zodiac is measured from the equinox; the sidereal zodiac is measured against the fixed stars. The two have drifted apart by roughly 24 degrees, and the ayanamsa is that gap. Every sidereal system has to choose a value for it, and the choice is not observational so much as conventional - which star, at which epoch, is taken as the anchor.
Why KP does not use Lahiri
Most Indian practice uses Lahiri (Chitrapaksha). Krishnamurti adopted a slightly different value, commonly called KP-Newcomb, differing from Lahiri by a few arc-minutes. On a whole-sign chart a few arc-minutes almost never matter. On a KP chart they can: sub-divisions are narrow, and a cusp sitting near a sub boundary will change sub-lord - and therefore change the verdict - between the two ayanamsas.
The practical consequence
A KP chart and a standard Vedic chart of the same birth can disagree about which house a planet occupies, and two KP charts on different ayanamsas can disagree about a cuspal sub-lord. Neither is a bug. It is why a KP reading should state the ayanamsa it used, and why comparing a KP verdict against a Lahiri chart is comparing two systems rather than checking one.
What our calculator shows
The KP chart calculator uses KP-Newcomb, as the system specifies, and says so on the output - so you can tell at a glance why it differs from a Lahiri chart of the same birth.
Frequently asked
- How big is the difference between KP and Lahiri ayanamsa?
- A few arc-minutes. That is invisible on a whole-sign chart and can be decisive on a KP one, because a cusp near a sub-division boundary changes sub-lord when the offset shifts.
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