D24 Chart (Chaturvimshamsa, Siddhamsa): Meaning, 24 Parts

D24 Chart Name and Meaning (चतुर्विंशांश, सिद्धांश)

Chaturvimshamsha is Sanskrit for “the twenty-fourth part”: chatur-vimshati is twenty-four and amsha is a share. The same chart also goes by the name Siddhamsa, and in Hindi it is written चतुर्विंशांश or सिद्धांश. It is the D24 of the sixteen divisional charts. Each 30° sign is cut into 24 equal parts of 1°15′, and each part is given a sign; a graha’s D24 sign is the sign of the part its degree falls in. In the Parashari list of the sixteen vargas the D24 is the chart consulted for learning (vidya). Where it sits among the other fifteen is set out on the divisional charts (shodashvarga) guide.

The Count Starts From the Two Hora Signs

The first part of an odd sign is Leo, and the first part of an even sign is Cancer; after that the parts advance one sign at a time. Those are the only two signs the Parashari hora uses. In the D2 hora chart the first half of an odd sign goes to Leo, the sign of the Sun, and the first half of an even sign to Cancer, the sign of the Moon. So the D24 opens every sign from its own first hora and then keeps counting. The odd signs are the six masculine ones, Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius and Aquarius; the even signs are Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn and Pisces.

Twelve Signs, Only Two Rows

Because the starting sign depends only on whether a sign is odd or even, and not on which sign it is, all six odd signs have the identical sequence of 24 parts, and all six even signs share another. Only seven of the sixteen charts give every sign a row of its own, and the D24 is one of four, the D2, D24, D30 and D40, that come down to just two. A graha at 10° of Aries and one at 10° of Aquarius fall in the same D24 sign, and so do one at 10° of Taurus and one at 10° of Capricorn. Rather than print twelve rows of which ten repeat, the table below gives the two.

Read across any line and the even column is one sign behind the odd column: where an odd sign gives Leo, an even sign gives Cancer; where an odd sign gives Capricorn, an even sign gives Sagittarius. That single step is the whole difference between the two rows.

Each Row Goes Round the Zodiac Twice

Advancing one sign per part, the 24 parts cover the twelve signs twice over, so every sign appears exactly twice in each row, twelve parts (15°) apart. One consequence is that every sign meets its own name twice: there are two 1°15′ arcs in each sign where a graha’s D24 sign is the same as its rashi sign. These are the D24 counterpart of the vargottama arcs of the navamsa, and there are twice as many of them per sign, each a little over a third as wide.

The arcs come in matched pairs. Each even sign shares its two arcs with the odd sign that follows it: Taurus and Gemini, Cancer and Leo, Virgo and Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius, Pisces and Aries. The even row is one sign behind and the next sign is one sign ahead, so the two offsets cancel. Cancer and Leo are the only signs that meet themselves in the opening 1°15′, because their rows start from them.

Finding a D24 Sign From a Degree

Divide the degree within the sign by 1.25 and drop the fraction; that is the number of parts already passed. Then count that many signs forward from Leo for an odd sign or from Cancer for an even one.

• 18°40′ of Libra (odd): 18.67 ÷ 1.25 = 14.93, so 14 parts are passed and the degree sits in the 15th. 14 signs on from Leo is Libra: the sign itself, because the degree lies in one of Libra’s own-sign arcs.
• 7°00′ of Taurus (even): 7.00 ÷ 1.25 = 5.60, so 5 parts are passed and the degree sits in the 6th. 5 signs on from Cancer is Sagittarius.

The same procedure gives the D24 lagna, from the degree of the ascendant. A 1°15′ part is narrow. The lagna crosses the whole zodiac once a day; if it took the same time over every degree, it would spend 5 minutes in each D24 part on average. Some signs rise faster than others and the spread depends on the place of birth, so a real part can be shorter or longer than that average. On that average, a birth time noted only to the nearest quarter hour leaves room for more than one D24 lagna. The difference between rashi and lagna page sets the ascendant beside the Moon sign.

How the Parashari List Uses It

The Parashari scheme assigns each of its sixteen charts one area of life, and for the chaturvimshamsha that area is learning (vidya). In Parashari practice the D24 is read alongside the birth chart, not in place of it, much as the navamsa (D9) is read alongside it for the matters assigned to the D9. The scheme on this page is the Parashari one only; other ways of dividing a sign into 24 exist and are not described here.

What This Page Does Not Do

It does not say what a D24 sign, a D24 lagna or a graha in its own D24 sign means for anyone’s studies, examinations, subjects or qualifications, and it gives no strength score for the chart. A tradition’s area of life for a varga is a heading for where to look, not a forecast, and a single divisional chart read alone carries none of the context the rest of the chart supplies. To see your own D24 placements, a free kundli gives the degree of the lagna and the Kundli report the degree of each graha; the tables above turn each degree into its D24 sign.