Chinese Astrology vs Vedic Astrology: Two Eastern Systems

Is Chinese astrology the same as Vedic astrology?

No. Chinese astrology and Vedic astrology (also called Jyotish) are the two main traditions people group under the name Eastern astrology, but they are separate systems with different calendars, zodiacs and methods. Chinese astrology reads your birth year, month, day and hour through a cycle of twelve animals and five elements, while Vedic astrology maps the sun, moon and planets against the stars and gives the moon a central role.

Both are forms of fortune telling, and neither has been proven to predict events. On this site we read Chinese astrology as a map of tendencies and timing, not fixed fate.

What people mean by Eastern astrology

Eastern astrology is a loose English label for astrology that grew up in Asia. Two families cover most of it.

• The Chinese family. China's animals and elements spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam with small changes. Vietnam, for example, has a cat where China has a rabbit.
• The Indian family. Vedic astrology, or Jyotish, is practiced in India and Nepal and by Hindu communities worldwide. It uses the twelve signs of Western astrology but measures them differently.

Tibetan astrology draws on both, pairing calculations from India with animals and elements from China. So when someone says Eastern astrology, ask which one they mean. The answer changes how the whole reading works.

Where each one comes from

Vedic astrology. Jyotish comes from a Sanskrit word for light. Its oldest root is a calendar text for timing rituals by the sun and moon. Historians trace its birth chart methods to contact with Greek astrology in the early centuries CE, and one of the oldest surviving Sanskrit manuals on the subject is the Yavanajataka, whose title means the birth horoscope according to the Greeks. Many practitioners see the tradition as older than any written record.

Chinese astrology. Its building blocks, the ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, were already numbering days on Shang dynasty oracle bones more than 3,000 years ago. The animals were paired with the branches at least two thousand years ago. The chart most people now mean by Chinese astrology, four pillars read from the day of birth, is usually credited to the scholar Xu Ziping, who lived around the tenth century.

The two did meet. Buddhist monks brought Indian astrology to Tang dynasty China, and in 759 the monk Amoghavajra compiled a Chinese handbook of it. Rahu and Ketu, two points used in Vedic charts, entered Chinese as Luohou and Jidu. The Four Pillars method still grew from China's own calendar.

Which zodiac each one uses

Vedic: the twelve signs, measured against the stars

Vedic astrology uses the same twelve signs as Western astrology (rashis, in Sanskrit) but pins them to the stars. This is the sidereal zodiac. Most American horoscopes use the tropical zodiac, which starts Aries at the March equinox and stays tied to the seasons. Because the earth wobbles slowly on its axis, the two drift apart. The gap, called the ayanamsa, is about 24 degrees today.

So the sun enters each Vedic sign around the middle of the month, roughly the 13th to the 17th, and most people's Vedic sun sign is the sign before their Western one. Someone born on April 5 is an Aries in the West and a Pisces in Vedic astrology. If you were born in the last six days or so of your Western sign, you likely have the same sign in both.

Chinese: twelve animals that label time

In Chinese astrology the animals belong to the calendar. They name the twelve earthly branches, a counting cycle that labels years, months, days and two hour blocks of the day. Public calendars change the year animal at Chinese New Year, while birth charts start the year at the Start of Spring, about February 4. The Chinese zodiac sign calculator handles that boundary for you.

The month animal changes at every other one of the 24 solar terms, points on the sun's yearly path spaced 15 degrees apart. Their positions are measured from the spring equinox, the same starting point as the Western zodiac, so the Chinese solar calendar sits closer to the tropical zodiac of the West than to the sidereal zodiac of its neighbor India.

The moon: 27 nakshatras and 28 xiu

Both traditions split the sky into lunar mansions, stretches of sky the moon passes through, about one for each night of its monthly circuit. They use them very differently.

Nakshatras in Vedic astrology. Vedic astrology gives the moon more weight than Western astrology does. In everyday talk in India, your rashi usually means your moon sign. The zodiac is split into 27 nakshatras, equal slices of 13 degrees 20 minutes, each with four quarters called padas. The moon spends about a day in each. The one it sat in at your birth, your birth star, sets where your dasha timing begins, is used to match couples, and in many families suggests the first sound of a baby's name. Some older lists add a 28th, called Abhijit.

Xiu in Chinese astronomy. China has 28 lunar mansions, called xiu, of uneven width, from a degree or two to more than 30. They form four groups of seven, one for each direction, guarded by the Azure Dragon, the Black Tortoise, the White Tiger and the Vermilion Bird (these four are separate from the zodiac animals). Today they appear mostly in the traditional almanac, where each day is assigned a mansion to help people choose dates.

The Four Pillars chart does not track the moon at all. It is built from the calendar and the sun. Scholars still debate whether the nakshatras and the xiu share a common source.

What goes into each chart

A Vedic chart, often called a kundli, places nine grahas, the Sanskrit term for the bodies it reads, in twelve signs and twelve houses. They are the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, plus Rahu and Ketu, the two points where the moon's path crosses the sun's. The houses count from the lagna, or ascendant, the sign rising in the east at your birth, so a Vedic chart needs an accurate birth time and place.

A Chinese chart, called the Energy Chart on this site and BaZi or Four Pillars elsewhere, has four columns: year, month, day and hour. Each column is a heavenly stem over an earthly branch (an animal), eight characters in all, and each character carries one of the five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water. The stem of your birth day gives your core element, the point the rest of the chart is read around. Only the hour pillar needs a birth time. No planets appear, though in Chinese the five visible planets are named for the elements, so Jupiter is the Wood Star and Venus the Metal Star.

Timing: dashas and ten year chapters

Vimshottari dasha. The best known Vedic timing method is a 120 year cycle of nine planetary periods, called mahadashas, in a fixed order: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17. Your birth star decides which period you start in and how much of it was left at birth. Each period splits into subperiods, which astrologers read alongside transits, the current positions of the planets.

Ten year chapters. A Chinese chart lays out a life in chapters of ten years, often called luck pillars, each bringing a new stem and branch that is read against your chart. The first one begins at an age worked out from your birth date, somewhere between birth and about age ten. Each year and month also has its own pillar. Your animal year, the ben ming nian, returns every 12 years, and the same full year sign returns every 60, such as the Fire Horse of 1966 and 2026 (the element in a year name comes from that year's stem).

So the Vedic periods run from 6 to 20 years and are set by the moon, while the Chinese chapters are all ten years long and follow the solar calendar.

Compatibility: Guna Milan and animal ties

Guna Milan. In India, matching two charts before a marriage is a common custom. The best known method, Guna Milan or Ashtakoota (eight parts), compares the moon nakshatras and moon signs of two people across eight factors worth 1 to 8 points each, 36 in total, covering things like temperament and attraction. By tradition, 18 points is the usual minimum, though many astrologers look at both full charts as well.

Animal ties. Chinese compatibility starts from the animals and the classical ties between them:

• Six harmony pairs: Rat and Ox, Tiger and Pig, Rabbit and Dog, Dragon and Rooster, Snake and Monkey, Horse and Goat.
• Four trines, groups of three said to work well together: Rat, Dragon and Monkey; Ox, Snake and Rooster; Tiger, Horse and Dog; Rabbit, Goat and Pig.
• Six clashes, between animals opposite each other on the circle: Rat and Horse, Ox and Goat, Tiger and Monkey, Rabbit and Rooster, Dragon and Dog, Snake and Pig.
• Harms, punishments and breaks, finer ties that classical texts list as well.

A fuller reading compares all four pillars and the two core elements, not just the year animals. Our compatibility pages score the harmony pairs, trines, clashes and harms between any two animals.

Chinese vs Vedic astrology side by side

• Zodiac: Chinese astrology: 12 animals that label years, months, days and hours. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): 12 signs fixed to the stars (sidereal).
• Planets read: Chinese astrology: None in a Four Pillars chart. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): nine (sun, moon, five planets, Rahu and Ketu).
• The moon: Chinese astrology: Not used in Four Pillars. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): central (moon sign and birth star).
• Lunar mansions: Chinese astrology: 28 xiu of uneven width, used mostly for choosing days. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): 27 nakshatras of 13 degrees 20 minutes each.
• Heart of the reading: Chinese astrology: Your core element, from the day stem. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): The moon, the ascendant and the houses.
• Birth time needed for: Chinese astrology: The hour pillar. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): The ascendant and houses.
• Timing: Chinese astrology: Ten year chapters, plus year and month pillars. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): Vimshottari dashas over 120 years, plus transits.
• Compatibility: Chinese astrology: Animal ties and elements. Vedic astrology (Jyotish): Guna Milan, 36 points from the moon signs and nakshatras.

Can you use both?

Yes, if you keep them apart. The names overlap in confusing ways: a Vedic Pisces may be a Western Aries, and neither sign says anything about your Chinese animal. A Vedic reading needs your birth time and place. A Chinese chart needs your birth date, plus the hour if you know it.

People who use both treat them as two separate questions about the same birthday. For how Chinese astrology lines up with the Western kind, see our complete comparison of Chinese and Western astrology.