What is openjyotish?

OpenJyotish is a free and open source toolkit for Vedic astrology, the traditional Indian system for interpreting birth charts. It offers three separate ways to use it: a command line interface with dozens of commands, a desktop graphical application built with PyQt6, and a text based terminal interface for those who prefer working without a mouse. All three read the same underlying calculation engine, so a chart worked out in one interface matches the others. Feed it a birth date, time, and location, and it can produce a full astrological chart along with many kinds of traditional Vedic calculations: planetary strengths, dozens of divisional charts, several different dasa systems that describe planetary time periods, hundreds of recognized planetary combinations called yogas, matchmaking compatibility scores between two people's charts, and tools for choosing auspicious timing for events. A single command can also dump every calculation as one large JSON file, meant to be easy for other programs or AI agents to read and process. The project also includes AI powered chart readings, but notably these run through a locally installed language model such as Ollama, rather than sending anyone's birth data to an outside service. There is also a teaching mode meant to help someone learn how to interpret Vedic astrology concepts, backed by a search tool over a collection of Vedic astrology textbooks bundled with the project. Installing it on Windows can be done with a ready made download that needs no separate Python installation. On Linux, Mac, or Windows with Python already installed, a short install script sets everything up, including downloading the small ephemeris files needed for planetary position calculations. The underlying calculation code traces back to an existing open source Vedic astrology library, and the software itself is released under the GNU General Public License version 3, meaning changes to the code must stay open, including when the software is run as a network service.