What is a Whole Sign (Rashi) chart?
Whole Sign is the oldest documented house system and the one most Vedic astrologers reach for by default. It answers the house question as simply as possible: whichever sign the Ascendant falls in becomes the entirety of house one, the next sign in zodiac order becomes house two, and so on around the wheel until all twelve signs have been assigned exactly one house each.
There is no further division inside a house and no separate cusp math to run — a planet's house is read directly from its sign relative to the Ascendant's sign. That directness is why the system is also called Rashi in Vedic literature: rashi is simply the Sanskrit word for a zodiac sign, and here a house and a sign are treated as one and the same.
How houses are counted from the Ascendant
Say your Ascendant falls anywhere in Leo — five degrees in or twenty-eight, it makes no difference. All of Leo becomes house one. Virgo, the next sign zodiacally, becomes house two in full, then Libra becomes house three, and the pattern continues until Cancer closes the circle as house twelve. Every planet's house then follows automatically from its own sign.
This is what distinguishes Whole Sign from cusp-based systems like the Vedic refinement Sripati Bhava Chalit or the KP cuspal scheme, both of which divide the circle unevenly using the birth time and latitude rather than sign boundaries. Whole Sign trades that finer resolution for a rule simple enough to apply by eye.
Why it remains the classical default
Whole Sign's appeal is durability rather than novelty — it was in use well before more mathematically elaborate systems existed, and it survives because sign-based houses are quick to verify and consistent to teach. Most published Vedic horoscope readings, and the majority of family and traditional astrologers, work from a Whole Sign chart unless a specific technique calls for something else.
That said, 'default' does not mean 'only correct answer.' A planet sitting close to a sign boundary is exactly where Sripati Bhava Chalit or the KP cusps can place it in a different house — worth a second look if a reading hinges on which house a borderline planet occupies.