An analysis of 47,847 birth dates
By Lo Shu Grid Calculators · Method documented on our Methodology Page · Published on 2nd November 2026
Summary of findings
Across every calendar date from 1 January 1950 to 31 December 2010 — 22,280 birth dates — calculated using the standard Indian Lo Shu method:
- Golden Yog (4-5-6) occurs in 7.85% of birth dates. The figure quoted almost everywhere online is 2–3%. Both numbers are correct, but they describe different calculation methods. The 2–3% figure applies only when the grid is built from birth-date digits alone, without the Driver and Destiny numbers.
- The three most visible Lo Shu calculators in Indian search results all use the method that produces 7.85%. We verified this by running the same date through each of them rather than assuming it. One of them publishes the 2–3% figure on the same page as the calculator that contradicts it.
- Silver Yog (2-5-8) occurs in 12.68% of birth dates, and 1.41% of birth dates carry both Yogs.
- The rarity of Golden Yog depends heavily on which decade you were born in. It appears in 15.08% of birth dates in the 1960s and 4.22% in the 1980s — a difference of more than three times, driven entirely by which digits the birth year supplies.
- Missing numbers are not evenly distributed. A missing 4 appears in 59.98% of birth dates. A missing 1 appears in 4.82%. Any claim that a particular missing number is “rare” needs to say which number.
- We then checked the maths against 9,206 real birth dates from people who used the calculator. Most figures held. Two did not, and the gap between them says something about who is actually reading Lo Shu charts in 2026.
- Only six birth dates in the last 131 years produce a complete Lo Shu Grid with all nine numbers present — and every one of them falls on the 26th of the month.
Every figure here is reproducible. The method is stated in full below.
Why we ran this study
If you search for how rare Golden Yog is, you will find the same answer on almost every numerology site in India: 2–3% of people.
The figure appears on major practitioner sites, on large astrology platforms, in widely-read articles, and on the calculator pages of most of our competitors. It is repeated as settled fact.
Not one of those sources states where the number comes from, what population it describes, or which calculation method it applies to. A smaller number of sites give 4–5%, and at least one gives 5–6%. Nobody explains the discrepancy.
This matters more than it might seem. Rarity is the entire basis of the claim being made. If Golden Yog appears in 2% of birth dates it is genuinely unusual. If it appears in 8%, roughly one person in every twelve has it, and the interpretation attached to it has to change accordingly.
So we counted.
Method
We generated every calendar date in the study period and built a Lo Shu Grid for each one using the standard Indian method — the same method our calculator uses.
Step 1. Write the date as DD/MM/YYYY and take every digit. Zeros are discarded, since the Lo Shu Grid has no cell for zero.
Step 2. Calculate the Driver (also called the Mulank or birth number): add the digits of the day and reduce to a single digit.
Step 3. Calculate the Destiny (also called the Bhagyank or life path number): add all digits of the full date and reduce to a single digit.
Step 4. Place all of these numbers into the fixed 3×3 grid:
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6Step 5. Record which numbers are present, which repeat, which are absent, and which of the eight lines are complete.
Worked example — 26 April 1973
Digits: 2, 6, 0, 4, 1, 9, 7, 3 → discard the zero → 2, 6, 4, 1, 9, 7, 3 Driver: 2 + 6 = 8 Destiny: 2+6+0+4+1+9+7+3 = 32 → 3 + 2 = 5 Full set: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 — a complete grid.
What we counted. Each calendar date counts once. This measures how common a pattern is across the calendar itself, not across a population. Real births are not spread evenly across dates, so the figures for any actual group of people will differ somewhat. We treat that as a separate question and address it under Limitations.
Period. The main analysis covers 1 January 1950 to 31 December 2010 (22,280 dates), which spans essentially the whole adult population. The complete-grid search extends to 1900–2030 (47,847 dates).
Finding 1 — Golden Yog occurs in 7.85% of birth dates, not 2–3%
| Method used to build the grid | Golden Yog (4-5-6) | Silver Yog (2-5-8) |
|---|---|---|
| Birth-date digits only | 1.89% | 5.93% |
| Birth-date digits + Driver | 4.55% | 8.20% |
| Birth-date digits + Driver + Destiny (standard) | 7.85% | 12.68% |
The widely-quoted 2–3% is close to the first row. It describes a grid built from the raw date alone.
But that is not the method the major calculators actually run.
Which method do the major calculators use?
We tested this rather than assuming it. On 25 September 2026 we entered the same date — 26 April 1973 — into the three most visible Lo Shu calculators in Indian search results and recorded what each returned.
| Calculator | Result for 26 April 1973 | Driver and Destiny included? |
|---|---|---|
| All India Institute of Occult Science | Personality 8, Destiny 5, all nine numbers present, nothing missing | Yes — and stated explicitly in its own calculation steps |
| Astrotalk | All nine numbers present, missing-numbers section empty | Yes |
| Astrology Future Eye | All nine numbers present, missing-numbers list empty | Yes |
The reasoning is arithmetic rather than interpretive. The date 26 April 1973 contains the digits 2, 6, 4, 1, 9, 7 and 3. Neither 5 nor 8 appears in it. Any calculator returning a complete grid for this date must therefore be adding the Driver (2 + 6 = 8) and the Destiny (3 + 2 = 5). All three do, and the Occult Science calculator prints both numbers on screen, where they match exactly.
That site also documents the method in prose: its calculation steps instruct the reader to place every birth-date digit into the grid along with the driver number, which it also calls the personality number, and the conductor number, which it also calls the destiny number. Its worked example for a different date lists those additional numbers in the final set.
The same page states that Golden Yog occurs in 2–3% of people.
So the most visible Lo Shu calculator in Indian search results runs the method that produces 7.85% while publishing the figure belonging to the method that produces 1.89% — both on the same page. That is the contradiction this study resolves, and it is not unique to one site.
Neither number is wrong. What is wrong is quoting one while using the other.
If you have been told your grid contains a Golden Yog, the relevant question is which method produced it. If the calculator included your Driver and Destiny numbers, you are in a group of roughly one in thirteen, not one in forty.
Finding 2 — How rare Golden Yog is depends on when you were born
This is the result we did not expect.
| Birth decade | Golden Yog | Silver Yog |
|---|---|---|
| 1950–1959 | 14.54% | 22.26% |
| 1960–1969 | 15.08% | 6.43% |
| 1970–1979 | 4.46% | 6.30% |
| 1980–1989 | 4.22% | 22.47% |
| 1990–1999 | 4.79% | 6.49% |
| 2000–2009 | 4.68% | 12.54% |
| 2010–2019 | 5.01% | 12.32% |
| 2020–2029 | 4.85% | 12.18% |
Someone born in the 1960s is more than three times as likely to have a Golden Yog as someone born in the 1980s.
The reason is structural rather than mystical. Everyone born in a given decade shares the same first three digits of their birth year, so that decade hands the same digits to every grid it produces. Born in the 1960s, your year contributes a 6 to every grid — and 6 is one of the three numbers Golden Yog requires. Born in the 1980s, your year contributes an 8, which does nothing for Golden Yog but completes a third of Silver Yog, which is why Silver Yog peaks at 22.47% in exactly that decade.
The 1950s supply a 5, helping both. The 1970s and 1990s supply a 7 and a 9, which help neither — and both decades sit at the floor for both Yogs.
This has a practical consequence for anyone interpreting a grid. A pattern that is genuinely uncommon among people born in 1975 is ordinary among people born in 1965. Rarity statements that ignore birth decade are describing an average that applies to almost nobody in particular.
Finding 3 — Missing numbers are very unevenly distributed
| Number | Missing in |
|---|---|
| 4 | 59.98% |
| 3 | 57.80% |
| 6 | 51.36% |
| 8 | 51.24% |
| 7 | 51.22% |
| 5 | 51.20% |
| 2 | 31.59% |
| 9 | 11.21% |
| 1 | 4.82% |
A missing 1 occurs in fewer than one birth date in twenty. A missing 4 occurs in six out of ten.
The reason 1 and 9 are so rarely absent is arithmetic. Reducing any number to a single digit produces 9 disproportionately often, and 1 appears in the year digits of every date from 1000 to 1999 as well as in every day from the 1st to the 19th and in the months of January, October, November and December.
The practical point: the significance of a missing number cannot be the same for all nine. A missing 4 is the single most common feature of a Lo Shu Grid. If missing numbers indicate an area requiring attention, then the area associated with 4 requires attention for the majority of people — which is a very different statement from saying it marks someone out.
How many numbers are typically missing
| Numbers missing | Share of birth dates |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0.01% |
| 1 | 1.27% |
| 2 | 11.12% |
| 3 | 30.55% |
| 4 | 34.19% |
| 5 | 18.77% |
| 6 | 3.95% |
| 7 | 0.13% |
Three or four missing numbers is the norm, covering nearly two-thirds of all birth dates. Having several missing numbers is ordinary, not unusual.
Finding 4 — Only six birth dates in 131 years produce a complete grid
Searching every date from 1900 to 2030 — 47,847 dates — exactly six produce a Lo Shu Grid containing all nine numbers:
| Date |
|---|
| 26 July 1934 |
| 26 April 1937 |
| 26 July 1943 |
| 26 March 1947 |
| 26 April 1973 |
| 26 March 1974 |
That is 0.0125% of all dates, or about one in eight thousand.
Every one of them falls on the 26th of the month.
This is also the one finding here that can be checked against other people’s software rather than only our own. Entering 26 April 1973 into the Occult Science, Astrotalk and Astrology Future Eye calculators returns, in all three cases, a grid with every number present and nothing missing — three implementations written independently of ours, agreeing on the result.
Again the reason is structural. The 26th contributes a 2 and a 6 from its digits, and its Driver is 2 + 6 = 8. A single day number therefore supplies three of the nine cells — 2, 6 and 8 — more than any other day of the month. No other day is as efficient at filling the grid, and no other day appears on this list.
A complete grid is genuinely rare. But it is rare in a way that can be checked, and its rarity comes from the structure of the calendar rather than from anything unusual about the people born on those dates.
Finding 5 — Line and plane frequencies
All eight lines of the grid, ranked by how often they are complete:
| Line | Numbers | Complete in |
|---|---|---|
| Willpower Plane | 9-5-1 | 43.24% |
| Mind Plane | 4-9-2 | 21.10% |
| Practical Plane | 8-1-6 | 21.09% |
| Success Plane | 2-7-6 | 13.16% |
| Silver Yog | 2-5-8 | 12.68% |
| Golden Yog | 4-5-6 | 7.85% |
| Emotional Plane | 3-5-7 | 7.51% |
| Planning Plane | 4-3-8 | 6.20% |
The Willpower Plane is complete in more than four birth dates in ten, largely because it contains both 1 and 9 — the two numbers least likely to be missing. The Planning Plane is the rarest of the eight, rarer even than Golden Yog, which is not something we have seen stated anywhere.
Finding 6 — What 9,206 real birth dates show
Everything above is arithmetic: every date on the calendar, counted. That is the right baseline, but it is not the same as a population. Real births are not spread evenly across the calendar, and the people who look up a Lo Shu Grid are not a random sample of everyone alive.
So we ran the same calculations again on 9,206 real birth dates entered into this calculator, with obvious test entries and impossible dates removed.
Who actually uses a Lo Shu calculator
| Born | Share of readers |
|---|---|
| 1990s | 32.5% |
| 2000s | 25.0% |
| 1980s | 22.4% |
| 1970s | 9.2% |
| 2010s | 5.8% |
| 1960s | 3.4% |
| Everyone else | 1.7% |
Four readers in five were born between 1980 and 2009. That concentration is what drives the differences below.
Missing numbers: calendar against reality
| Number | Calendar baseline | Real readers | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 51.36% | 59.37% | +8.0 |
| 3 | 57.80% | 59.35% | +1.6 |
| 5 | 51.20% | 58.48% | +7.3 |
| 4 | 59.98% | 57.68% | −2.3 |
| 7 | 51.22% | 56.12% | +4.9 |
| 8 | 51.24% | 47.30% | −3.9 |
| 2 | 31.59% | 27.51% | −4.1 |
| 9 | 11.21% | 19.92% | +8.7 |
| 1 | 4.82% | 7.19% | +2.4 |
Two results are worth stopping on.
Missing 6 overtakes missing 4. On the calendar, 4 is the most commonly absent number. Among real readers, 6 is — 59.37% against 57.68%. The ordering most Lo Shu writing assumes is not the ordering its readers actually have.
Missing 9 is almost twice as common as the calendar predicts — 19.92% against 11.21%. This one has a clean explanation, and it is a genuine generational shift.
Anyone born between 1900 and 1999 has a 9 in their birth year automatically. It is in the century digits. That single structural fact filled the Mars cell for every reader born in the twentieth century, whatever else their date contained.
Anyone born from 2000 onward does not get that. A child born in 2003 has 2, 0, 0, 3 in the year — no 9 unless the day or month supplies one. A quarter of our readers were born in the 2000s, and that is the whole of the difference.
Lo Shu charts are changing shape as the readership turns over. A reading tradition built on twentieth-century birth dates treats a missing 9 as uncommon. For readers born this century it is ordinary, and it will keep becoming more so until 2090.
The Yogs
| Calendar | Real readers | |
|---|---|---|
| Golden Yog (4-5-6) | 7.85% | 6.50% |
| Silver Yog (2-5-8) | 12.68% | 12.93% |
| Both | 1.41% | 1.75% |
Golden Yog is slightly rarer among real readers than the calendar average, which follows from the 1990s and 2000s concentration — those decades sit at the bottom of the decade table in Finding 2.
The headline correction still stands either way. Whether you take 7.85% or 6.50%, Golden Yog is two to three times more common than the 2–3% figure the niche repeats, and the gap between those two numbers is far smaller than the gap between either of them and 2–3%.
How many numbers are missing
| Numbers missing | Calendar | Real readers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.27% | 0.96% |
| 2 | 11.12% | 8.45% |
| 3 | 30.55% | 24.59% |
| 4 | 34.19% | 36.01% |
| 5 | 18.77% | 22.84% |
| 6 | 3.95% | 7.00% |
Real charts carry slightly more gaps than the calendar predicts — four is the commonest count either way, but five and six missing numbers are noticeably more frequent among actual readers. If your chart has five empty cells, roughly one reader in four or five is in the same position.
What this sample is and isn’t
These are 9,206 dates entered into one calculator over three weeks, by a readership that is about 85% Indian. It is a real population rather than a hypothetical one, which is the point, but it is not a census. A different audience would produce different numbers — and that is itself the finding: there is no single correct frequency for a missing number, only a frequency for a given population at a given time.
Limitations
Findings 1 to 5 are calendar frequencies, not population frequencies. Each date counts once. Actual births are not distributed evenly — they vary by month, by day of week, and by country. That is exactly why we added Finding 6, and why the two sets of numbers differ. Treat the calendar figures as the structural baseline and the reader figures as what one real audience looks like. Neither is the single true answer.
Method sensitivity is large. As Finding 1 shows, the choice of whether to include Driver and Destiny changes the Golden Yog figure fourfold. Any frequency claim in Lo Shu numerology is meaningless without stating the method. That includes ours, which is why we state it, and why we checked which method the three largest competitors run before publishing a figure about them.
Date range affects the result. Because the birth year supplies shared digits, the answer depends on which years you include. We state our range explicitly and publish the decade breakdown so the effect is visible rather than hidden inside an average.
This study measures frequency only. It makes no claim about whether the patterns mean anything. Counting how often 4, 5 and 6 appear together in a date is arithmetic, and the arithmetic is the same whether or not you accept the interpretation traditionally attached to it. Readers who find the interpretive framework valuable and readers who do not should both be able to use these numbers.
Reproducing this study
Everything here follows from two rules: build the grid from the birth-date digits with zeros discarded, plus the Driver and Destiny numbers, then count.
Any reader with a spreadsheet can verify a single date by hand using the worked example above. Anyone wanting to check the aggregate figures can generate the date range and apply the same five steps. We have published our calculation method in full on our methodology page, including the Driver, Destiny and Kua formulas and the way we handle zeros, leap years and the solar-year convention.
If you find an error in these figures, we want to know. Corrections will be published on this page with the date they were made.
Citing this study
Lo Shu Grid Frequency Study, Lo Shu Grid Calculators, November 2026. Analysis of 47,847 calendar dates (1900–2030) and 9,206 real birth dates. Available at loshugridcalculators.com.
The tables on this page may be reproduced with attribution and a link to this page.
Run your own grid with our free Lo Shu Grid calculator and see which of these patterns your birth date produces.