A general marriage biodata and a Hindu one share most of their structure, personal details, family background, education, career, partner expectations. Where they differ is a set of fields tied to horoscope matching and community, which is significant enough that most Hindu families expect to see them even when the rest of the biodata is otherwise plain.
The fields a general format doesn’t have
Rashi and nakshatra. Your moon sign and birth star, used for horoscope matching (gun milan) before a match is taken further in many Hindu families. If your family follows this practice, leaving these blank is one of the fastest ways to have a biodata set aside without a second look, regardless of how good the rest of it reads.
Gotra. Your family’s ancestral lineage, relevant because marriage within the same gotra is avoided in many communities. This is a short field, one line, but it’s one people forget when adapting a general template rather than starting from a Hindu-specific one.
Manglik status. Whether Mars is positioned in a way considered significant for matchmaking in Vedic astrology. Some families treat this as a hard filter; others don’t ask at all. Include it if you know your status. If you don’t, “manglik status: to be confirmed” is a normal thing to write rather than guessing.
Gan. Part of the same horoscope compatibility system as rashi and nakshatra, categorizing temperament as dev, manushya, or rakshasa gan for matching purposes. Less universally requested than rashi and nakshatra, but worth including if your family’s biodata format has a line for it.
Caste and sub-caste (Brahmin, Kshatriya, and so on) sit in the personal details section rather than being a separate horoscope field, but they’re worth calling out here too, since a general template built for a wider audience sometimes leaves them out entirely.
What stays the same
Family background, education, career, and partner expectations work the same way they would in any biodata: parents’ occupations, your degree and current role, and what you’re looking for in a partner. Income is more commonly included in Hindu biodata formats than in some others, though it’s still optional, and leaving it out isn’t unusual either.
English or Hindi
Both are common, and the choice usually comes down to which language the two families are more comfortable reading rather than any rule. A biodata in Hindi with Devanagari labels for rashi, nakshatra, gotra, and manglik reads more naturally to families across UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh than an English biodata with the same fields translated underneath, since the labels themselves carry cultural weight that a direct translation flattens out.
If you’re not sure which the other family will prefer, it’s common to prepare both and send whichever one gets asked for.
An example, filled in
Name: Priya Sharma. Date of birth: 15 March 1996. Religion: Hindu, caste: Brahmin. Rashi: Simha. Nakshatra: Purva Phalguni. Gotra: Kashyap. Manglik status: no. Education: MBA, University of Delhi. Occupation: Senior Analyst, ABC Corp. Father: businessman, mother: homemaker, one younger brother. Partner expectation: well-educated, same community, age 30 to 35.
The horoscope fields sit right after religion and caste, before education, which is where most traditional Hindu formats place them.
Getting these fields right
Our biodata maker has a dedicated Hindu template set with rashi, nakshatra, gotra, gan, and manglik status built in as their own fields rather than something you’d have to add to a general template by hand, available in both English and Hindi (and five other Indian languages, if that’s useful for extended family). You can toggle off whichever fields your family doesn’t use rather than leaving them blank on the page.