What Is a Rashi?

The Vedic zodiac sign, and your Moon sign

Updated 19 October 2026

A rashi (also spelled raasi, rasi or raashi) is one of the 12 signs of the Vedic zodiac, each 30° wide; "your rashi" usually means your Moon sign.

A rashi is a zodiac sign in Vedic astrology (Jyotish). The word is Sanskrit and means a heap, a group or a measured portion, and it is spelled in many ways in English: rashi, raasi, rasi, raashi. In practice it names one of twelve equal divisions of the sky, each 30° wide, through which the Sun, Moon and planets appear to travel. Together the twelve rashis form the zodiac, a belt around the Earth's path that begins at Mesha (Aries) and ends at Meena (Pisces). Every planet in a birth chart sits in one of these twelve signs, and the sign it occupies is the first thing a Vedic astrologer reads about it.

When people ask what is raasi or what is my rashi, they usually mean their Moon sign, and the reason lies in how Jyotish thinks. The Moon is the planet of the mind (manas), and it moves fastest of all, so it records the exact moment of birth more finely than any other body. The sign the Moon occupied at birth is called the Chandra rashi or Janma rashi, and it is regarded as the most personal sign in the chart. It describes your emotional nature, your habitual reactions and what you need to feel secure, and it is the basis for daily and monthly predictions, for Saturn's Sade Sati, and for traditional marriage matching.

Two other signs are read alongside it. The Surya rashi, or Sun sign, is where the Sun stood at birth and describes the outer self, vitality and sense of purpose. The Lagna, or ascendant, is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the exact time and place of birth, and it fixes the whole structure of the twelve houses in the chart. Western astrology puts the Sun sign first. Vedic astrology treats the Lagna as the framework, the Moon sign as the mind and the Sun sign as the soul's direction. Where all three sit in different signs, which is common, the three views complement each other.

A Vedic rashi is also often different from the Western sign you grew up with, and the reason is the zodiac itself. Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, anchored to the March equinox, so that 0° Aries always begins on the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. Jyotish uses the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the fixed stars. Because of the slow wobble of the Earth's axis known as the precession of the equinoxes, the two zodiacs have drifted apart by roughly one degree every 72 years. The gap, called the ayanamsa, is about 24° today in the widely used Lahiri system. As a result, a person whose Sun is at 10° Libra in the Western chart would have it at about 16° Kanya (Virgo) in the Vedic one, and most people find that their Vedic Sun sign is the sign before their Western one.

The Moon moves about 13° a day, so it passes through a sign in roughly two and a quarter days, which means that on roughly four days out of ten the Moon changes sign at some point during the day. For this reason you need the time and place of birth, not just the date, to find your Chandra rashi reliably. Birth details are put into an ephemeris, which gives the Moon's exact sidereal longitude, and that longitude, divided by 30, gives the sign. A Moon at 95° sidereal, for instance, is at 5° in the fourth sign, Karka (Cancer). Navagraha does this calculation from precise astronomical data and the Lahiri ayanamsa, so you can find your rashi in a few seconds from your birth details.

Each rashi has a lord, the planet that governs the sign: the Sun rules Simha, the Moon rules Karka, Mars rules Mesha and Vrishchika, Mercury rules Mithuna and Kanya, Jupiter rules Dhanu and Meena, Venus rules Vrishabha and Tula, and Saturn rules Makara and Kumbha. The lord matters for two reasons. First, it colours the character of anyone with the Moon or Lagna in that sign, so a Mars-ruled Mesha is direct and a Venus-ruled Tula is relational. Second, in the chart as a whole, wherever the lord of a house is placed shows where that house's affairs are directed. The planets can be friends, neutral or enemies to one another, and these relationships are used in compatibility reading and in judging whether a planet is comfortable in the sign it occupies.

Rashis are further classified by element (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) and quality (movable, fixed, dual), which gives each sign a recognisable temperament. Movable signs initiate, fixed signs maintain and dual signs adapt. The rashi is a broad stroke, however. The nakshatra, the finer 13°20′ lunar mansion in which the Moon sits, adds the detail: each sign holds two and a quarter nakshatras, and each nakshatra is divided into four padas, which is what lets Jyotish separate two people who share a Moon sign. A traditional Indian naming ceremony uses this: the syllables for a child's name depend on the nakshatra pada of the Moon, which is why a name can hint at a rashi (the naam rashi).

The twelve rashis, in order, are Mesha (Aries), Vrishabha (Taurus), Mithuna (Gemini), Karka (Cancer), Simha (Leo), Kanya (Virgo), Tula (Libra), Vrishchika (Scorpio), Dhanu (Sagittarius), Makara (Capricorn), Kumbha (Aquarius) and Meena (Pisces). Each of the pages linked from this guide explains one sign as a Moon sign in depth, including its nakshatras, dignities, relationships and Saturn cycle. A rashi is one layer of a birth chart rather than a verdict on a life, and the descriptions in tradition are best read as tendencies to explore, not as predictions.

The 12 rashis in order

Frequently asked questions

Navagraha provides Vedic astrology for informational and reflective purposes only; it is not a substitute for professional advice.