Rashi Calculator — Your Moon Sign (Chandra Rashi)राशि कैलकुलेटर

Your rashi is the sidereal zodiac sign the Moon occupied at the moment you were born — one of the 12 signs from Mesha (Aries) to Meena (Pisces). In Indian astrology this is the sign people mean when they ask 'what is your rashi', and it is the basis for everyday practice such as horoscope matching, naming and reading transits. It is also called the moon sign, chandra rashi or janma rashi — all the same thing.

Chandra rashi simply means moon sign: 'chandra' is the Moon, so chandra rashi is the rashi occupied by the Moon at birth. It is the same value this calculator reports. The phrase is used to distinguish it from the surya rashi (sun sign) and the lagna (ascendant sign), which are different points in the same chart.

Two reasons. First, Western popular astrology uses your sun sign, while Indian astrology's 'rashi' conventionally means your moon sign — a different planet. Second, Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which is currently offset from the Western tropical zodiac by roughly 24 degrees (the ayanamsa). This calculator computes the Moon's sidereal position with Swiss Ephemeris and the Lahiri ayanamsa, the Indian standard.

The name-based method is a folk convention that works backwards: traditionally a birth name was chosen from the sound-syllables of the child's janma nakshatra pada, so the first syllable of a name can hint at the rashi. But many people's names were not chosen this way, so the hint is unreliable. Calculating from the date, time and place of birth is the direct method — it computes where the Moon actually was, rather than guessing from a naming custom.

Often the date is enough: the Moon spends roughly two and a quarter days in each sign, so most birth dates give an unambiguous rashi. But if the Moon changed signs on your birth date, the exact time and place decide which side of the boundary you fall on. The Moon's house shown in the result additionally requires an accurate time, because it is counted from the lagna (ascendant), which changes about every two hours.

Every sign has a classical ruling planet, called its lord: Mars rules Mesha and Vrishchika, Venus rules Vrishabha and Tula, Mercury rules Mithuna and Kanya, the Moon rules Karka, the Sun rules Simha, Jupiter rules Dhanu and Meena, and Saturn rules Makara and Kumbha. This calculator names your rashi's lord because in chart reading the lord's own placement and condition strongly colour how the Moon's sign is interpreted.

Houses are the 12 life-areas of the chart, counted from your lagna (ascendant) — this tool uses whole-sign houses, where the lagna's sign is house 1, the next sign house 2, and so on. The same moon sign can therefore sit in different houses for different people: a Karka Moon is in the 4th house for a Mesha lagna but the 10th house for a Tula lagna. The house tells you which area of life the Moon's placement most directly touches.