Cancer (Karka Rashi) in Vedic astrology: the sign, its nakshatras, and what each graha does in it

Cancer, Karka in Sanskrit, is the fourth of the twelve rashis: the sidereal zodiac from 90 to 120 degrees. It is the only sign the Moon owns, the sign where Jupiter is exalted and the sign where Mars is debilitated. BPHS describes it in one passage - movable, watery, female, Sattvic, ruled by the Moon, the heart of Time personified.

This page gives the texts with chapter and sloka, the divisions inside the sign, the engine's treatment of each graha in it, Cancer as a rising sign, and its periods and transits. To see whether your Moon is in Cancer, use the Moon Sign calculator.

Three different things are called "Cancer"

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 4-6 divides one circle into 27 nakshatras and into 12 rashis, and names the rashi rising in the east the Lagna. A chart can therefore "be Cancer" in three independent ways. In Indian usage "my rashi is Karka" means the first: the Moon was in Cancer at birth, as Moon sign and nakshatra explains.

The dates are sidereal: this app uses the Lahiri ayanamsa, 24.23 degrees on 5 October 2026 (see the Methodology page). In 2026 the engine puts the Sun in sidereal Cancer from 16 July, 23:27 IST, to 17 August, 07:52 IST; the tropical Cancer of Western columns ran from 21 June to 23 July. The two overlap for about six days, so someone born on 1 July with a Western Cancer Sun has a sidereal Sun in Gemini, and the Sun Sign calculator will say so.

The Lagna runs on the fastest clock. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 37-38 puts Cancer among the signs of medium ascension, with Gemini, Sagittarius and Capricorn. The engine does not bear the grouping out at Indian latitudes: swept minute by minute at New Delhi, Cancer took 141 minutes to rise, the longest of the twelve, while Capricorn took 102. On 15 July 2026 the Delhi window opened at 05:46 IST, just after sunrise; it moves about two hours earlier each month. Check a birth time against it with the Lagna calculator.

How the texts describe Karka

BPHS Ch. 4 calls the twelve rashis the limbs of Time personified (Sloka 1-2) and describes Kark in Sloka 10-11: pale red, a sign of the forests, strong at night, many-footed and bulky in body, Sattvic, watery, rising with its back, ruled by the Moon.

A modern body table (Advanced Predictive Astrology, Vol. II, p. 214) widens one row to the breast, heart and chest. Two classical rules say how such entries are used. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 5-6 says a benefic in a sign makes its limb strong and a malefic makes it weak, and Sloka 25 says a rashi is strong when aspected by its own lord, by a planet friendly to its lord, or by Mercury or Jupiter.

Of all this the engine keeps four things: the names (Cancer, Karka), the lord (the Moon), the element (Water) and the mobility (movable). The element feeds the "dominant element" line among your Kundali quick insights. The mobility decides that the Navamsa count starts from Cancer itself, that Cancer aspects the fixed signs, and that the 11th house is the badhaka for a Cancer Lagna.

Inside the sign: three nakshatras, nine padas

Thirty degrees hold two and a quarter nakshatras: the last pada of Punarvasu, all of Pushya and all of Ashlesha. Each pada is 3 degrees 20 minutes wide, the width of a Navamsa, and BPHS Ch. 6 Sloka 12 starts the Navamsa count of a movable sign from the sign itself. So the Moon's degree fixes its nakshatra and pada, its Navamsa sign, and the lord of the first Vimshottari Mahadasha.

Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 13 names the first Navamsa of a movable sign Vargottama; the engine marks any graha or Lagna in the first 3 degrees 20 minutes of Cancer that way, and the Navamsa (D9) calculator shows the flag (Navamsa, the second chart explains it). Two degrees matter more than the rest: Jupiter's deepest exaltation, 5 degrees, falls in Pushya pada 1, and Mars's deepest fall, 28 degrees, in Ashlesha pada 4.

The other divisions of Cancer

• Drekkana (Ch. 6 Sl. 7-8; Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 14): 0 to 10 degrees falls in Cancer, 10 to 20 in Scorpio, 20 to 30 in Pisces - the three water signs. See the Drekkana (D3) calculator.
• Trimshamsa (Ch. 6 Sl. 27-28): 0 to 5 degrees Venus, 5 to 12 Mercury, 12 to 20 Jupiter, 20 to 25 Saturn, 25 to 30 Mars. See the Trimshamsa (D30) calculator.
• Dwadasamsa: the count starts from the sign itself (Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 13), so the first 2 degrees 30 minutes are Cancer's own. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 29-30 reserves the Panchottari Dasha for a Lagna there, and the Alternate Dashas calculator marks it applicable only then - about twelve minutes a day at New Delhi.

The two edges of the sign

The two edges are unlike each other. The Moon enters Cancer in the middle of a nakshatra: at 18:33 IST on 4 October 2026 Punarvasu and the opening Mahadasha lord, Jupiter, stayed the same. She leaves for Leo at 22:18 IST on 6 October through a boundary where everything changes at once: Ashlesha gives way to Magha, and the opening lord changes from Mercury (17 years) to Ketu (7).

The texts call that junction Gandanta. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 20-21 applies the word to the ends of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, and BPHS Ch. 92 Sloka 3-4 defines a Nakshatra Gandanta where Ashlesha meets Magha and a Lagna Gandanta where Cancer meets Leo. Saravali attaches a severe verdict to a birth there and BPHS answers with rites; this app has no Gandanta flag and prescribes nothing. The practical cost is real, though: near 30 degrees, a few minutes of birth-time error change the sign, the nakshatra and the dasha sequence. On 4 October, likewise, the Moon is in Gemini at 00:00 IST and in Cancer at 23:59, and given no time the Moon Sign calculator reports both ends. See what a missing birth time does.

Dignity: Jupiter's exaltation, Mars's fall, the Moon's own house

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50 exalts Jupiter in Kark, deepest at 5 degrees, and puts each graha's fall in the seventh sign from its exaltation at the same degree: Mars, exalted at 28 degrees of Capricorn, is debilitated at 28 degrees of Cancer. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 35-36 and Bhrigu Sutras (pp. 8, 10) agree. The Moon owns the whole sign (Bhrigu Sutras, p. 7); her Moolatrikona is in Taurus (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 51-54).

Four of the seven score zero here, three by enmity rather than fall: the engine gives an enemy sign the same zero as a debilitation. BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 59-60 grades more finely: full effects in exaltation, half in a graha's own house, a quarter in a friendly sign, none in debilitation or an enemy's sign. The engine's finer measure is the planetary-rays figure, after Saravali Ch. 36 Sloka 3-6, which counts from the exaltation point and ignores ownership: Jupiter scores 7.00 of 7 at 5 degrees of Cancer and 6.03 at the end of the sign; Mars 1.09 at the start and 0 at 28 degrees; the Moon, in her own sign, 4.78 falling to 3.62. The Shad Bala calculator shows the positional score.

The friend and enemy labels are conditional. BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 56-58 makes grahas in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th from each other temporary friends, and the engine applies it: with the Moon in Leo, Virgo, Libra, Aries, Taurus or Gemini, a Mercury, Venus or Saturn in Cancer came out Neutral; with the Moon elsewhere the three read Enemy sign and the Sun dropped from Friendly to Neutral.

Each graha in Cancer, as Saravali reads it

Saravali Ch. 22 to 29 give one passage for each graha in each sign, then six lines for how another graha's aspect changes it. The table paraphrases the Cancer lines, leaving out their sexual verdicts and most disease lines.

Three patterns stand out. Jupiter's aspect is favourable in all six lines it appears in, which fits Saravali's rule about a planet friendly to the sign's lord. The lord's own aspect does not follow the rule: the Moon's line is good for Jupiter and Venus, mixed for the Sun and Saturn, poor for Mars and Mercury. And the sign line is not the dignity label - Saturn and Venus, each in what the engine calls an enemy sign, are promised a kingly mid-life and a leading position. Each graha has its own page: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

The Moon at home: agreement, with one condition

Saravali Ch. 30 Sloka 14 singles out three signs for a Moon in the ascendant - Cancer, Taurus and Aries - as liberal, attractive, rich and enjoying. Bhrigu Sutras (p. 32) names the same three; its commentator accepts Cancer, and adds that the Moon should be waxing or full to give the results in full. BPHS Ch. 41 Sloka 10 builds a wealth yoga on the placement: the Moon in Cancer as the Lagna, joined or aspected by Mercury and Jupiter. The engine lists it as Dhan Yoga (Wealth); see the Moon in the 1st house. Its own temperament line for any Moon in Cancer is "moved easily by others, learned and generous, improves through self-effort".

The engine scores no dignity for Rahu or Ketu, and BPHS names none for them in Cancer; Saravali Ch. 12 Sloka 10-11 still says Rahu in an ascendant of Aries, Taurus or Cancer protects the native from evils.

Cancer rising: Karka Lagna

Saravali Ch. 48 Sloka 14-17 describes a birth with Cancer rising: learned, intelligent and enduring, religious, living in many residences and in foreign places, earning through water - but also timid, fickle-minded and obstinate. With whole-sign houses, which this app uses, Cancer rising fixes the lord of every house, and BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 27-28 says what that does to each graha.

The sloka's last line classes Saturn and the Sun as marakas. BPHS Ch. 44 Sloka 2-5 explains the label: the 2nd and 7th are the houses counted against longevity, and here the Sun rules the 2nd and Saturn the 7th. That belongs to a longevity calculation this app does not run; its Kundali shows only the Yoga Karaka line. See also the 1st house, Tanu Bhava and the 4th house, Sukha Bhava.

Mars: one graha, a trine and an angle

For this Lagna Mars owns the 5th and the 10th, a trine and an angle, and BPHS says it can confer a complete yoga by itself. The commentator of Bhrigu Sutras calls it a yoga karaka of the first order for Cancer and Leo ascendants (p. 47), expects children and high office from it in Scorpio in the 5th (p. 51), and counts Mars in the 9th of a Cancer ascendant among the placements that give a Raja Yoga (p. 58). Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, pp. 29-30) reads two Cancer-rising charts with Mars in the 2nd the same way. See Mars in the 5th house and Mars in the 10th house.

The catch is specific to this sign: in the 1st house of a Cancer Lagna the Yoga Karaka stands in its fall. The engine keeps the two facts apart: the panel names Mars wherever it sits, while the dignity label, the zero positional score and the Mahadasha grade follow the sign. Mars is also half of two yoga rows: it owns the 5th and 10th and Jupiter the 9th, so a Mars-Jupiter conjunction in any house lists Raja Yoga, and in the 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th or 10th it lists Dharma-Karmadhipati Yoga as well. The Yogas calculator shows the rows; What a yoga in your chart means explains how to weigh them.

Jupiter, Venus and Mercury: where the sources divide

Jupiter rules the 6th and the 9th, and BPHS counts it auspicious; Bhrigu Sutras (p. 74) treats an exalted Jupiter rising in Cancer as a very beneficial placement. Venus rules the 4th and the 11th and gets three readings. BPHS lists it with the malefics. Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 30) calls it the worst planet for this Lagna and its badhaka planet. The commentator of Bhrigu Sutras reads the same lordships as strong wealth yogas when Venus is in the 10th or the 11th (pp. 96-97). Mercury, lord of the 3rd and 12th, is BPHS's other malefic.

The engine's dosha list carries Kendradhipathya Dosha, graded Mild, on every Cancer-rising chart, because Venus owns an angle, the 4th, without owning the 1st; a Venus in Libra there is listed as Malavya Yoga all the same. And the engine treats the 11th as the badhaka house, after BPHS Ch. 50 Sloka 20-21, which names Vrishabh as the Badhak for Kark: any graha in Taurus is flagged "badhaka house (sensitive to affliction)". See Venus in the 4th house and Jupiter in the 1st house.

Which Mahapurusha Yogas can form

BPHS Ch. 75 Sloka 1-2 forms a Panchamahapurusha Yoga when Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn is in its own or exaltation sign in an angle. The angles of a Cancer Lagna are the four movable signs: Cancer, Libra, Capricorn and Aries. So four of the five yogas can form here, in six ways: Hamsa (Jupiter in Cancer), Malavya (Venus in Libra), Sasa (Saturn in Libra or Capricorn) and Ruchaka (Mars in Capricorn or Aries). Only Bhadra cannot: neither of Mercury's signs is an angle. Ruchaka with Mars in the 7th comes with a Mangal Dosha row, graded Moderate.

Cancer among the signs: aspects, questions and matching

BPHS Ch. 8 Sloka 1-3 gives the signs aspects of their own: every movable rashi aspects the three fixed ones, leaving out the one next to it, and a graha in a sign aspects as the sign does. Cancer therefore aspects Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius, not Leo. The engine publishes this rashi drishti in your Kundali as a separate table; for a Cancer Lagna, any graha in Cancer aspects the 5th, 8th and 11th houses by sign.

In a prashna, a chart cast for the moment of a question, the rising sign's mobility is read directly. Daivajna Vallabha Ch. 3 Sloka 5 gives a gain of status to a fixed query ascendant and withholds it from a movable one; Ch. 4 Sloka 1 says that with a movable ascendant travel definitely occurs. The Prashna feature applies both, so a question asked while Cancer rises loses a point on status and gains one on travel.

A Cancer Moon in Kundli matching

None of the books in this app's library contains the Ashtakoot tables; the engine's header names the published references it follows for these two kootas (since October 2026). For a Cancer Moon, Graha Maitri (the friendship of the two sign lords, worth 5) came out full with Cancer and Leo, 4 with Aries, Scorpio, Sagittarius and Pisces, 3 with Gemini and Virgo, and 1 with Taurus, Libra, Capricorn and Aquarius; Bhakoot (the distance between the signs, worth 7) came out zero with Gemini, Leo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Pisces. So Leo scores full on one and nothing on the other. The Kundli Matching calculator runs all eight; the Compatibility feature shows what else is compared.

A worked chart: Moon, Mars and Jupiter rising in Cancer

This is the chart of a moment, not of a person, computed in this app's engine: 5 October 2026, 01:30 IST, New Delhi - chosen because the sign's lord, the graha exalted in it and the graha debilitated in it were all in Cancer that night. Cancer rises at 14.36 degrees.

The Moon is in Pushya pada 1, so its Navamsa is Leo and life opens in the Saturn Mahadasha. It is a waning Moon, 73 degrees behind the Sun - short of the condition the commentator of Bhrigu Sutras set. The yoga list carries Hamsa Yoga, Gaj Kesari Yoga, Malavya Yoga for Venus in Libra in the 4th, and - from the one conjunction of Mars and Jupiter - both Raja Yoga and Dharma-Karmadhipati Yoga. The wealth yoga of BPHS Ch. 41 Sloka 10 is missing by one graha: Mercury is in the 4th and does not aspect the Lagna.

Mars is the instructive graha. BPHS makes it the Yoga Karaka and two yoga rows rest on it; the same Mars is debilitated, the weakest graha in the chart by Shad Bala, with 0.73 of 7 rays, and the engine grades its Mahadasha challenging. Jupiter beside it has 6.20 rays and a Mahadasha graded good. A Moon in early Pushya leaves almost eighteen years of Saturn, so the periods run Saturn to 2044, Mercury to 2061, then Ketu, Venus, the Sun and the Moon, Mars from 2104 and Jupiter only from 2129. A yoga row says a pattern exists; the dasha table says when, if ever, its graha takes the lead.

Timing: dashas and transits through Cancer

Dashas

A Moon in Cancer opens life in the Mahadasha of Jupiter, Saturn or Mercury; the Vimshottari Dasha calculator dates the sequence and what a Mahadasha is explains the arithmetic. For a graha in Cancer, BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 5-6 gives the general test: a Dasha is favourable when its lord is in the Lagna, in exaltation or in its own or a friendly sign, and unfavourable in the 6th, 8th or 12th, in debilitation or in an enemy's sign.

• The Moon: Ch. 47 Sloka 16-22 promise opulence and gain of wealth in the Dasha of a Moon in her own sign, and Sloka 23-26 withdraw much of it from a waning Moon. See the Moon Mahadasha.
• Jupiter: Sloka 45-48 read an exalted Jupiter as high position, recognition and family happiness. See the Jupiter Mahadasha.
• Mars: Sloka 33 reads a Mars in its debilitation sign as loss of wealth and distress - the same graha Ch. 34 makes the Yoga Karaka when Cancer rises. See the Mars Mahadasha.

The engine's three-level grade follows the dignity and the house: good for a Moon or Jupiter in Cancer unless it is in the 6th, 8th or 12th house; challenging for Mars; and challenging for Mercury, Venus or Saturn when the Moon's position leaves Cancer an enemy sign for them. In the sign-based Chara Dasha, a Cancer Lagna runs its periods in reverse order - Cancer, Gemini, Taurus - because the sign in its 9th house, Pisces, is even-footed (BPHS Ch. 46 Sloka 167).

Transits

On 5 October 2026 three of those rows overlap: Jupiter, the Moon and Mars are all in Cancer. For a natal Moon in Cancer the Gochar calculator puts all three in the 1st house from the Moon and grades each of them testing - exalted Jupiter included, because its rule reads the house counted from the natal Moon, not the dignity of the transiting graha. The same Jupiter is graded favourable for a natal Moon in Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricorn or Pisces.

Sade Sati for a Cancer Moon

The engine calls Sade Sati active while Saturn transits the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from the natal Moon: for a Cancer Moon, Gemini, Cancer and Leo. In October 2026 Saturn is in Pisces, so it is not active. The next rising phase begins when Saturn enters Gemini on 30 May 2032; the peak, Saturn in Cancer itself, runs from 13 July 2034 to 28 August 2036; and the setting phase ends on 23 October 2038, then resumes from 27 March to 14 July 2039 while Saturn steps back into Leo. The app describes the period as "traditionally read as a time to consolidate rather than expand, not as an omen". Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 312) reports a North Indian school that holds only the middle two and a half years adverse for a Cancer Moon; the engine does not apply that. The Sade Sati calculator gives your phase; see also the Timing feature.

Common misreadings

• "I am a Cancer" from a Western column is not Karka Rashi. The first is the tropical Sun; the second is the sidereal Moon, and the two zodiacs stand 24 degrees apart.
• The Moon is not at her strongest in her own sign. Her exaltation and Moolatrikona are in Taurus, and the rays figure for a Moon in Cancer never passes 4.78 of 7.
• Mars being the Yoga Karaka for Cancer rising does not make a Mars in Cancer strong. The role comes from the houses Mars owns, the dignity from the sign it is in.
• An exalted Jupiter passing over a Cancer Moon is not graded a good transit. The engine counts houses from the natal Moon and grades Jupiter in the 1st as testing.

How to check this in your own chart

1. 1.Run the Moon Sign calculator with your birth date, adding the time if the Moon changed sign that day; the Nakshatra calculator gives the pada.
2. 2.Run the Lagna calculator with your birth time and place to see whether Cancer was rising.
3. 3.Open the Birth Chart calculator to see which grahas are in Cancer and in which house. The books behind these rules are on the Sources page.

Is Karka Rashi the same as being a Cancer in Western astrology?

No. Karka Rashi means the Moon was in sidereal Cancer at birth, which happens for about 54 hours in every 27.3 days. A Western Cancer is a tropical Sun sign, 21 June to 23 July in 2026.

Who rules Cancer, and which planet is the Yoga Karaka for Cancer rising?

The Moon rules the sign. For a Cancer Lagna, Mars rules the 5th and 10th houses and BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 27-28 says it can confer a complete yoga by itself.

Which planets are exalted and debilitated in Cancer?

Jupiter is exalted, deepest at 5 degrees, and Mars is debilitated, deepest at 28 degrees (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50). The engine also labels Mercury, Venus and Saturn as in an enemy sign unless the Moon's place in the chart makes it a temporary friend.

Mars is debilitated in Cancer but the Yoga Karaka for Cancer Lagna. Which one wins?

Neither cancels the other in this app. The Yoga Karaka line follows the houses Mars owns; the dignity label, strength score and Mahadasha grade follow its sign. In Aries in the 10th or Capricorn in the 7th the two agree, and the engine lists Ruchaka Yoga.

When is Sade Sati for a Cancer Moon?

While Saturn is in Gemini, Cancer or Leo. By this app's astronomy the next begins on 30 May 2032, peaks from 13 July 2034 to 28 August 2036, and ends in July 2039.

I was born on a day the Moon changed sign. Is my rashi Cancer?

It depends on the birth time. On 4 October 2026, for example, the Moon is in Gemini until 18:33 IST and in Cancer after that. Without a time, the Moon Sign calculator shows both ends of the date.