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

Leo, Simha in Sanskrit, is the fifth of the twelve rashis: the sidereal zodiac from 120 to 150 degrees. BPHS gives it one sloka - ruled by the Sun, Sattvic, four-footed, royal, a forest dweller, strong by day - and, like Saravali, spends far more words on what each graha does there. The Sun owns no other sign, and no graha is exalted or debilitated in this one, so every planet in Leo is read through its relationship with the Sun.

This page sets out what the texts say, with chapter and sloka; what lies inside the sign; how this app's engine treats each graha in it; how Leo behaves as a rising sign; and when its periods and transits run. It is a reference for rules, not a portrait of "Leo people". To find out whether your Moon is in Leo, use the Moon Sign calculator.

Three different things are called "Leo"

A chart can "be Leo" in three independent ways: by the Moon, by the Sun, or by the sign rising in the east, the Lagna. In Indian usage "my rashi is Simha" means the first: the Moon was in Leo at birth. Moon sign and nakshatra explains why that one carries the name.

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 Leo from 17 August, 07:52 IST, to 17 September, 07:48 IST; the tropical Leo of Western Sun-sign columns ran, by the same Sun, from 23 July to 23 August. The two overlap for about six days. Someone born on 1 August with a Western Leo Sun has a sidereal Sun in Cancer, and the Sun Sign calculator will say so.

Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 37-38 lists Leo with Scorpio, Virgo and Libra as the signs of long ascension. Swept minute by minute at New Delhi, the engine has Leo rising for 137 minutes, against 85 for Pisces. On 1 September 2026 the window at New Delhi ran from 04:57 to 07:13 IST, around the 05:59 sunrise, and it moves about two hours earlier each month, to 02:04 by mid-October. The Lagna calculator gives yours.

How the texts describe Simha

BPHS Ch. 4 calls the twelve rashis the limbs of Time personified (Sloka 1-2) and describes Simh in Sloka 12: ruled by the Sun and Sattvic; a quadruped and a royal rashi; it resorts to forests, rises with its head, has a large white body, resides in the east and is strong in the daytime. Saravali Ch. 3 draws no picture at all: after describing six signs it says the rest look like what they are named after (Sloka 3-4).

Two rows are less settled than they look. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 24 lists Leo among the day signs, while Sloka 23 says the four-footed signs are strong at night. And where BPHS and Saravali give Leo the stomach and Cancer the heart, the modern Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 223) makes Leo the seat of the heart. Two entries carry a rule for use: Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 5-6 says a benefic in a sign strengthens the corresponding limb and a malefic weakens it, and Sloka 25 says a rashi is strong when aspected by its lord, by a friend of its lord, or by Mercury or Jupiter.

Of all this the engine keeps four things: the two names (Leo, Simha), the lord (Sun), an element (Fire, from its own table; the Simh sloka names none) and the mobility (fixed). The element feeds the "dominant element" line among your Kundali quick insights. The mobility decides where the Navamsa count starts, which signs Leo aspects, and which house is flagged as the badhaka for a Leo Lagna.

Inside the sign: three nakshatras, nine padas

Thirty degrees hold two and a quarter nakshatras: all of Magha, all of Purva Phalguni and the first pada of Uttara Phalguni. 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 fixed sign from the ninth sign from it: for Leo, Aries. So the Moon's degree in Leo fixes three things at once: its nakshatra and pada, its Navamsa sign, and the lord of the first Vimshottari Mahadasha.

Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 13 names the fifth Navamsa of a fixed sign Vargottama and says a Lagna there makes the native an important person in his circle. The engine marks any graha or Lagna between 13 degrees 20 and 16 degrees 40 of Leo as Vargottama; the Navamsa (D9) calculator shows the flag and Navamsa, the second chart explains what it is for. Eight of the nine padas open life in the Mahadasha of Ketu or Venus; only the last opens it in the Sun's own six years.

The other divisions of Leo

• Hora (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 5-6; Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 14): Leo is an odd sign, so its first 15 degrees are the Sun's Hora (D2) and the last 15 the Moon's.
• Drekkana (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 7-8): 0 to 10 degrees falls in Leo, 10 to 20 in Sagittarius, 20 to 30 in Aries, as the Drekkana (D3) calculator shows.
• Trimshamsa (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 27-28; Saravali Ch. 3 Sl. 15): the odd-sign order, so 0 to 5 degrees Mars, 5 to 10 Saturn, 10 to 18 Jupiter, 18 to 25 Mercury, 25 to 30 Venus, as the Trimshamsa (D30) calculator shows.

Dignity: the Sun's own sign, and which 20 degrees

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50 lists the exaltation and debilitation signs of the seven grahas; Leo is not among them. Sloka 51-54 gives it to the Sun in two parts: the first 20 degrees are his Moolatrikona and the rest simply his own sign. Saravali Ch. 5 Sloka 21-24 and Bhrigu Sutras (p. 6) say the same, and this app's engine follows them: a Sun at 10 degrees of Leo reads "Moolatrikona", with 10 of 10 for positional strength, and a Sun at 25 degrees reads "Own sign", with 7.5 of 10. Until October 2026 the engine had the two parts the other way round, 20 to 30 degrees as Moolatrikona, from a textbook outside this corpus.

For the other six grahas the engine decides between friendly, neutral and hostile from the fivefold relationship with the Sun: the natural one, which is fixed, plus the temporary one of BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 56, which makes a graha in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th sign from another its friend for that chart, and its enemy anywhere else.

Two consequences follow. First, a graha that shares Leo with the Sun loses a step, because a graha in the same sign is a temporary enemy, and it may be combust: the engine marks the Moon within 12 degrees of the Sun, Mars within 17, Mercury within 14, Jupiter within 11, Venus within 10 and Saturn within 15, and its Shad Bala then sets that graha's positional strength to zero. Second, Mercury and Venus stay near the Sun. Across 1990-2039 the Sun was in Leo on 788 of the 1,564 days with Mercury there, so a Leo Mercury reads "Neutral" in half of all charts; with Venus in Leo it was there on 340 of 1,561 days, so about one Leo Venus in five reads "Enemy sign".

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 324) has a further name for Saturn in this sign: detrimented, opposite its own Aquarius. See the Shad Bala calculator and the Sun in Vedic astrology.

Each graha in Leo, as Saravali reads it

Saravali gives each graha a chapter of sign-by-sign results, followed by the aspects that modify them. The table paraphrases the Leo lines. Read it as the text's vocabulary for a placement, not as a forecast. The physical, dietary and sexual verdicts are left out.

Two patterns run through the table. Jupiter's aspect lifts every graha in Leo, and Saturn's aspect weighs on every one except Venus. And the vocabulary is the vocabulary of rank - king, minister, chief, army commander. The text and the dignity ladder do not always agree: Mercury, which the engine treats as being on friendly ground, gets one of the harshest sign lines, while Venus, on hostile ground, gets wealth and happiness. Bhrigu Sutras (p. 16) adds a line for the Sun in the 1st house: in Leo or in Leo Navamsa there, it gives lordship over some territory.

Leo rising: Simha Lagna

When Leo is on the eastern horizon the engine uses whole-sign houses: Leo is the 1st house, Virgo the 2nd, and so on. BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 29-30 then classes the grahas by the houses they rule. Mercury, Venus and Saturn are malefics; Mars, Jupiter and the Sun give auspicious effects; the conjunction of Jupiter with Venus brings no auspicious result although they rule a trine and an angle; and Saturn and the Moon are marakas, acting according to their associations. The engine's table holds exactly that list.

Mars: a Yoga Karaka by rule, not by name

Mars rules the 4th house, an angle, and the 9th, a trine. BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 13 says a graha that holds the lordship of both is a Yoga Karaka in a special degree, yet the Leo sloka only lists Mars among the auspicious, without the full-yoga wording it gives Mars for Cancer rising. The engine's table follows the per-Lagna slokas, so on a Leo-rising chart the app shows Mars as auspicious and names no Yoga Karaka. Later books say it outright. Bhrigu Sutras calls Mars a Yoga Karaka for Leo when it sits in Scorpio in the 4th (p. 50); Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 48) names Mars the Yoga Karaka for Leo Lagna. See Mars in Vedic astrology.

Jupiter and Venus: the yoga BPHS withholds

Jupiter rules the 5th house and Venus the 10th, a trine lord and an angle lord whose conjunction would normally count as a Raj Yoga. BPHS withholds it for this Lagna, and Sloka 15 of the same chapter states a proviso that fits: a kendra or kona lord that also owns an evil house does not cause the yoga by mere relationship. Jupiter also rules the 8th, Venus the 3rd. Here the engine does not follow BPHS Ch. 34. Its Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga, coded from the general rule of BPHS Ch. 41 Sloka 28, fires whenever an angle lord and a trine lord are conjunct or in mutual aspect: with Jupiter and Venus placed together in the 2nd, 5th or 10th house of a Leo Lagna, the row appeared each time, reading "Venus and Jupiter together". So if the Yogas calculator shows that pair on a Leo-rising chart, Parashara reads the same conjunction as unproductive. Venus also carries the engine's mild Kendradhipathya Dosha on every such chart, as a benefic owning the 10th.

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 a kendra from the Lagna. For Leo rising three can form: Ruchaka with Mars in Scorpio in the 4th, Malavya with Venus in Taurus in the 10th, and Sasa with Saturn in Aquarius in the 7th. The strong signs of Mercury and Jupiter fall outside the kendras, so Bhadra and Hamsa cannot. Two of the three are formed by grahas the Lagna list calls malefic, and Mars in the 4th is also one of the six houses the Mangal Dosha calculator flags, so a Ruchaka row and a mild Mangal Dosha row arrive together. What a yoga in your chart means and Mangal Dosha: what it is and is not put both in proportion.

Saravali Ch. 48 Sloka 18-21 describes birth with Leo rising: wealth and honour through the king, high office, majestic and bold, sparing of speech, firm in friendship, irascible, miserly, dutiful to family. The chapter closes with the condition that matters: the effects come in full only when the rising sign or its lord is strong. BPHS Ch. 41 Sloka 9 gives one such case: the Sun in Leo as the Lagna, joined or aspected by Mars and Jupiter, is a combination for wealth. The engine also flags the 9th as the badhaka house of a fixed-sign Lagna, so a graha in Aries carries the note "badhaka house (sensitive to affliction)"; BPHS Ch. 50 Sloka 20-21 states its badhaka rule for movable signs only, and the 9th for a fixed sign is from Chatterjee's Advanced Predictive Astrology, which calls the 9th of a fixed ascendant a Badhakasthana.

Leo among the signs: aspects, questions and matching

BPHS Ch. 8 Sloka 1-3 gives signs aspects of their own: a fixed sign aspects the three movable signs other than the one next to it. Leo therefore exchanges rashi drishti with Aries, Libra and Capricorn, but not with Cancer - for a Leo Lagna, its own 9th, 3rd and 6th houses. In horary work, Daivajna Vallabha Ch. 3 Sloka 5 says a query made while Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius rises gains the person some position or post, and the app's Prashna engine scores a fixed query ascendant exactly so.

A Leo Moon in Kundli matching

The app's Kundli Matching runs the eight-part Ashtakoot from the two Moons. For a Leo Moon, Graha Maitri scores its full 5 against a Moon in Aries, Cancer, Leo, Scorpio, Sagittarius or Pisces, and Bhakoot scores 0 of 7 against Aries, Cancer, Virgo, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Pisces; Graha Maitri scores 0 against Taurus, Libra, Capricorn and Aquarius. None of the engine's source books contains the Ashtakoot point tables; its header names the published references it follows; see the Compatibility feature.

A worked chart: Sun, Moon and Mercury rising in Leo

Take a birth at 06:00 IST on 9 September 1999 in New Delhi (28.6139 N, 77.2090 E). The engine puts the Lagna at 20.61 degrees of Leo, with the Sun, Moon and Mercury all rising in the sign. A Western column would call this birth a Virgo: the tropical Sun was at 16 degrees of Virgo while the sidereal Sun was at 22 degrees of Leo.

Most of this page shows up at once. The Sun at 22 degrees is past the 20-degree line, so the engine, like BPHS, labels it own sign rather than Moolatrikona. The Moon and Mercury share the sign with the Sun: each drops from friendly to neutral and both are combust, which is why a Moon in its friend's sign in the 1st house scores Weak. Mars in Scorpio in the 4th forms Ruchaka Yoga and, from the same placement, a mild Mangal Dosha. Jupiter and Saturn in Aries both carry the badhaka note, and the engine reports a Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga, "Saturn and Jupiter together", as lords of the 7th and 5th, although Saturn is debilitated. A yoga row states that a rule was met; it does not weigh the grahas that met it.

Timing follows the Moon. At 10.95 degrees it is in Magha pada 4, so life opened in Ketu's Mahadasha, which ran to 9 December 2000; Venus's followed to 2020, and the Sun's runs from 9 December 2020 to 9 December 2026, when the Moon's ten years begin. The engine grades the Sun and Mars periods good, the Moon period neutral and the Venus period challenging, Venus being in the 12th house.

Timing: dashas and transits through Leo

Dashas

A Moon in Leo opens life in one of three Mahadashas - Ketu, Venus or the Sun - by the nakshatra table above; the Vimshottari Dasha calculator dates the whole sequence and what a Mahadasha is explains the arithmetic. For a graha sitting in Leo, BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 5-6 gives the general test: the effects are favourable when the Dasha lord is in the Lagna, in exaltation or in its own sign, and unfavourable in the 6th, 8th or 12th house, in debilitation or in an inimical sign.

• The Sun: Sloka 7-11 read a Sun in its own rashi as wealth, felicity and honours from the government; Sloka 12-15 reverse that for a Sun weak in the 6th, 8th or 12th or joined by malefics. The engine grades a Leo Sun good unless Leo is one of those houses, as for Pisces, Capricorn and Virgo rising. See the Sun Mahadasha.
• Venus and Saturn: BPHS Ch. 50 Sloka 29-32 says the Dasha of a graha in an inimical rashi is full of adversity, and the Sun is the natural enemy of both. The engine grades them challenging when the Sun's position leaves Leo an enemy sign or when Leo is the 6th, 8th or 12th house, neutral otherwise. See the Venus Mahadasha and the Saturn Mahadasha.
• The Moon, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter: no sloka singles out Leo; the general test applies, and the engine grades them neutral outside the 6th, 8th and 12th houses. The Ketu Mahadasha covers the period that opens life for a Magha Moon.

In the sign-based Chara Dasha, a Leo Lagna runs its periods in zodiacal order - Leo, Virgo, Libra and so on - because the sign in its 9th house, Aries, is odd-footed (BPHS Ch. 46 Sloka 167). Leo itself is even-footed, so the length of its own period is counted backwards from Leo to the Sun: twelve years when the Sun is in Leo, one when it is in Cancer, eleven when it is in Virgo.

Transits

Sade Sati and Ashtama Sani for a Leo Moon

The engine calls Sade Sati active while Saturn transits the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from the natal Moon: for a Leo Moon, Cancer, Leo and Virgo. The last one ran, with two breaks, from 7 September 2004 to 5 August 2012. By the engine's astronomy the next rising phase begins on 13 July 2034; the peak, Saturn in Leo itself, opens on 28 August 2036; and the setting phase ends on 27 September 2041. The app words the period as "intensified pressure and restructuring", "not as an omen". Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 312) reports a North Indian school that holds only the first two and a half years adverse for a Leo Moon; the engine does not apply that. The Sade Sati calculator gives your phase.

On 5 October 2026 a different Saturn transit is running. Saturn is at 17.09 degrees of Pisces, the 8th sign from Leo, which the engine names Ashtama Sani: "a classically demanding transit for emotional and financial stability, traditionally read as a time to move carefully rather than take on new risk". It began on 1 April 2025 and lasts until 6 June 2027, returning from 16 October 2027 to 27 February 2028. The Ashtama Sani calculator reports it, the Gochar calculator grades Saturn's position testing, and the Timing feature page describes how the app combines periods and transits.

Common misreadings

• "I am a Leo" from a Western column is not Simha Rashi. The first is the tropical Sun; the second is the sidereal Moon, and the two zodiacs stand 24 degrees apart.
• The Sun is not exalted in Leo. Its exaltation is in Aries; Leo is its own sign and Moolatrikona, the Moolatrikona being the first 20 degrees in the books and in this app.
• Leo is not the heart in the classical lists. BPHS and Saravali give it the stomach and give the heart to Cancer; the heart reading comes from a modern book.
• A Raj Yoga row naming Jupiter and Venus on a Leo-rising chart is the engine's general rule. BPHS says that conjunction does not produce the yoga for this Lagna.

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 nakshatra and pada.
2. 2.Run the Lagna calculator with your birth time and place. If the time is uncertain, what an unknown birth time costs sets out what still holds.
3. 3.Open the Birth Chart calculator to see which grahas are in Leo, in which house, and where the Sun is. Read each against the dignity and Saravali tables, then the Lagna table if Leo rises.
4. 4.Check when it speaks: the Vimshottari Dasha calculator for the period of each graha in Leo, the Gochar calculator for today's transits from your Moon. The book behind every rule here is listed on the Sources page.

Is Simha Rashi the same as being a Leo in Western astrology?

No. Simha Rashi means the Moon was in sidereal Leo at birth, which happens for about 54 hours in every 27.3 days. A Western Leo has the tropical Sun in Leo, 23 July to 23 August in 2026; the sidereal Sun is there from 17 August to 17 September.

Who rules Leo, and is any planet exalted or debilitated there?

The Sun rules it (BPHS Ch. 4 Sloka 12), and Leo is the only sign the Sun owns. No graha is exalted or debilitated in Leo (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50). The sign holds the Sun's Moolatrikona: the first 20 degrees by Sloka 51-54.

My Sun is at 22 degrees of Leo. Why does the app say "Own sign" and not "Moolatrikona"?

Because the Sun's Moolatrikona is the first 20 degrees of Leo (BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 51-54, with Saravali and Bhrigu Sutras agreeing) and the rest is own sign. The app follows them, so a Sun at 12 degrees reads Moolatrikona and one at 22 reads own sign: 10 against 7.5 points of positional strength. Before October 2026 the app had the two parts reversed.

Which planets are good for a Leo Lagna, and is Mars a Yoga Karaka?

BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 29-30 names Mars, Jupiter and the Sun as auspicious, Mercury, Venus and Saturn as malefics, and Saturn and the Moon as marakas. It does not use the words Yoga Karaka for Leo, and neither does the app, although Mars rules the 4th and 9th. Two later books call Mars the Yoga Karaka outright.

When is the next Sade Sati for Simha Rashi, and what is running now?

By this app's astronomy the next Sade Sati starts when Saturn enters Cancer on 13 July 2034 and ends when it leaves Virgo on 27 September 2041. On 5 October 2026 it is not active, but Saturn in Pisces is the 8th from Leo, so Ashtama Sani runs until 2 June 2027 and again from 21 October 2027 to 22 February 2028.

Does a Moon in Leo describe my personality?

It gives one line, not a portrait. The app's line for a Moon in Leo is "ambitious and sensitive, strong-minded with a steady focus once engaged"; Saravali Ch. 23 Sloka 30 speaks of a charitable, valorous and dutiful nature. Both are modified by the Moon's house, its aspects and where the Sun sits.