The Moon (Chandra) in Vedic astrology: what the classical texts say, and where your chart uses it

Ask an Indian astrologer for your rashi and they mean the sign your Moon was in. Ask when your current planetary period began and the answer is counted from the Moon's nakshatra. Ask whether Saturn's transit concerns you and the count starts, again, from the Moon. Of the nine grahas, the Moon (Chandra, spelled Candr in the BPHS translation this page cites) is the one the rest of the system keeps measuring from. Why your rashi is a Moon sign, not a Sun sign is covered in its own article; this page is about the graha itself.

What follows collects what three classical texts say about the Moon - Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS), Kalyana Varma's Saravali and Bhrigu Sutras - and sets each claim beside what this app's engine actually computes. Where the texts disagree with each other, or the engine follows a different authority, that is said in place. Nothing here is a prediction about you. It is a description of the rules, with chapter and sloka, so you can hold them up against your own birth chart.

What the texts say the Moon is

BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 12-13 gives each graha one governance. The Sun is the soul of all; "Candr is the mind". Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 1-2 makes the same assignment and attaches a working rule to it: when the graha that signifies something is strong at birth, that signification is strong, and when it is weak the effect is meagre (Saturn, the text adds, works differently). Bhrigu Sutras opens its own section on the Moon under the heading "Moon - the Mother and Mind".

Both older texts give the Moon royal rank. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 14-15 calls the Sun and the Moon the royal pair, with Mars as army chief, Mercury as prince, Jupiter and Venus as ministers and Saturn as servant. Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 7 repeats the cabinet and adds that a person takes on the qualities of whichever planet is strongest in the chart. The physical portraits agree in tone as well. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 24 describes Candr as windy and phlegmatic, learned, round-bodied, pleasant to look at, sweet in speech and fickle-minded; Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 22 has a mellifluous voice, a soft and sattvic disposition, kindness, friendliness and, again, a fickle mind. Pleasant, learned and changeable is the consistent picture.

Bhrigu Sutras (Part I, pp. 6-7) adds material of a more modern kind. The Moon shines only by reflected light and is called a conductor of the power the Sun generates; the Sun stands for individuality and the Moon for personality; it rules liquids, milk, public commodities, sailing and nursing, and people "ruled by" it are said to do well in occupations of a common, public or fluctuating nature. It also gives the Moon's round of the zodiac as 27 days, 7 hours and 43 minutes. That works out to 27.32 days, which is the same sidereal period this app's own rules document uses as a validation anchor for its astronomy.

Karaka: whom the Moon signifies

BPHS Ch. 32 ties the Moon to the mother three ways. Sl. 18-21: the stronger of Candr and Mangal indicates the mother. Sl. 22-24: the 4th house counted from the Moon describes the mother, just as the 9th from the Sun describes the father. Sl. 31-34: in the list of natural significators of the twelve bhavas, the 4th belongs to Candr. So the Moon and the 4th house (Sukha Bhava) are linked twice over, which is also the house where the Moon gains directional strength (below).

The same chapter, Sl. 3-17, describes a second kind of significator that moves from chart to chart. The seven grahas are ranked by how far each has travelled through its own sign; the furthest is Atma Karaka, the next Amatya Karaka, and so on down. The Moon can land in any of those roles. The Char Karakas calculator ranks them exactly that way, and if the Moon comes out on top, its navamsa sign becomes your Karakamsa.

Benefic or malefic: the phase decides, and "waning" is not "weak"

Every source agrees the Moon's nature depends on its phase. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11 lists the Sun, Saturn, Mars, the decreasing Moon, Rahu and Ketu as malefics and the rest as benefics. BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 8-10 grades it further: Candr is "mediocre in benefice"; among benefics a full Moon is the mildest, followed by Mercury, Jupiter and Venus; among malefics a weak Moon is the mildest, followed by the Sun, Saturn and Mars. Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 9 counts the waning Moon a malefic, and Bhrigu Sutras says the same in one line.

Where the sources become more interesting is in what "waning" means numerically. A note added by the translator, R. Santhanam, after BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11 - attributed to the Yavanas and to Saravali, not to Parashara - measures the Moon by how far it is ahead of the Sun: medium strength up to 120 degrees, very auspicious from 120 to 240, bereft of strength from 240 back round to 0. Saravali Ch. 5 Sl. 16-17 states the same rule in lunar days. A tithi is 12 degrees of Moon-Sun separation (that is how this app's lunarDay() counts it), so ten tithis are 120 degrees and the two statements line up exactly.

Read the middle row carefully. The first five days of the dark fortnight, Krishna Pratipada to Krishna Panchami, are "waning" by the paksha definition and sit inside the Moon's strongest band by this one. Santhanam's note adds a second qualification: a waning Moon that is joined by or aspected by a benefic turns benefic. In these texts "waning" and "weak" are not synonyms, and a chart reading that treats every Krishna Paksha Moon as a weak Moon has collapsed two different statements into one.

What this app does with the phase

The engine lists the Moon among the natural benefics unconditionally - the BENEFICS list in kundaliEngine.js contains it whatever the phase - so its yoga tests, the aspect part of its Shad Bala and its transit rules do not switch the Moon to malefic in the dark fortnight. The paksha half of Kala bala is a fixed 0.5 for every graha, and the code says so rather than guessing. The phase is used in two places: the muhurat scorer adds 7 points in Shukla Paksha and takes away 4 in Krishna, and the daily reading nudges its energy score by +0.5 or -0.3. To place your own birth Moon in the table above, the Moon phase calculator reports the elongation in degrees, the tithi, the paksha and the percentage illuminated.

Dignity: one exaltation sign, one own sign, and a Moolatrikona inside the exaltation sign

BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 puts the Moon's exaltation in Vrishabh (Taurus), deepest at 3 degrees, and its debilitation in the seventh sign from there, Vrischik (Scorpio), deepest at the same 3 degrees. Sl. 51-54 adds that after the first 3 degrees of Taurus the rest of the sign is the Moon's Moolatrikona. Saravali Ch. 5 Sl. 21-24 and Bhrigu Sutras say the same. The Moon owns one sign, Karka (Cancer); Bhrigu Sutras notes that the Sun and the Moon are the only grahas that rule a single sign each.

The engine stores exactly these values: exaltation Taurus, own sign Cancer, debilitation Scorpio, deep debilitation at 3 degrees, Moolatrikona from 3 to 30 degrees of Taurus. One wrinkle is visible if you read the code. dignityOf() tests for exaltation before it tests for Moolatrikona, so a Moon anywhere in Taurus is labelled "Exalted", including the 27 degrees the texts call Moolatrikona. It changes no number: the engine gives both the same full strength.

The strength numbers themselves come from a different ladder than BPHS's. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 59-60 gives the share of good effects a graha can deliver: full in exaltation, three quarters in Moolatrikona, half in its own sign, a quarter in a friend's sign, an eighth in a neutral sign, nothing in debilitation or an enemy's sign. The engine's position score, which its comments attribute to S. Kannan's Fundamentals of Hindu Astrology, uses full marks (10) for exaltation and Moolatrikona, 7.5 for own sign, 6.25 for a friendly sign, 5 for neutral and 0 for an enemy sign or debilitation. Same order, different spacing. The numbers you see in the Shad Bala calculator are the second ladder.

Friends, enemies, and the half of the answer that depends on your chart

Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 28-29 gives the Moon two natural friends, the Sun and Mercury, and no enemies at all. The friendship is not returned in full: the same sloka has Mercury counting the Moon an enemy, and Venus and Saturn likewise. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55 reaches the same list by a count. The lords of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 12th signs from a graha's Moolatrikona, plus the lord of its exaltation sign, are its friends; the lords of the other signs are its enemies; a graha on both lists is neutral. Run that from Taurus. The friendly signs are Gemini and Virgo (Mercury), Leo (the Sun), Sagittarius (Jupiter), Capricorn (Saturn) and Aries (Mars), with Venus added as lord of the exaltation sign. Libra, Scorpio, Aquarius and Pisces fall outside the count, so Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter are on both lists and come out neutral. Only the Sun and Mercury are friends outright, and nobody is left as an enemy. The engine stores that result as a table (its comment cites Kannan's Table B).

Natural friendship is only half of how a sign is graded. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 56 adds a temporary relationship that belongs to one chart: a graha placed in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th sign from another is its friend in that chart, and in any other position its enemy. Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 30 gives the same six positions and names the rest - the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. BPHS Sl. 57-58 (Saravali Sl. 31) then combine the two: friend on both counts is a great friend, neutral plus friend a friend, friend on one count and enemy on the other neutral, neutral plus enemy an enemy, enemy on both a great enemy.

The engine's dignityOf() is built on that scheme, with one condition worth knowing. Its temporary half is Sl. 56 read from the chart - where the Moon and the lord of its sign actually sit - and the function applies it only when it is handed the chart. When it is not, it does not guess, and the natural relation stands alone. The Shad Bala, planet-in-house and Mahadasha readings pass your chart, so the label you see for your Moon is one of the last two columns, depending on where the sign's lord sits. The third column is the natural relation alone, for reference.

Three things fall out of the table. Taurus, Cancer and Scorpio never move, because exaltation, own sign and debilitation are settled before any friendship is consulted. Because the Moon has no natural enemies, the natural-only column has no "Enemy sign" in it: outside Scorpio, the weakest label it shows is Neutral, at half marks. And the chart-based half cuts both ways. In the signs of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn it lifts the Moon when that lord is within three signs either side and drops it when the lord is further off or in the Moon's own sign, which counts as the 1st; in Gemini, Leo and Virgo it can only take something away. If another program calls a Sagittarius Moon "friendly" in one chart and "enemy" in another, it is probably applying Sl. 56, and neither answer is a typo.

Each sign has its own page: Aries, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces, alongside the three linked above.

Rays, combustion and the avasthas

The engine also computes a continuous figure, Saravali Ch. 36's planetary rays: the shorter arc from the graha to its own deep debilitation point, scaled to a maximum of 7. For the Moon that point is 3 degrees Scorpio, so the Moon has 7 rays at 3 degrees Taurus and none at 3 degrees Scorpio. In the worked example the Moon sits at 15.43 degrees Taurus, 12.43 degrees past its peak, and scores 6.52.

Combustion matters more for the Moon than people expect. The engine flags the Moon combust when it is within 12 degrees of the Sun, which is the tithi either side of the new Moon, and a combust graha has its Shad Bala position score set to zero - the engine cites the rule that a planet in combustion has no strength. Saravali Ch. 5 Sl. 2-4 names the classical states this sits beside: a planet in exaltation is Dipta (radiant), in its own sign Svastha, in a friend's sign Mudita, in its fall Bhita, and combust Vikala.

The Moon in the twelve signs: what Saravali Ch. 23 reads

Saravali gives the Moon a whole chapter by sign. Each of the twelve signs gets a base sloka and then six more, one for the Moon in that sign aspected by each of the Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn - 84 readings in all. Sl. 88 closes with the condition that governs all of them: the effects come to pass in full only if the Moon, the Moon's sign and the lord of that sign are all strong, and they vary with the dignity of that lord and of the aspecting planet.

The chapter mixes temperament with physical description, predictions about family members and a number of lines this app does not repeat. The middle column below carries only the temperament and conduct words, paraphrased. The right-hand column is the line this app prints for your Moon sign (buildSignEffects), which its code attributes to a different source, Kannan's chapter on the Moon in each sign.

The 72 aspect lines have patterns of their own. Jupiter's aspect on the Moon reads favourably in all twelve signs - learning, wealth, virtue or high office in each. Saturn's reads favourably in only two, a Libra Moon (affluence and sweet speech) and a Sagittarius Moon (truthful, learned, soft-spoken); in its own signs, Capricorn and Aquarius, it brings money alongside unfavourable traits, and elsewhere it is unfavourable. Mercury's aspect mostly reads as learning, speech or skill, and poorly for a Scorpio or Capricorn Moon. So the same Saravali that is harsh about a Scorpio Moon also says, Sl. 52-57, that Mars's aspect on it gives great courage and wealth and Jupiter's gives a dutiful, wealthy person. Sign alone is never the whole reading in this text.

Saravali Ch. 24 repeats the exercise for the Moon's navamsa, and its last slokas (22-24) set the scope: the navamsa effects are full when the Moon is Vargottama (the same sign in the birth chart and the navamsa), medium in its own navamsa and minor in any other; and if the navamsa lord is stronger than the sign lord, the navamsa effects prevail. The Navamsa calculator marks a Vargottama Moon directly. The worked example's Moon, at 15.43 degrees Taurus, is Vargottama. Why the navamsa needs your birth time to the minute is explained in the Navamsa article.

One more division belongs to the Moon by name. BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 5-6 splits every sign into two Horas: in an odd sign the first half is the Sun's and the second the Moon's, reversed in an even sign. Ch. 7 Sl. 13-16 says Candr, Shukr and Shani give pronounced effects when they sit in Candr's Hora. The Hora (D2) calculator shows which half each graha is in. Taurus is an even sign, so the worked example's Moon, past 15 degrees, is in the Sun's Hora rather than its own.

The Moon in the twelve houses

Two classical treatments are in the corpus. Saravali Ch. 30 Sl. 14-25 gives one sloka per house. Bhrigu Sutras gives the Moon 71 sutras across the twelve houses, each block followed by a modern commentary and by "other views" from Brihat Jataka, Phaladeepika, Saravali and Chamatkar Chintamani. The commentary is where the general rules are, and three of them recur.

• Sign matters inside the house. On the Moon in the 1st (Sutras 1-8) the author, Saravali and Chamatkar Chintamani all single out Aries, Taurus and Cancer as the good signs, and the commentator notes that Brihat Jataka's harsh reading is meant for a weak or waning Moon.
• Phase matters inside the house. The commentator wants a waxing or full Moon for the good results in full, and several sutras turn on it outright - in the 4th (Sutras 19-24), a full Moon or one in Cancer keeps the mother well and brings conveyances, while a waning Moon takes them away.
• Lordship can override sign. The commentator expects a Moon in Scorpio, Libra or Pisces in the 1st to do well because it would then rule the 9th, 10th or 5th, and warns (after Sutras 9-14) that a Moon in the 2nd will not give good results as lord of the 6th, 8th or 12th, which happens for Aquarius, Sagittarius and Leo rising.

This app's planet-in-house reading is built on Bhrigu Sutras' Moon chapter, rewritten after reading it and with its predictions about relatives' lives, illicit affairs and the afterlife left out. It prints a favourable line only when the Moon has a strong dignity - exalted, Moolatrikona, own sign or a friendly sign - and is not in the 6th, 8th or 12th. With the labels as they stand in the sign table above, that means a Moon in Taurus, Cancer, Gemini, Leo or Virgo; we confirmed it on twelve charts, one per Moon sign. Anywhere else it prints the testing line. That makes the house column below a fair test of what the app will say: in the 6th, 8th and 12th the favourable line is never shown, whatever the sign.

Each house has its own page with the full sutras and the other views: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th.

One house carries a strength of its own. BPHS Ch. 27 Sl. 7 measures the Moon's directional strength from the Karm Bhava, so it peaks opposite the 10th, in the 4th; Saravali Ch. 4 Sl. 35 says the Moon and Venus have directional strength in the 4th, the North. The engine gives the Moon the full 4 points in the 4th house and none in the 10th, falling off evenly in between - the even fall-off is the engine's own interpolation, since the texts give only the peak. The 10th still has its admirers for other reasons: S.S. Chatterjee (Advanced Predictive Astrology Vol. II, p. 25) notes that Saravali praises a full Moon there, and offers his own view that a full Moon in the 10th with a good Venus or Jupiter aspect does better than a good Sun in the 10th.

House lordship: the same Moon, a different job for each rising sign

BPHS Ch. 34 judges a graha by the houses it rules from the ascendant, separately from where it sits. Sl. 2-7 set the rules: lords of trines are good, lords of the 3rd, 6th and 11th give evil effects, and benefics owning kendras lose some of their benefice - though Sl. 8-10 rank the Moon as the least affected of the four benefics on that count. Sl. 7 ends with a line specific to the luminaries: owning the 8th is not evil for the Sun or the Moon. Sl. 19-44 then go through the twelve rising signs. Because the Moon rules only Cancer, it rules exactly one house in every chart.

Three lenses on one Moon

The worked example shows why lordship has to be read separately. 3 November 2001, 19:50 IST, Mumbai: Taurus rises at 16.56 degrees, and the Moon is at 15.43 degrees Taurus in Rohini pada 2, in the 1st house, with retrograde Saturn in the same sign and Jupiter in Gemini.

• Dignity lens: the Moon is exalted. The planet-in-house reading is the favourable 1st-house line, and the Shad Bala total is 16.25 of 20 - position 10, aspect 1.5, natural 0.75, motion 1, direction 2, time 1 for a night birth - which the engine bands as Strong.
• Lordship lens: with Taurus rising the Moon rules the 3rd house, and BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 23-24 lists it among the malefics for this ascendant. The engine's Mahadasha reading for this chart adds a 3rd-lord theme: an effort-heavy period for courage and sibling matters.
• Commentary lens: on exactly this placement the Bhrigu Sutras commentator is unsure, and quotes Bhavartha Ratnakar that a Moon in a Taurus ascendant is not particularly good for wealth.

None of the three cancels the others; they answer different questions - how well placed the Moon is, what job it holds in this chart, and what commentators have observed of it. The engine reports them side by side rather than netting them into a single verdict. One more detail from the same chart: Saturn shares the Moon's sign, but the engine's aspect score counts aspects only, not conjunction, so the Moon's aspect component is the "no aspect" 1.5 rather than the malefic 0.

Aspects: one drishti out, many in

BPHS Ch. 26 Sl. 2-5 describes partial aspects for every graha - a quarter on the 3rd and 10th houses from it, a half on the 5th and 9th, three quarters on the 4th and 8th - and a full aspect on the 7th. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars alone get special full aspects (3rd and 10th, 5th and 9th, 4th and 8th). The Moon has none of those, so its only full drishti is on the 7th house from itself. Sl. 6-12 then give degree-based formulae for the exact strength of an aspect.

This app's aspect model is the whole-sign version: every graha aspects the 7th sign from itself, and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn add their special aspects. For the Moon that means one aspected house. The quarter, half and three-quarter partial aspects and the degree formulae are not computed, so if another program shows the Moon with a weighted aspect on your 4th or 8th, it is implementing Sl. 2-12 more fully than this one does.

What the Moon receives gets more attention in the texts than what it casts. Beyond Saravali's 72 aspect lines, BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 2-4 gives a rule split by time of birth: for a day birth, a Moon in its own or a friendly navamsa that receives Jupiter's aspect brings wealth and happiness; for a night birth the same holds with Venus in Jupiter's place; the reverse arrangement is read as little wealth. Chatterjee repeats the rule (Vol. II, p. 146) as something that raises whatever the Sun-Moon relationship allows. The engine does not test it, but every input is on your chart: whether the birth was by day, the Moon's navamsa sign, and which grahas aspect the Moon's house.

Yogas measured from the Moon

A whole family of yogas is counted not from the ascendant but from wherever the Moon sits. BPHS gives them a chapter of their own (Ch. 37, "Candr's Yogas") and Saravali does the same (Ch. 13, "Lunar Yogas"). The table lists each rule, where it comes from, and whether this app computes it.

All of the computed ones are reported, with the grahas that triggered them, by the yogas calculator. Two details are worth knowing. Saravali Ch. 13 Sl. 3 counts 30 kinds of Sunapha, 30 of Anapha and 180 of Durudhura once you vary which grahas form them, and Sl. 10-29 give a separate reading for each graha and pair; the engine gives one reading per yoga instead. And Sl. 8-9 say these yogas give results according to the state of the Moon itself - its rays, whether full or new - and the strength of the grahas forming them, which the engine does not grade.

Kemadruma is the one where the texts visibly disagree. Saravali Ch. 13 Sl. 2, in this translation, forms it when none of the three yogas above is present, "or" the kendras from the Moon are empty, "or" the Moon is unaspected. BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 11-13 forms it when, the Sun excepted, no graha is with the Moon, in the 2nd or 12th from it, or in a kendra from the ascendant. The engine takes the strictest reading: no Sunapha, Anapha or Durudhura, and no graha in a kendra from the Moon, and no graha aspecting the Moon's house - all three at once. That makes it rarer here than in a program that reads Saravali's "or" literally. The texts' effects for it are bleak; the engine words it as a Moon that lacks the automatic support other placements get, and leaves the arithmetic visible so you can see how narrow the rule was.

The Sun-Moon relationship is a rare case of three sources agreeing and a fourth dissenting. BPHS Ch. 37 Sl. 1 and Saravali Ch. 13 Sl. 30 both say that a Moon in a kendra from the Sun gives little wealth, learning and skill, one in a panaphara (2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th) a middling amount, and one in an apoklima (3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th) an excellent amount; Chatterjee (Vol. II, pp. 145-146) cites Brihat Jataka Ch. 13 Sl. 1 for the same three levels. On the same page he quotes M.V. Subba Rao for the opposite: a Moon in a kendra from the Sun makes a person highly educated, wealthy and respected. The app scores neither view. To count it yourself, find the Sun's sign and the Moon's sign on your birth chart and count from the first to the second.

Gaj Kesari gets its own treatment in what a yoga in your chart means, including how often the rule fires (about one chart in six; the angle from the Moon alone would be one in three, since four of the twelve sign relationships qualify). Of Mudrika, Chatterjee writes (Vol. II, pp. 28-29) that he considers the Jupiter-Venus-Moon combination superior to Gaja Kesari; that is one author's view from his case studies, and the app reports the yoga without ranking it.

Strength: the Moon in this app's Shad Bala

BPHS Ch. 27 describes six-fold strength (Shad Bala) in Virupas, with a long list of sub-components, and Sl. 32-33 say Candr needs 360 Virupas to count as strong. This app does not compute Virupas. Its Shad Bala is a simplified 20-point version that its code attributes to Kannan's Ch. VI, and the code marks every place where it had to interpolate. For the Moon the six parts work like this.

Two more strength systems use the Moon. BPHS Ch. 66 Sl. 13-15 introduces Ashtakavarga by saying that houses are judged from the ascendant and from Candr, and Sl. 20-22 give the Moon's own chart: 47 of its 96 places marked as inauspicious, which leaves 49 benefic. The engine's table for the Moon has exactly 49 benefic places, and the Ashtakavarga calculator shows them by house. The Vimshopaka Bala calculator scores the Moon across the divisional charts by BPHS Ch. 7's weights.

Timing, part one: the Moon starts the Vimshottari clock

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15 sets out Vimshottari Dasha: starting from Krittika, the nakshatras are assigned in turn to the Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu and Venus, and the periods are 6, 10, 7, 18, 16, 19, 17, 7 and 20 years. The nakshatra the Moon occupies at birth chooses the first period. The Moon's own share is 10 years, and its three nakshatras are Rohini, Hasta and Shravana - the engine finds the lord by the nakshatra's position in the list of 27, counted in steps of nine, which lands the Moon on exactly those three. How the whole 120-year cycle works has its own article.

There is a quiet difference in how the first period's balance is worked out. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 16 uses time: multiply the Dasha years by the time the Moon has already spent in the birth nakshatra, and divide by the total time it stays there. This engine uses arc: the fraction of the nakshatra's 13 degrees 20 minutes already crossed. Because the Moon's speed changes, the two are close but not equal. We ran four births through the engine's own Moon positions: the balances differed by about 1, 1, 6 and 14 days, the largest in a 17-year Mercury period. In those four samples the Moon took between 23.0 and 27.1 hours to cross one nakshatra and moved between 11.9 and 14.0 degrees a day - the low end under the 13 to 15 degrees given in Santhanam's note to BPHS Ch. 3.

Timing, part two: the Moon's own Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 47 Sl. 16-22 describes a Moon Dasha with prosperity, gains, auspicious events at home, a rise in position, conveyances and children, when the Moon is exalted or in its own sign, in a kendra, in the 11th, 9th or 5th, joined or aspected by benefics, fully strong, and linked with the lord of the 10th, 9th or 4th; such a Moon in the 2nd adds unusual gains. Sl. 23-26 give the other side: a waning or debilitated Moon brings loss of wealth; in the 3rd, happiness comes and goes; joined with malefics, mental strain, friction with employees and strain involving the mother; a waning Moon in the 6th, 8th or 12th, friction with authority and losses; and a strong Moon in those houses, troubles and good times by turns.

Two framing rules sit around those lines. Ch. 47 Sl. 3-4: a graha in the first drekkana (0 to 10 degrees) of its sign gives its Dasha results at the start, in the second (10 to 20) in the middle, in the third (20 to 30) at the end - and the Moon is never retrograde, so the order is never reversed for it. Sl. 5-6: a Dasha lord in the ascendant, exaltation, its own or a friendly sign is favourable; in the 6th, 8th or 12th, debilitation or an enemy's sign, unfavourable.

That Sl. 5-6 test is what this app applies when the Moon is your Mahadasha lord, the same as for any other graha. It does not add Sl. 23's separate condition about a waning Moon. On the favourable side it describes the period as tending toward emotional steadiness, domestic good fortune and a rise in standing at home and publicly; on the testing side, restlessness, financial ups and downs and strain with mother figures. The Moon Mahadasha page goes through it in detail, and the Vimshottari Dasha calculator gives your dates.

The sub-periods have a tidy arithmetic in this Dasha. Each Antardasha takes its lord's share of the parent, its own years out of 120, and the Moon Dasha is 10 years, or 120 months. So inside a Moon Mahadasha every Antardasha lasts exactly as many months as its lord has years in Vimshottari. BPHS Ch. 53 takes them in the same order the engine does, starting from the Moon itself.

Ch. 53 judges each sub-lord twice: from the ascendant (kendras and trikonas good; the 6th, 8th and 12th difficult) and from the Moon as Dasha lord, where the 6th, 8th and 12th from the Moon are the recurring difficult positions and the 3rd, 11th, kendras and trikonas the supportive ones. The chapter also prescribes charities and recitations for the difficult cases; this app does not reproduce those. The mechanics of sub-periods are in Antardasha and Pratyantardasha.

Saravali adds two ideas about the Moon and timing in general. Ch. 41 Sl. 9 says the Sun ripens the effects of a Dasa and the Moon sustains them, which is why the transiting Moon's position at the moment a Dasa begins is to be examined; Sl. 17-18 call that Moon helpful when it is in a friendly or exaltation sign, in an upachaya (3rd, 6th, 10th, 11th), or 5th, 9th or 7th from the Dasa lord. And Sl. 60-65 sort the Moon's own Dasa into six kinds - exalted, debilitated, in a friendly sign, in an enemy sign, waning and waxing - each with its own verdict; some of those verdicts are severe enough that this page does not repeat them. Chatterjee (Vol. II, p. 38) adds a claim of his own from case studies: that a Moon in Gaja Kesari gives its best Dasha results after the age of 21 and not before. That is his observation, and nothing in this app tests it.

Timing, part three: the Moon as the reference for transits

Most transit reading in this app is counted from the natal Moon, not the ascendant. The Gochar calculator follows Kannan's chapter on transits as the engine records it: benefics are favourable in the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th from the Moon and testing in the 1st, 4th, 8th and 12th; malefics are favourable in the 3rd, 6th and 11th as well as the 2nd and testing in the 1st, 4th, 8th and 12th; and every graha is favourable in the 11th. The transiting Moon itself appears in neither of the source's two lists, so the engine gives it the benefic rules, as it counts the Moon a benefic everywhere. It also flags the source's "intensified" positions, and for the Moon that is the 8th from your natal Moon. The Moon crosses a sign in about two and a quarter days, so any one of these lasts about that long.

Saturn is measured from the Moon too. Sade Sati is Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from your natal Moon, in three phases of roughly two and a half years each. Ardha Ashtama and Ashtama Sani are Saturn in the 4th and 8th from the Moon, which the engine takes from Advanced Predictive Astrology Vol. I. All three need only your birth date, because they need only your Moon sign - which is also why a birth near a sign change can flip the answer. Without a birth time the calculators work out the verdict for the Moon at both ends of the birth date and say so when the two disagree.

Day-scale timing leans on the Moon most of all. The daily reading is driven by the house the transiting Moon is passing through, counted from your ascendant - or from your Moon sign when you have no birth time, the classical Chandra Lagna fallback. In the muhurat finder, four of the seven scored factors are readings of the Moon: the nakshatra it is in, the house it transits, the tithi and the paksha. And Kundli matching derives all eight kootas of Guna Milan from the two people's Moon nakshatras and Moon signs - the Sun, the ascendant and the other grahas play no part in the 36-point score.

How to check your own Moon in this app

1. 1.Open the birth chart with your date, time and place. The Moon row gives its sign, degree, nakshatra and pada, and its house if the place resolved.
2. 2.If you have no birth time, the Moon sign and nakshatra calculators work from the date alone. They read the Moon at local noon and again at the two ends of that date, 00:00 and 23:59, and tell you when the sign or nakshatra differs between them. The Moon covers about 13.2 of a sign's 30 degrees a day, so a sign change falls inside a little under half of all birth dates (1,604 of 3,653 consecutive dates when we counted) and a nakshatra change inside nearly all of them.
3. 3.Read the dignity off the sign table on this page. Check the degree too: within 3 degrees of 3 Taurus or 3 Scorpio is near the deep exaltation or debilitation point.
4. 4.Run the Moon phase calculator for your birth moment and place the elongation in the three strength bands above. Note whether you were born within 12 degrees of the Sun, which the engine treats as combust.
5. 5.Count the houses: which house the Moon occupies, and which house Cancer falls in, for the lordship table. The Lagna calculator gives the rising sign.
6. 6.Run the yogas calculator for Sunapha, Anapha, Durudhura, Kemadruma, Adhi, Amala, Mudrika and Gaj Kesari, and the Shad Bala calculator for the 20-point strength.
7. 7.Check the Navamsa for a Vargottama Moon, and the Vimshottari Dasha for when the Moon's own Mahadasha and Antardashas fall in your life.
8. 8.For the full reading with the Bhrigu Sutras house line, the Yoga Karaka roles and the Dasha reading side by side, use the Kundali feature, and the accuracy page to see how much each result depends on your birth time.

Common misreadings

• "My Moon sign is my star sign." It is not; they are different bodies measured against different zodiacs. The rashi article explains the 24-degree offset.
• "An exalted Moon is good for everything." Exaltation answers how well the Moon is placed. BPHS Ch. 34 asks a different question - what job the Moon holds from your ascendant - and for Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn and Aquarius rising it calls the Moon a malefic. The worked example on this page is exalted and a functional malefic at once.
• "A Krishna Paksha Moon is a weak Moon." Saravali Ch. 5 and Santhanam's note to BPHS Ch. 3 put the first five days of the dark fortnight in the Moon's strongest band. The weak stretch is the last ten tithis.
• "A Scorpio Moon is ruined." Debilitation zeroes one part of the engine's score. Saravali's own aspect lines read a Scorpio Moon aspected by Mars or Jupiter favourably, and its Sl. 88 makes every sign reading depend on the dispositor and the aspecting planet.
• "The Moon aspects the 4th and 8th." In BPHS Ch. 26 every graha has three-quarter aspects there, but full special aspects belong only to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The Moon's only full aspect is the 7th.
• "Kemadruma means poverty." It is a narrow geometric rule that three texts word three ways, and this app uses the strictest of them. Even Saravali says lunar yogas give results according to the Moon's own state.
• "The Moon rules water, so it is the water element." Neither BPHS nor Saravali gives it an element; both give water to Venus.
• "A Moon Mahadasha is an emotional decade." BPHS Ch. 47 ties the Moon Dasha to the Moon's dignity, house, phase and associations, and Ch. 53 splits it into nine sub-periods of 6 to 20 months, each judged separately.

Questions people ask about the Moon

Why does Vedic astrology make so much of the Moon?

Partly doctrine and partly mechanics. BPHS and Saravali make the Moon the mind and give it royal rank, and BPHS Ch. 66 says houses are judged from the Moon as well as the ascendant. Mechanically, the Moon's nakshatra starts the Vimshottari Dasha, transits and Sade Sati are counted from it, and Guna Milan uses nothing else.

Is the Moon a benefic or a malefic?

Both, by phase. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 11 makes the decreasing Moon a malefic and Ch. 34 calls Candr "mediocre in benefice". How much of the month counts as weak differs: by Saravali Ch. 5 only the last ten tithis are. This app counts the Moon a benefic in all its yoga, aspect and transit rules.

Where is the Moon exalted and debilitated, and to what degree?

Exalted in Taurus, deepest at 3 degrees; debilitated in Scorpio, deepest at 3 degrees (BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50). The rest of Taurus after 3 degrees is its Moolatrikona, and Cancer is its own sign. See Taurus and Scorpio.

Which houses does the Moon aspect?

Only the 7th from itself, fully. BPHS Ch. 26 gives every graha partial aspects on the 3rd/10th, 5th/9th and 4th/8th, but this app computes whole-sign full aspects only, so for the Moon it shows one aspected house.

How long is the Moon Mahadasha, and how long are its sub-periods?

Ten years. Inside it, each Antardasha lasts as many months as its lord has Vimshottari years: Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19, Mercury 17, Ketu 7, Venus 20, Sun 6. The Moon Mahadasha page covers what BPHS says about each.

Does the Moon's phase at my birth matter?

All three texts say it does, and they measure it by the Moon's distance ahead of the Sun. The Moon phase calculator gives that distance, so you can see which of Saravali's three bands your Moon was in.

What is Kemadruma Yoga, and should I worry if I have it?

It is a Moon with no graha beside it, no graha in a kendra from it and no aspect on it, in this app's strict reading. BPHS and Saravali word it differently and Saravali makes lunar yogas depend on the Moon's own state. It is a description of a geometry, not a forecast.

Why does the app call my Moon combust?

The engine flags the Moon combust within 12 degrees of the Sun - a birth within about a day of the new Moon - and sets its Shad Bala position score to zero. The other five parts of the score still count.

My Moon is exalted, but the reading calls it a functional malefic. Which is right?

Both. Dignity says how well the Moon is placed; BPHS Ch. 34 says what job it holds from your ascendant. For Taurus rising the Moon rules the 3rd and is listed as a malefic even though it is exalted there.

Can I find my Moon without a birth time?

Usually its sign, yes. The Moon sign calculator works from the date and says whether the Moon changed sign that day. House placement and lordship need the time and place.