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

Vrishchika, the scorpion, is the eighth sign of the zodiac. It belongs to Mars, it is the one sign in which the Moon is debilitated, and none of the seven grahas is exalted in it. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) also calls it the exaltation sign of Ketu, which later books dispute. The classical texts read the sign through its emblem, an animal that lives in a hole and carries a sting, and Saravali is harder on it than on almost any other sign.

This page sets out what BPHS, Saravali and the other source texts behind this app say about Scorpio, with chapter and sloka, and how the engine turns the sign into the lines in your own chart. It describes rules, not people. To see whether Scorpio matters in your chart at all, start with the Moon Sign calculator.

Three different things are called "Scorpio"

In Vedic practice, "my rashi is Vrishchika" means the Moon was in sidereal Scorpio at birth. The Moon crosses the sign in a little over two days: in this engine it made 133 passes between 2020 and 2029, lasting 47.3 to 60.7 hours, 54.2 on average. The next runs from 19:13 IST on 13 October 2026 to 06:48 IST on 16 October. Everyone with this rashi has a debilitated Moon by definition. Moon sign and nakshatra explains why the Moon, not the Sun, is the default.

The Sun is in sidereal Scorpio for about thirty days a year: from 19:35 IST on 16 November to 10:15 IST on 16 December 2026. Western Sun-sign columns use the tropical zodiac, which puts it there from 23 October to 22 November. The gap is the Lahiri ayanamsa, 24.2266 degrees on 5 October 2026 in this engine, as the Methodology page describes. So most magazine Scorpios have the Sun in sidereal Libra, where it is debilitated. The Sun Sign calculator gives the sidereal answer.

The third meaning is Vrishchika Lagna: Scorpio rising in the east at birth. At New Delhi on 5 October 2026 it rose from 09:37 to 11:55 IST, 138 minutes, against 85 for Pisces; Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 37-38 lists Scorpio among the signs of long ascension. The window moves about two hours earlier each month: 02:55 to 05:13 on 15 January 2026, 20:57 to 23:15 on 15 April, 14:59 to 17:17 on 15 July. The Lagna calculator needs a birth time and a place.

How the texts describe Vrishchika

BPHS Ch. 4 describes each rashi in a sloka or two; its Vrischik lines are printed unnumbered in this edition, after Sloka 15-16 1/2. With Sloka 3 to 5 1/2 and the parallel chapter of Saravali they give the following.

Two details need care. The drishti diagram of BPHS Ch. 8 Sloka 6-9 draws Vrischik on its western side, but that is a layout for sign aspects; the sign's own direction is North in all three texts. The BPHS lines also give the sign a varna class, which this app uses only inside the Varna koota of Kundli matching and never as a statement about people.

"Water sign" is less direct than it looks. This translation of BPHS calls Cancer and Pisces watery outright but says of Vrischik only that it frequents both water and land. Water comes from the triplicity: BPHS Ch. 67 Sloka 1-2 groups Kark, Vrischik and Meen as one Trikona, Advanced Predictive Astrology names the three as the watery signs, and this engine codes them so. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 23 goes the other way: it lists human signs, quadruped signs, "Scorpio" and watery signs as four separate classes, with Scorpio alone strong in the West.

The engine uses these attributes mechanically. The element feeds the dominant-element count on the Kundali page; the modality fixes where the Navamsa count starts, which signs Scorpio aspects and which house is badhaka; the lord, Mars, decides the dignity of most grahas placed here. The app also prints one curated line per luminary: for a Scorpio Moon, "independent-minded, resourceful, forms attachments cautiously"; for a Scorpio Sun, "honest and determined, tends to extremes rather than half-measures".

Inside the sign: three nakshatras, nine padas

Thirty degrees of Scorpio hold the last pada of Vishakha and all four padas each of Anuradha and Jyeshtha. Each pada is 3 degrees 20 minutes and maps to one Navamsa sign. BPHS Ch. 6 Sloka 12 starts the Navamsas of a fixed rashi from its 9th, so Scorpio's nine run from Cancer to Pisces.

Three consequences follow. The Vargottama portion is in the middle: a graha or Lagna between 13:20 and 16:40 is in Scorpio in both charts, and Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 13 names the 5th Navamsa of a fixed sign as that portion. The Moon's deepest fall, 3 degrees, sits in Vishakha's last pada, whose Navamsa is Cancer: a Moon there is debilitated in the rashi chart and in its own sign in the Navamsa. And the sign ends at a gandanta. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 20-21 names the ending portions of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces; BPHS Ch. 92 Sloka 3-4 defines it as the last two ghatikas of Jyeshtha with the first two of Mula. Saravali attaches a severe line to birth there and, in the same sloka, its opposite. This engine computes no gandanta flag and this app prescribes no remedy.

The Nakshatra calculator returns the pada and the Navamsa (D9) calculator the Navamsa sign; Navamsa, the second chart covers how to read it. BPHS Ch. 33 Sloka 2-8 has one line for this Navamsa: an Atma Karaka there brings trouble from snakes, the emblem again. The Karakamsa calculator finds yours.

The other divisions of Scorpio

• Hora (D2): Scorpio is even, so its first 15 degrees are the Moon's Hora and the rest the Sun's (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 5-6).
• Drekkana (D3): the decanates fall in Scorpio, Pisces and Cancer, the sign, its 5th and its 9th (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 7-8).
• Trimshamsa (D30): reversed for an even sign, 0 to 5 degrees Venus, 5 to 12 Mercury, 12 to 20 Jupiter, 20 to 25 Saturn, 25 to 30 Mars (BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 27-28).

Dignity: who is strong in Scorpio, and who is not

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50 exalts the Moon in Vrishabh, deepest at 3 degrees, and puts each graha's fall in the seventh sign from its exaltation at the same degree: Scorpio, 3 degrees. Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 35-36 and Bhrigu Sutras (p. 7) agree. None gives a reason.

Five rows move because this engine judges a graha in another's sign by the fivefold relationship with the sign lord: the natural relationship combined with a temporary one. By BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 56 a graha in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 11th or 12th sign from another is its temporary friend: for a graha in Scorpio, Mars in Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Leo, Virgo or Libra. Then the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus read as friendly and Saturn as neutral. With Mars anywhere else, Scorpio included, the Sun and Jupiter read as neutral and the other three as in an enemy sign. An enemy sign and a debilitation both score zero for positional strength, in line with BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 59-60. The Shad Bala calculator shows what a dignity is worth beside the other strengths.

The Moon: fall, and what the texts attach to it

Saravali Ch. 39 Sloka 2 gives the Scorpio Moon a part in undoing Raja Yogas, but narrowly: two or more of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and the Sun must be in fall, one of them in the Ascendant. This app does not apply it. Two later books argue the other way. Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 27) says that for an Aquarius native the Moon in Scorpio acts as a Raja Yoga planet although debilitated, and calls a Scorpio Moon, especially in Anuradha, notably significant provided Jupiter or Venus is in a kendra or with the Moon. The Bhrigu Sutras commentary (pp. 32-33) quotes an older verdict of poverty for the Moon in Scorpio in the ascendant, limits it to a weak or waning Moon, and replies that such a Moon still does well as lord of the 9th. The engine takes no side: every Scorpio Moon is labelled Debilitated, and no rule cancels a debilitation. See the Moon in Vedic astrology.

Mars: own sign, never Moolatrikona

BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 51-54 gives Mars the first 12 degrees of Aries as Moolatrikona and does not mention Vrischik; Bhrigu Sutras (p. 8) makes the whole of Scorpio his own sign, Swakshetra. The engine follows: Mars reads "Own sign" at every degree and scores 7.5 out of 10 for positional strength, against 10 for Moolatrikona or exaltation. BPHS Sloka 59-60 is stricter and allows an own-sign graha half its good effects. Mars is steady here, not at its peak, which is Capricorn. See Mars in Vedic astrology.

Ketu and Rahu: where the texts disagree

BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 34-39 1/2 states that Vrischik is both the exaltation rashi and the own rashi of Ketu, then adds that some sages give Meen. Ch. 50 Sloka 42 says Ketu's Dasha is beneficial when Ketu sits in one of the four rashis from Vrischik. Bhrigu Sutras (p. 13) reports that the older authorities disagree and quotes Uttara Kalamrita for Rahu debilitated in Scorpio and Ketu exalted there. This engine gives neither node a dignity, so the app shows no "Exalted" label. See Ketu in Vedic astrology and Rahu in Vedic astrology.

Each graha in Scorpio, as Saravali reads it

Saravali gives every graha a sloka pair for each sign, and its Scorpio lines are among the darkest in the book. They are paraphrased below; the sexual, marital, theft and disease verdicts and the harsher character words are left out, and the page says so rather than softening them.

Read across the rows and the emblem shows through: three of the seven mention poison and weapons, four call the native a miser, two mention debt. Only Jupiter's line is mostly favourable. But these describe a graha in a sign taken alone, and Saravali goes on to modify each by aspect, treating Aries and Scorpio together as the signs of Mars:

• Sun aspected by Jupiter: plenty of money, a king's minister, a judge. By the Moon: charitable, charming (Ch. 22 Sl. 4-9).
• Moon in Scorpio aspected by Mars: incomparable courage, equal to a king, wealthy. By Jupiter: devoted to duty and wealthy. By Venus: highly intelligent and fortunate. By Saturn: poor (Ch. 23 Sl. 52-57).
• Mars aspected by the Sun: wealth, a king's minister, a justice. By Jupiter: learned, sweet-spoken, very affluent (Ch. 25 Sl. 25-30).
• Mercury aspected by the Sun: truthful, very happy, honoured by the king. By Venus: in royal service, trustworthy (Ch. 26 Sl. 25-30).
• Venus aspected by Jupiter: the one favourable line of its six (Ch. 28 Sl. 25-30).
• Saturn aspected by the Sun: agriculture, cattle, very affluent. By Jupiter: happiness, wealth, a king's minister (Ch. 29 Sl. 25-30).

An aspect from Jupiter or the Sun, both natural friends of Mars, turns most of the lines.

Scorpio rising: Vrishchika Lagna

Saravali Ch. 48 Sloka 30-33 describes the Scorpio-born at length, and the list does not agree with itself. It includes broad limbs that look trained by exercise, tawny eyes and a prominent chest; clever, valorous, firm and fierce; generous, attached to the mother, in service under a king. It also calls the same native "trustworthy" and a betrayer of friends, "pious" and "base". It is a list of possibilities, not a portrait. What a Lagna reliably fixes is which graha rules which house, and BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 35-36 reads that for Vrischik. The 1st house page covers the Lagna as a house.

The reasons are in the same chapter. Sloka 2-7 says lords of the 3rd, 6th and 11th give evil effects, which covers Saturn and Mercury; Mars rules the 6th too, but as Lagna lord it is called neutral. The Moon rules the 9th, a kona, and the Sun the 10th, a kendra, and Sloka 11-12 makes the relationship of such lords a Raj Yog. The sloka gives Venus and the other malefics a death-inflicting quality; this app lists no killer for Scorpio and computes no longevity or death timing.

A Yoga Karaka that falls in the Lagna

The table holds the tension of this ascendant. The Moon is the 9th lord and a Yoga Karaka, and its debilitation sign is the Lagna itself; its exaltation sign, Taurus, is the 7th. So the Yoga Karaka panel on a Scorpio-rising Kundali can list a Moon that the dignity table marks Debilitated. Role and strength are different questions. Jupiter, the other auspicious graha, is exalted in the 9th, Cancer, where Mars, the Lagna lord, is debilitated.

Which Mahapurusha Yogas can form

BPHS Ch. 75 gives five Mahapurusha Yogas; this engine flags one when Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn is exalted or in its own sign in a kendra from the Lagna. For Scorpio rising that allows Ruchaka (Mars in Scorpio in the 1st), Sasa (Saturn in Aquarius in the 4th) and Malavya (Venus in Taurus in the 7th). Hamsa and Bhadra cannot form: no own or exaltation sign of Jupiter or Mercury is a kendra. Bhrigu Sutras (p. 46) says Mars in the ascendant in its own sign gives a strong constitution and honours from the government. The same Mars is a Mangal Dosha position in this app, so one placement shows a yoga and a dosha. The Yogas calculator and the Mangal Dosha calculator report both, and what a yoga in your chart means explains how to weigh them.

The badhaka house

This engine marks the 9th house as badhaka for a fixed rising sign, so a graha in Cancer in a Scorpio-rising chart carries the note "badhaka house (sensitive to affliction)". BPHS Ch. 50 Sloka 20-21 states the rule in this edition only for the movable rashis, naming Vrischik as the Badhak of Makar; the fixed-sign figure rests on the engine's table. The app reads no event into the note.

Scorpio among the signs: aspects and questions

BPHS Ch. 8 Sloka 1-3 gives the signs aspects of their own: a fixed rashi aspects the three movable rashis except the one next to it. Scorpio therefore aspects Aries, Cancer and Capricorn, not Libra, and the same three aspect it back. The engine uses this rashi drishti in its Jaimini calculations. The next sign, across the gandanta, is Sagittarius.

In horary astrology the modality carries the rules. Daivajna Vallabha Ch. 3 Sloka 5 says a question about gaining status or a post succeeds when Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius rises; Ch. 4 Sloka 1 says a fixed ascendant means no travel either way. This app's Prashna feature applies both when Scorpio rises at the moment of your question.

Kundli matching scores both partners' Moon signs and nakshatras through eight kootas. None of the texts above contains those tables, so this page offers no sign-to-sign verdicts. The Kundli Matching calculator and the Compatibility feature show the score with its parts.

A worked chart: Mars, Saturn and the Moon rising in Scorpio

This is an illustrative birth, not a real person: 29 March 2016, 22:45 IST, New Delhi (28.6139 N, 77.2090 E). Every figure is this engine's output.

Scorpio rises at 9.44 degrees, in Anuradha, with three grahas in the 1st house: Mars at 12.84 degrees, Saturn retrograde at 22.31 and the Moon at 23.29, both in Jyeshtha. Mars is in its Own sign and the engine flags Ruchaka Yoga: "Mars is in its own sign, Scorpio, in your 1st house (a kendra)". The same Mars sets Mangal Dosha, graded Mild. The Moon is Debilitated. Saturn, sharing the sign with Mars, reads as in an enemy sign.

The Yoga Karaka panel lists the Sun, in Pisces in the 5th, and the Moon, in the 1st: BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 35-36 to the letter. The yoga list adds Gaj Kesari Yoga and a Kendra-Kona Raj Yoga linking Mars, Saturn and the Moon.

Now the other side. The Yoga Karaka Moon has zero positional strength, and the engine grades its Mahadasha challenging, with Saturn's and that of Mercury, debilitated and combust in Pisces. Only Mars's is graded good. At 07:40 IST the same day the Moon stood at 15.64 degrees and was Vargottama, but Aries was rising, Mars was in the 8th house, and its Mahadasha grade turned challenging. The Moon in Jyeshtha starts the Vimshottari sequence in Mercury's Mahadasha, until 16 October 2024, then Ketu's until October 2031. A sign full of grahas produces more rules, not a clearer verdict.

Timing: dashas and transits through Scorpio

Dashas

Vimshottari Dasha starts from the Moon's nakshatra, so a Scorpio Moon begins life part-way through the Mahadasha of Jupiter (Vishakha), Saturn (Anuradha) or Mercury (Jyeshtha). The order from there is fixed: Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu, Venus. The Vimshottari Dasha calculator dates yours, and what a Mahadasha is explains the arithmetic.

For a graha placed in Scorpio, BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 5-6 gives the test: its Dasha is favourable when the lord is exalted or in its own or a friendly sign, unfavourable when it is debilitated, in an enemy's sign or in the 6th, 8th or 12th house. This app grades Mahadashas with that test. A Mars in Scorpio earns "good" unless Gemini, Aries or Sagittarius rises, which puts it in the 6th, 8th or 12th and turns the grade "challenging"; two test charts confirmed it. A Moon in Scorpio is graded challenging in every house. See the Mars Mahadasha and the Moon Mahadasha.

Scorpio also has a period of its own in the sign-based Chara Dasha of BPHS Ch. 46 Sloka 158-167, and that passage opens with it: Vrischik and Kumbh are each read from two lords, counting to the stronger. The app applies it, with Mars and Ketu as the pair: twelve years when both sit in Scorpio; when one of them does, it counts to the other; otherwise the sloka's tests pick one (an exalted graha in a lord's sign, then more grahas, then sign type, then degree), the order in which the Jyotisha Bharati notes read its clauses. Scorpio is an odd-Pad sign in this engine, so its length is counted forward to that lord's sign, less one: counting to Mars, one year with him in Sagittarius and eleven with him in Libra, and one year more with him exalted in Capricorn (three) or one fewer with him debilitated in Cancer (seven). Ketu is never adjusted. For a Scorpio Lagna the sequence opens with Scorpio and runs backwards through Libra and Virgo.

Transits

Transits are read from the natal Moon: the Gochar calculator counts each graha's sign from your Moon. For a Scorpio Moon on 5 October 2026 it reads the Sun in Virgo (11th) and Jupiter in Cancer (9th) as favourable, Mercury and Venus in Libra (12th) and Rahu in Aquarius (4th) as testing, and Saturn in Pisces (5th) as unremarkable.

Sade Sati and Ashtama Sani for a Scorpio Moon

Sade Sati, as this app defines it, is Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from the natal Moon: Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius for a Vrishchika rashi. The last ran from 15 November 2011 to 24 January 2020, with a break from mid May to early August 2012 while Saturn was back in Virgo. The next begins on 27 September 2041 and ends on 5 December 2049. The app's wording for the period is "traditionally read as a time to consolidate rather than expand, not as an omen." Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 312) records a North Indian school that singles out the last five years for Scorpio; this app applies no such weighting. The Sade Sati calculator gives the phase for your Moon.

Ashtama Sani is Saturn in the 8th from the Moon, Gemini for a Scorpio Moon: last between July 2002 and May 2005, next from 30 May 2032 to 13 July 2034. Ardha Ashtama Sani, Saturn in the 4th, was the stay in Aquarius that ended on 29 March 2025. The Ashtama Sani calculator checks both, and the Timing feature places them beside your dashas.

Common misreadings

• "I am a Scorpio" from a Western column. That is the tropical Sun. The sidereal Sun is in Scorpio from mid November to mid December, and your rashi is the Moon's sign.
• "Mars owns Scorpio, so Mars is at its strongest here." Own sign is not Moolatrikona (early Aries) or exaltation (Capricorn). The engine scores it 7.5 out of 10 and grades its Mahadasha challenging in the 6th, 8th or 12th house.
• "A debilitated Moon ruins the chart." Saravali's Raja Yoga rule needs two other grahas in fall. Two later books give a Scorpio Moon favourable readings, and for Scorpio rising the Moon is a Yoga Karaka.
• "Ketu is exalted in Scorpio" as a settled fact. BPHS says so and names dissenting sages in the same sloka; this engine assigns the nodes no dignity.
• "Saravali's Scorpio lines are my reading." They describe one graha in one sign with nothing else considered, and the same book reverses most of them under an aspect from Jupiter or the Sun.

How to check this in your own chart

1. 1.Run the Moon Sign calculator. Without a birth time it also reports the Moon at both ends of your birth date and whether the sign changed; what an unknown birth time costs explains the rest.
2. 2.Check the Sun with the Sun Sign calculator and the Lagna with the Lagna calculator. Keep the three answers apart.
3. 3.Cast the full chart with the Birth Chart calculator. Note every graha in Scorpio, its degree, its house and its combust flag.
4. 4.Find each graha in the dignity table. For any graha except the Moon and Mars, look at where Mars sits first.
5. 5.Use the nakshatra table for the pada and Navamsa sign, and check for anything between 13:20 and 16:40.
6. 6.If Scorpio rises, read the lordship table, then the Yoga Karaka panel and the yoga list on your Kundali.
7. 7.Date the Dashas of the grahas in Scorpio and of Mars. If your Moon is in Scorpio, run the Sade Sati, Ashtama Sani and Gochar calculators.
8. 8.To verify a citation, the Sources page lists the texts this app draws on.

Frequently asked questions

What are the dates for Scorpio in Vedic astrology?

For the Sun, about 16 November to 16 December each year. But Vrishchika rashi usually means the Moon sign, and the Moon is in Scorpio for about 54 hours every month, so no date range answers that. It needs your birth date and, on a day the Moon changes sign, your birth time.

Who rules Vrishchika Rashi, and what kind of sign is it?

Mars rules it (BPHS Ch. 4; Saravali Ch. 3 Sloka 11). It is the eighth sign, fixed, even and female, strong by day and assigned to the North. This engine classes it as a water sign with Cancer and Pisces.

Which nakshatras fall in Scorpio?

Vishakha pada 4 (0 to 3 degrees 20 minutes), all of Anuradha (3:20 to 16:40) and all of Jyeshtha (16:40 to 30:00). Their Vimshottari lords are Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, which decides the first Mahadasha of a Scorpio Moon.

Why is the Moon debilitated in Scorpio?

The source texts state it without a reason. BPHS Ch. 3 Sloka 49-50 says each graha falls in the seventh sign from its exaltation, at the same degree. The Moon is exalted in Taurus at 3 degrees, so it falls in Scorpio at 3 degrees. Anything beyond that is commentary, not text.

Which planets are good for Scorpio ascendant?

BPHS Ch. 34 Sloka 35-36 calls Jupiter and the Moon auspicious, names the Sun and the Moon as Yoga Karakas, calls Venus, Mercury and Saturn malefic and Mars neutral. These are roles from house lordship. Where each graha sits, and how strong it is, still has to be read from the chart.

Is Ketu exalted in Scorpio?

BPHS Ch. 47 Sloka 34-39 1/2 says so and also calls Vrischik Ketu's own rashi, while noting that some sages differ; Bhrigu Sutras reports the disagreement among older authorities. This engine gives Rahu and Ketu no dignity, so the app shows no exaltation label for either node.

When is the next Sade Sati for Vrishchika Rashi?

In this engine it begins when Saturn enters Libra on 27 September 2041 and ends when Saturn leaves Sagittarius on 5 December 2049. On 5 October 2026 Saturn is in Pisces, the 5th from a Scorpio Moon, and neither Sade Sati nor Ashtama Sani is active.

Can I know whether my rashi is Vrishchika without a birth time?

Usually. The Moon stays in a sign for more than two days, so most birth dates fall wholly inside one sign. The Moon Sign calculator computes the Moon at the start and end of your birth date and tells you if the sign changed that day. The Lagna cannot be found without a time.