Taurus and Cancer Moon sign compatibility: Venus, the Moon and the Guna Milan score

There is a small paradox in this pair. Cancer is the Moon's own sign, and Taurus is the sign where BPHS says the Moon is exalted, so both signs are, classically, good homes for the Moon. Yet in Guna Milan the relevant question is how the two sign lords regard each other, and Venus, lord of Taurus, counts the Moon among its natural enemies. The pair's planetary-friendship score is therefore low, while its sign distance is favourable. The nakshatras do the rest.

For the signs, read Taurus, Vrishabha rashi and Cancer, Karka rashi. The nakshatra matching hub explains the eight kootas and links every pair, and the Kundli matching calculator gives the real score from two sets of birth details.

Vrishabh and Kark in BPHS

BPHS Ch. 4 Sl. 8 makes Vrishabh earthy, fixed, white, a quadruped of the South ruled by Shukr, linked with "villages and businessmen". Sl. 10-11 makes Kark watery, movable, "pale-red", a many-footed sign of forests, Sattvic, ruled by Candr, and representing Brahmins. Ch. 3 Sl. 49-54 puts the Moon's exaltation at 3 degrees of Vrishabh and its moolatrikona in the rest of that sign. Kark is the Moon's own sign. None of these dignities enters the koota arithmetic, but they explain why many readers expect this pair to score better on planetary grounds than the engine says it does.

A Taurus Moon falls in Krittika padas 2-4, Rohini or Mrigashira padas 1-2. A Cancer Moon falls in Punarvasu pada 4, Pushya or Ashlesha. Nine against nine gives 81 pairings.

Sign kootas: the score Taurus and Cancer fix

With Taurus first the signs fix 9.5 of 15 points; with Cancer first, 8.5. Across the 81 pairings the total runs 16 to 27 out of 36 (median 21) in the first order and 15 to 26 (median 20) in the second. Almost three-quarters of the sign points come from Bhakoot.

Graha Maitri: an enmity that runs one way

In the engine's version of BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55, Venus has two natural enemies, the Sun and the Moon. The Moon, by contrast, has none at all; it counts the Sun and Mercury as friends and is neutral toward everyone else, Venus included. A neutral-enemy pair is one of the cases where the engine's web references disagree (one gives 0.5, another 1), so the engine keeps its earlier 1. That is the Graha Maitri score for every Taurus-Cancer pairing, and it is the pair's weakest sign koota.

Bhakoot: 3/11 keeps the seven

Cancer is the 3rd sign from Taurus counted inclusively, and Taurus the 11th from Cancer. The engine's Bhakoot rule scores 0 only for 2/12, 5/9 and 6/8, so this pair keeps all 7. The rule's source is a pair of web references named in the engine's header, since the books in this library do not contain Bhakoot.

Varna and Vashya

The engine's Varna table, built from BPHS, gives Vrishabh the Vaishya value and Kark the Brahmin value. The point is awarded when the first entry's value is at least the second's, which holds with Taurus first and fails with Cancer first; the header notes this as unresolved. The word names a koota only. Vashya places Taurus with Aries and Sagittarius and Cancer with Scorpio and Pisces, two groups apart, for 0.5.

In practice the order effect means that a couple who check their match twice, entering the bride first once and the groom first once, can see totals one point apart. Nothing else in the result changes: the other seven kootas are symmetric in this engine, so the difference is always exactly the Varna point. For this pair, entering the Taurus Moon first gives the higher figure. Neither figure is more correct than the other; the engine's header is candid that no reference it consulted settles which person should be compared to which.

Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi for Taurus with Cancer

Tara is 1.5 in every pairing: the count between any Taurus star and any Cancer star is favourable one way only. The other three nakshatra kootas carry the 11-point spread.

The Nadi groups explain the bottom of the range. Krittika and Rohini are Antya, and so is Ashlesha on the Cancer side; any of those combinations loses 8. Mrigashira (Madhya) loses Nadi only against Pushya (also Madhya). On the Gana side, Krittika (Rakshasa) scores 0 against Punarvasu and Pushya (both Deva) but 6 against Ashlesha (Rakshasa), while Mrigashira (Deva) does the opposite. Yoni reaches 4 only for Krittika with Pushya, both Sheep in the engine's table. These are labels for stars, not for people.

Taking the engine's pairings at pada midpoints, the lowest total, 16, is a Taurus Moon in Rohini (about 11 degrees) with a Cancer Moon in Ashlesha (about 18 degrees): Gana 3, Nadi 0. The highest, 27, is a Taurus Moon in Mrigashira (about 28 degrees) with a Cancer Moon in Punarvasu (about 1 degree): Gana 6, Nadi 8. The sign rows are the same 9.5 in both, so the eleven-point gap between them is entirely a matter of which stars the two Moons happen to occupy at birth.

The nakshatra calculator gives the exact star from a birth time; Moon sign and nakshatra explains why it matters as much as the sign.

Worked example: Taurus 1 degree with Cancer 1 degree

At 1 degree of Taurus the Moon is in Krittika, second pada; at 1 degree of Cancer it is in Punarvasu, fourth pada. Entered Taurus first:

The example lands on the median. Bhakoot and Nadi bring 15 of its 21 points; Gana brings none. That Gana zero, a Rakshasa star against a Deva one, sits on the most disputed scale in the engine: its header records that references disagree on every cross-Gana value, and one gives a Deva-Rakshasa pair 1 rather than 0. The Graha Maitri 1 is likewise a value the sources do not agree on. Two of this example's nine rows rest on unsettled figures.

None of this is a verdict. A Guna Milan total describes two Moon positions under one rule set; it does not describe two people. Nadi dosha and Mangal dosha: what it is and is not cover the checks often discussed alongside it.

What the texts in this library say

BPHS supplies the sign descriptions, the Moon's dignities and the Venus-Moon relationship. It does not contain Ashtakoot, and neither do Saravali, the Bhrigu Sutras or Advanced Predictive Astrology. None of them comments on Taurus and Cancer Moons as a pair. The scoring above is the engine's, with web references named where the books are silent.

Related pairs: Taurus and Gemini, Taurus and Leo, Aries and Cancer, and the love compatibility calculator.

What do Taurus and Cancer Moons score in Guna Milan?

From 16 to 27 out of 36 with Taurus entered first (median 21), and from 15 to 26 with Cancer first (median 20), across all 81 nakshatra-quarter pairings in this app.

The Moon is exalted in Taurus. Why is Graha Maitri low?

Graha Maitri compares the sign lords, Venus and the Moon. Venus lists the Moon as a natural enemy in BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55; exaltation is not part of the koota.

Why is Tara always 1.5?

For every Taurus star against every Cancer star, the nakshatra count is favourable in one direction and not the other, which the engine scores 1.5.

Where can we see our exact result?

The match tool takes both birth details and shows all eight kootas and the order of entry.

Should a middling score worry us?

This app does not treat any score as a verdict. It is a traditional rule set applied to two Moon positions.