Rashi and Nakshatra Calculator

How to find your rashi by date of birth

1. Enter the date of birth.
2. Enter the birth time from a birth certificate or family record, as exactly as you can. The Moon moves about half a degree an hour, so the time matters.
3. Pick the time zone of the birth place. It is set to India Standard Time (UTC+5:30) by default.
4. Press the button. You get the rashi in English and Hindi, its ruling planet, the nakshatra and pada, the nakshatra lord and the Moon’s exact position.

If you do not know the birth time, leave it empty. The calculator then checks the whole day and tells you whether the rashi or nakshatra changed that day, and at what time.

Rashi, nakshatra and pada explained

Rashi is the sign the Moon was in at the moment of birth, measured in the sidereal zodiac used in Indian astrology. There are twelve rashis of 30 degrees each, from Mesha to Meena. The Moon spends about two and a quarter days in each one, which is why people born a day apart often share a rashi but people born a week apart rarely do.

Nakshatra divides the same circle into 27 lunar mansions of 13 degrees 20 minutes each. The Moon passes through one nakshatra in roughly a day. Each nakshatra has four padas (quarters) of 3 degrees 20 minutes, and many families use the pada to choose the first syllable of a baby’s name.

The 27 nakshatras, their lords and name syllables

Each nakshatra pada has a traditional starting syllable (namakshar) that many families use to choose a baby’s name. The calculator shows the syllable for your pada; the full list is below. Syllable lists differ slightly between regional traditions, so where two forms are common, the second is given in brackets.

How families actually use the name syllable

Practice varies by region and family. In Reddit discussions of naming by janma nakshatra, parents describe two common approaches:

“Im from AP and here we name kids based on thier janma nakshatra. Its normal practise that the name is used in all the certificates”

— r/hinduism, June 2022 (3 upvotes, reply)

“The name based on astronomy is kept secret only used for religious rituals.”

— r/hinduism, June 2022 (2 upvotes, reply)

Either way, the syllable comes from the pada, not just the nakshatra. A parent on r/Nakshatras looking for names for a Chitra-born niece asked for names starting with “Pe, Po, Ra, Ri”, the four syllables of Chitra’s padas in the table above (May 2026). Because Chitra’s first two padas fall in Kanya (Virgo) and the last two in Tula (Libra), a Chitra baby with a Virgo Moon can only be in pada 1 or 2, so the traditional choice is Pe or Po. The exact pada narrows it to one sound.

Krittika, Mrigashira, Punarvasu, Uttara Phalguni, Chitra, Vishakha, Uttara Ashadha, Dhanishta and Purva Bhadrapada span two rashis: their first padas fall in one sign and the rest in the next. That is why two people with the same nakshatra can have different rashis.

How the calculation works

• The birth time is converted to Universal Time using the time zone you choose.
• The Moon’s position is computed with the standard lunar series published by the astronomer Jean Meeus in Astronomical Algorithms.
• The Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa is subtracted to convert to the sidereal zodiac. Lahiri is the standard recommended by the Indian government’s Calendar Reform Committee in 1955.
• The sidereal longitude gives the rashi (every 30 degrees), the nakshatra (every 13 degrees 20 minutes) and the pada (every 3 degrees 20 minutes).

Inconsistent results are a common complaint. A beginner on r/Nakshatras wrote:

“Every site/software I go to shows different results for some reason especially in terms of planet placements”

— r/Nakshatras, January 2026 (4 upvotes, post excerpt)

Most differences come from three inputs: the birth time, the time zone (including summer time abroad) and the ayanamsa. This page shows all three in the result, so you can see exactly what was assumed.

A worked example

For a birth at 10:30 am IST on 15 August 2000, the Moon was at about 28 degrees 42 minutes of sidereal Capricorn. That gives Makara rashi and Dhanishta nakshatra, pada 2. Enter the same date and time above to check.

Birth times recorded before the 1950s

For births in India before the mid-1950s, check which time the record uses. Some cities kept local time (Bombay time or Calcutta time) for years after Indian Standard Time was introduced, and clocks ran an hour ahead of IST during the Second World War. If you are unsure, compare results for the possible times.

Rashi calculator questions