Jathagam Basics: Find Your Rasi and Nakshatra from Your Date of Birth
A jathagam is the Tamil name for a Vedic birth chart. Two of its entries can be worked out from the Moon alone: your janma rasi, the sign the Moon was in, and your janma nakshatra, written natchathiram in Tamil, the lunar star it was passing. Enter your date, time and place of birth and we compute both.
This page finds the Moon part of a jathagam only. It does not draw the full chart: lagna, the other planets, the dasha timeline and porutham are not calculated here. See exactly what is and is not included.
How the rasi and nakshatra finder works
Enter your birth details
Date, time and birthplace. The place sets the time zone, so your local clock time is converted to universal time with the rules that applied there on the day.
We place the Moon on the sidereal zodiac
The Moon is placed from astronomy data, then shifted back by the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) ayanamsa, about 24 degrees today. The Calendar Reform Committee of India adopted Lahiri as the national standard in the 1950s.
Read your rasi and nakshatra
You get the rasi, the nakshatra with its pada, the dasha lord of that nakshatra, and a note on how close your birth time sits to a change.
What can change your answer
Birth time matters
The Moon stays in a nakshatra for about 20 to 28 hours and in a rasi for about two to two and a half days. In our measurements it changed nakshatra during the day on about 96% of days and changed rasi on about 43%. With no birth time we list every rasi and nakshatra the Moon visited that day.
Other sources can disagree near an edge
The Raman ayanamsa sits roughly a degree and a half from Lahiri, which the Moon covers in under three hours. Traditional vakya panchangams also use older tabulated rules than an astronomical calculation. If your Moon is close to a boundary, another source can name the neighbouring nakshatra.
Written birth times are often rounded
A time on an old certificate or in a family horoscope may be rounded or approximate. The pada changes about every six hours, so it is the most sensitive part of the result.
What this page calculates, and what it does not
Calculated here
- Janma rasi (the Moon sign)
- Janma nakshatra and its pada
- The Moon’s degree inside the rasi and the nakshatra
- The Vimshottari dasha lord of your nakshatra
Part of a full jathagam, not calculated here
- Lagna (the rising sign), which needs your exact birth time and place
- The positions of the Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu
- The rasi chart, the navamsa chart and the twelve bhavas
- The dasha and bhukti timeline with its dates
- Porutham (marriage matching)
- Daily rasi palan and transit predictions
For those, use a dedicated Vedic astrology program or an astrologer you trust. We would rather say so than hand you a partial chart under the name of a jathagam.
Rasi, nakshatra and your jathagam
- Rasi
- The zodiac is divided into 12 rasis of 30 degrees each, starting at Mesham. Your janma rasi is the one the Moon was in when you were born.
- Nakshatra and pada
- The same circle is also divided into 27 nakshatras (natchathiram) of 13 degrees 20 minutes each, and each nakshatra into 4 padas of 3 degrees 20 minutes. Nine padas make one rasi, so a nakshatra can straddle two rasis.
- Why the Moon decides both
- The Moon circles the zodiac in about 27.3 days. That is why it spends roughly a day in each nakshatra and about two and a quarter days in each rasi, and why the exact birth time matters.
- Dasha lord
- In the Vimshottari system each nakshatra belongs to one of nine planets, in a repeating order that starts with Ketu. The planet that rules your janma nakshatra gives the first dasha of your life. This page names that planet. It does not work out how much of the period remained at birth or the periods that follow.
The 12 rasis, with their Tamil names
Tamil words have no single Latin spelling. We use one common spelling and show the Sanskrit name beside it, so you may also know these as, for example, Ashwini for Aswini or Tiruvadirai for Thiruvathirai.
| Tamil | Sanskrit | Sidereal sign | Ruling planet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mesham | Mesha | Aries | Mars |
| Rishabam | Vrishabha | Taurus | Venus |
| Mithunam | Mithuna | Gemini | Mercury |
| Kadagam | Karka | Cancer | Moon |
| Simmam | Simha | Leo | Sun |
| Kanni | Kanya | Virgo | Mercury |
| Thulaam | Tula | Libra | Venus |
| Viruchigam | Vrishchika | Scorpio | Mars |
| Dhanusu | Dhanu | Sagittarius | Jupiter |
| Makaram | Makara | Capricorn | Saturn |
| Kumbam | Kumbha | Aquarius | Saturn |
| Meenam | Meena | Pisces | Jupiter |
The 27 nakshatras (natchathiram), with their dasha lords
| Tamil | Sanskrit | Dasha lord |
|---|---|---|
| Aswini | Ashwini | Ketu (Kethu) |
| Bharani | Bharani | Venus (Sukran) |
| Karthigai | Krittika | Sun (Suriyan) |
| Rohini | Rohini | Moon (Chandran) |
| Mirugasirisham | Mrigashira | Mars (Sevvai) |
| Thiruvathirai | Ardra | Rahu |
| Punarpoosam | Punarvasu | Jupiter (Guru) |
| Poosam | Pushya | Saturn (Sani) |
| Ayilyam | Ashlesha | Mercury (Budhan) |
| Magam | Magha | Ketu (Kethu) |
| Pooram | Purva Phalguni | Venus (Sukran) |
| Uthiram | Uttara Phalguni | Sun (Suriyan) |
| Hastham | Hasta | Moon (Chandran) |
| Chithirai | Chitra | Mars (Sevvai) |
| Swathi | Swati | Rahu |
| Visakam | Vishakha | Jupiter (Guru) |
| Anusham | Anuradha | Saturn (Sani) |
| Kettai | Jyeshtha | Mercury (Budhan) |
| Moolam | Mula | Ketu (Kethu) |
| Pooradam | Purva Ashadha | Venus (Sukran) |
| Uthiradam | Uttara Ashadha | Sun (Suriyan) |
| Thiruvonam | Shravana | Moon (Chandran) |
| Avittam | Dhanishta | Mars (Sevvai) |
| Sathayam | Shatabhisha | Rahu |
| Poorattathi | Purva Bhadrapada | Jupiter (Guru) |
| Uthirattathi | Uttara Bhadrapada | Saturn (Sani) |
| Revathi | Revati | Mercury (Budhan) |
From your birth star to its character
Once you know your janma nakshatra, our Janma Nakshatra reading describes its symbol, ruling planet and temperament in plain English. It starts from the same Moon calculation as this page.
Looking for the Western version? Newspaper horoscopes use the tropical zodiac, which gives a different Moon sign for most people. Moon sign calculator · Western birth chart
Frequently asked questions
Jathagam is the Tamil word for a Vedic birth chart, also spelled jaathagam or jadhagam, and called janma kundali in Hindi. It records where the Sun, Moon and planets stood on the sidereal zodiac at the moment of birth, together with the rising sign, which is called lagna. This page works out only the Moon part of it: the rasi and the nakshatra.
Enter your date, time and place of birth above. We compute where the Moon stood on the sidereal zodiac and name the rasi it was in. The date alone is not always enough: the Moon changes rasi about every two and a quarter days, and in our measurements it changed rasi during the day on about 43% of days. On those days the birth time decides. With no birth time, the page shows every rasi the Moon was in that day.
The same way. The Moon stays in a nakshatra for only about 20 to 28 hours, so in our measurements it changed nakshatra during the day on about 96% of days, and the exact time of birth matters. If you do not know your time, the page lists the nakshatras that were possible on your birth day, with the window in which the change happened.
For a single nakshatra, yes. A hospital record, a birth certificate or an older family horoscope are the usual places to find it. If you cannot, use the birth time unknown option and you will get the possible rasis and nakshatras for the day. Lagna, which this page does not calculate, depends on the exact time even more.
No. This page calculates the Moon placement only: rasi, nakshatra, pada and the dasha lord of the nakshatra. A full jathagam also needs your lagna, the positions of all the planets, the divisional charts, the dasha and bhukti timeline and, for marriage, porutham. None of those are calculated here, and we do not present this result as a complete chart.
Rasi is the sign: one of 12 equal parts of the zodiac, 30 degrees each. Nakshatra is the lunar star: one of 27 equal parts, 13 degrees 20 minutes each. Both are read from the Moon at birth, and the nakshatra is the finer of the two. Each nakshatra is further split into 4 padas.
Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which starts at the March equinox. Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which is shifted back by the ayanamsa, about 24 degrees today. Across random birth moments we measured the Vedic rasi naming a different sign from the tropical Moon sign about four times in five. Use our Moon sign calculator if you want the Western one.
The usual reasons are a different birth time, a different ayanamsa, or a traditional vakya panchangam, which uses older tabulated rules. Raman and Lahiri ayanamsas are roughly a degree and a half apart, and the Moon covers that in under three hours, so a Moon near the edge of a nakshatra can fall on either side. If the page shows a close call, treat the nakshatra as uncertain.
In the Vimshottari system every nakshatra belongs to one of nine planets. The planet that rules your janma nakshatra gives the first dasha, or planetary period, of your life. This page shows that planet. How much of the period was left at birth and the periods that follow are not calculated here.
The calculation does not write your birth details to any account or database. Your date, time and place are sent to our server to run it and the result is shown on your screen.