Rashifal & the 12 Rashi Explained: Nepali Zodiac Directory

A rashi (Nepali: राशि, from Sanskrit rāśi, meaning a 'heap' or division) is one of the 12 equal 30-degree segments of the zodiac used in Vedic astrology, or jyotish. The full circle of the ecliptic is 360 degrees, so 12 rashi of 30 degrees each cover it exactly. In everyday Nepali usage 'rashi' is simply your zodiac sign, and 'rashifal' (राशिफल, literally the 'fruit' or result of the rashi) is the horoscope or prediction associated with that sign. The daily query 'aja ko rashifal' (आजको राशिफल) means 'today's horoscope', and it is among the highest-volume search terms in Nepal.

Nepali and Indian astrology use the sidereal or nirayana zodiac, which is measured against the fixed stars. This differs from the tropical zodiac used in most Western newspaper horoscopes by roughly 24 degrees (the ayanamsa), so the same birthday can map to a different sign in the two systems. Just as important, traditional Nepali rashifal is normally based on the Moon sign, called the janma rashi or chandra rashi, taken from the star the Moon occupied at birth, rather than on the Sun sign. This is the key reason the syllable-to-rashi method, explained below, exists at all.

This article is a factual reference. Astrology is a long-established cultural and religious belief system, but its predictive claims are not supported by controlled scientific evidence. Accordingly, this page documents the durable structure of the system, the names, ruling planets, elements, nakshatras and name syllables, and points readers to recognised panchang publishers for daily predictions, rather than fabricating horoscopes.

The 12 rashi always run in the same fixed order, beginning with Mesh (Aries) and ending with Meen (Pisces). Each rashi has a ruling planet (rashi swami), an element or tattva (fire, earth, air or water), and a quality or guna: chara (movable), sthira (fixed) or dwisvabhava (dual). Classical jyotish uses only seven planets as sign rulers, the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn; it does not assign the modern outer planets Uranus, Neptune or Pluto. The Sun rules one sign (Simha) and the Moon one (Karkat), while the other five planets each rule two signs.

The list below gives, for each rashi, its common Nepali name, Sanskrit and English equivalents, ruling planet and element. Rahu and Ketu, the lunar nodes, do not rule any rashi; they act as rulers only at the nakshatra level.

The most-searched practical question, 'mero rashi k ho name bata' (what is my rashi from my name), rests on a tradition that actually works in reverse. In the Hindu naming rite (namkaran sanskar), a newborn's first name is traditionally chosen to begin with a specific syllable fixed by the star and quarter the Moon occupied at birth. That starting syllable is called the naamakshar or naam-swar. Because the name was built from the birth star, the first sound of a traditionally given Nepali name points back to the person's nakshatra and therefore to their rashi.

The mechanism is precise. The 27 nakshatras are each divided into four padas (quarters), giving 108 padas in total, and every pada is assigned one syllable. For example, the four padas of Ashwini give the syllables Chu, Che, Cho and La, and Ashwini falls in Mesh, so a name beginning with those sounds indicates Mesh rashi. Grouping all 108 syllables by rashi produces the widely published mapping below, which lets you estimate a rashi from the first syllable of a name.

Two honest caveats apply. First, this only works reliably when the name genuinely followed the traditional rule; many modern Nepali names are chosen for meaning or fashion, so a name-based rashi can be wrong. Second, the authoritative method is not the name at all but the date, time and place of birth, from which an astrologer or panchang calculates the Moon's exact nakshatra and pada. Treat the name-syllable answer as a useful shortcut, not a substitute for a birth-chart calculation.

Nakshatras are the 27 lunar mansions that the Moon passes through as it circles the sky, each spanning 13 degrees 20 minutes of the ecliptic. Because a rashi is 30 degrees and a nakshatra is 13 degrees 20 minutes, each rashi contains exactly two and a quarter nakshatras, or nine padas. Some nakshatras therefore straddle a boundary and are split between two neighbouring rashi, which is why a few starting syllables can appear near the edge of two signs. The 27 nakshatras run from Ashwini through Revati, with an optional 28th, Abhijit, used in some traditions.

Nakshatras carry their own set of planetary lords, used to build the Vimshottari dasha, the main timing cycle in Vedic astrology. This nine-planet cycle, Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, repeats three times across the 27 stars. These nakshatra lords are separate from the rashi rulers; for instance Ashwini is ruled by Ketu even though it lies in Mesh, whose rashi lord is Mars. Understanding this two-layer structure, rashi lord plus nakshatra lord, is central to how a full Nepali janma kundali (birth chart) is read.

The mapping of nakshatras to their rashi is standardised and follows directly from the degrees of the ecliptic they occupy.

The rashi are not only an astrological tool in Nepal; they define the national calendar. Bikram Sambat (BS), Nepal's official calendar, is a solar-sidereal system, and its 12 months correspond to the Sun's transit through the 12 rashi. The year begins at Mesh Sankranti, the moment the Sun enters Mesh (Aries), which falls on Baishakh 1 and is celebrated as Nepali New Year. In the Gregorian calendar this instant lands between about 13 and 15 April each year; for example, the year 2083 BS began in mid-April 2026 AD. The Sanskrit-named months, Baishakh, Jestha, Ashadh and so on, are simply the successive solar zodiac signs.

Because Bikram Sambat is sidereal, the Sun's entry into each rashi runs roughly three weeks behind the tropical (Western) sun-sign dates familiar from newspaper columns. Readers should keep the two systems separate: the tropical dates below are the ones most people recognise, but they do not match a Nepali sidereal chart, and neither replaces the Moon-sign method that traditional rashifal actually uses.

For reference, the widely listed Western tropical sun-sign date ranges are shown below.

Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly rashifal are a fixture of Nepali newspapers, television, radio and mobile apps. In Nepal the official calendar, festival dates and auspicious timings (sait/muhurta) on which panchang and rashifal are built are standardised by the Nepal Panchanga Nirnayak (Bikash) Samiti, a government committee whose approval is required to publish an official patro. Popular calendar and rashifal publishers, such as Hamro Patro, Nepali Patro and long-running printed patros, present daily predictions built on this shared panchang framework.

From an encyclopedic standpoint it is important to be clear about what these predictions are. Horoscopes are an expression of a traditional belief system; repeated scientific testing has found no reliable predictive power in astrology, and its forecasts are best understood as cultural practice or entertainment rather than fact. Two people born the same day share a Sun sign yet lead entirely different lives, which alone shows the limits of sign-based prediction.

This page therefore does not generate horoscopes. It documents the verifiable scaffolding, the 12 rashi, their planets and elements, the 27 nakshatras, the 108 padas and their name syllables, and the calendar link, so that a reader can accurately answer factual questions such as 'which rashi does this name point to?'. For daily rashifal itself, readers are directed to recognised panchang publishers listed in the sources below.