Dhanu rashi (धनु) is Sagittarius in English, the ninth sign of the Vedic zodiac. It is ruled by Jupiter, belongs to the fire element, is dual (dwiswabhava) in quality and is symbolised by the archer. In Vedic astrology Dhanu is your rashi only if the Moon was in it when you were born; the Sun crosses it 16 Dec – 13 Jan in 2026.
Guru owns Dhanu, and the sign carries his concerns: dharma, teaching, law, pilgrimage and the long view. It opens with Mula, the nakshatra of the root, which is why the sign is associated with tearing something down to reach what it grew from. A Dhanu Moon is honest to a fault and needs a philosophy it can act on.
The classical meaning of a rashi comes from its lord, its element and its quality taken together: Jupiter ruling a sign of the fire element and dual quality. Read as shorthand, a Moon in Dhanu leans towards the four qualities above. Treat them as the sign's raw material rather than a portrait of a person: the planets that sit with the Moon, the house Dhanu falls in from your lagna and the dasha that is running change the picture a great deal.
The name letters of Dhanu rashi are Ye, Yo, Bha, Bhee, Bhu, Dha, Pha, Dha, Bhe. Each is the naming syllable of one of the nine nakshatra padas that fall inside the sign, so a name that begins with one of these sounds has Dhanu as its naam rashi. The naam rashi is a naming convention; your Moon sign still comes from your birth time.
Choosing a name for a baby? The baby name letters calculator gives the syllable for the exact nakshatra pada, and the rashi by name calculator reads the rashi of a name you already have.
Dhanu rashi holds Mula, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha (1st pada). A rashi is 30 degrees wide and a nakshatra 13°20', so a sign holds two and a quarter nakshatras and shares the padas at its edges with Vrishchik and Makar. The nakshatra your Moon sits in inside Dhanu decides your Vimshottari dasha and much of your marriage matching.
Only if the Moon was in Dhanu when you were born. Western horoscopes use the tropical Sun sign, which sits about 24 degrees away from the sidereal zodiac every Indian panchang uses, so a newspaper column and a Vedic chart often give different signs. The Moon crosses a rashi in about two and a quarter days, which is why the date alone cannot settle it and the birth time is needed. Calculate your Moon sign, find your birth nakshatra, or make the full kundli to see the lagna and all nine planets.
Short answers about Dhanu rashi: its English name, lord, name letters and dates.
Your own rashi is your Moon sign. It takes a date, a time and a place.
Find my Moon signDhanu rashi (धनु) is Sagittarius in English. It is the ninth sign of the sidereal zodiac, spanning 240° to 270°, and its symbol is the archer. The Vedic and Western Sagittarius share a name but not dates: the sidereal zodiac sits about 24 degrees behind the tropical one, so the Sun reaches Dhanu about three weeks later.
Jupiter is the lord of Dhanu rashi. The lord, or rashi swami, is the planet that owns the sign, and a reading of the sign always goes through it: where Jupiter sits in your chart, how strong it is and when its dasha runs matter more than the sign alone. Jupiter also rules Meen rashi.
The name letters of Dhanu rashi are Ye, Yo, Bha, Bhee, Bhu, Dha, Pha, Dha and Bhe. They are the syllables of the nine nakshatra padas that fall in the sign, and a name that begins with one of them gives a naam rashi of Dhanu. The naam rashi is separate from the Moon sign, which comes from the birth time.
Dhanu rashi holds Mula, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha (1st pada). A rashi spans 30 degrees, which is two and a quarter nakshatras, so the padas at either end of the sign are shared with the neighbouring rashis. The nakshatra your Moon occupies inside Dhanu decides your Vimshottari dasha and much of your marriage matching.
In 2026 the sidereal Sun is in Dhanu rashi from 16 Dec – 13 Jan. The day it enters the sign, the sankranti, moves by about a day across the leap-year cycle, so it is computed for each year. Western horoscopes give earlier dates because they use the tropical zodiac. Your own rashi is your Moon sign, which these Sun dates do not decide.
Your rashi is Dhanu only if the Moon was in Dhanu when you were born. Vedic astrology reads the Moon sign, not the Sun sign, and the Moon crosses a rashi in about two and a quarter days, so the date alone is not enough. A Moon sign calculator finds it from your birth date, time and place.
Save each birth once. Every calculator then opens already worked out for you, your parents, your partner and your children.
