Rohini is the fourth of the 27 nakshatras, occupying the middle of sidereal Taurus from 10 degrees 00 minutes to 23 degrees 20 minutes. Its ruling planet is the Moon, its presiding deity is Brahma, the creator, and its symbol is an ox-cart loaded with harvest. The name comes from a root meaning "to grow" and is usually rendered "the red one", after its marker star: Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull. A person born with the Moon in this span has Rohini as their janma nakshatra, or birth star, and is read in the classical tradition as magnetic, artistic, patient, and built for steady accumulation. Their Vimshottari dasha, the planetary timeline of life, opens in a Moon period.
This page goes deep on Rohini alone. If you want the system itself explained, why there are 27 nakshatras and how padas and lords work, start with the 27 nakshatras of Vedic astrology and come back.
Rohini at a glance
The quick facts first. Everything in this table is unpacked in the sections that follow.
| Attribute | Rohini |
|---|---|
| Position | 10°00′ to 23°20′ Taurus (Vrishabha) |
| Order | 4th of 27 |
| Ruling planet (lord) | Moon |
| Deity | Brahma (Prajapati), the creator |
| Symbol | Ox-cart laden with harvest |
| Marker star | Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) |
| Gana (temperament) | Manushya (human) |
| Nature | Dhruva (fixed, steady) |
| Starting dasha | Moon mahadasha, 10 years |
Where Rohini sits in the sky
Rohini occupies the exact middle of Taurus and is one of the few nakshatras contained entirely within a single sign. Its marker star is Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus and one of the brightest in the night sky, glowing visibly orange-red at the eye of the bull. That redness gives the nakshatra its name.
The placement has a consequence worth knowing. The Moon is exalted in Taurus, and since all of Rohini lies in Taurus, every Rohini Moon is an exalted Moon by sign. The Moon's point of deepest exaltation, 3 degrees of Taurus, technically falls in neighbouring Krittika, but sign-level exaltation covers the whole of Taurus. Add that Rohini's own lord is the Moon, and you get the reason the classics treat a Rohini Moon as one of the most comfortable lunar placements available: the planet of mind and feeling, strong by sign, resting in its own star.
The deity, the symbol, and the myth
Rohini's presiding deity is Brahma, also named Prajapati, the creator and lord of progeny. Its symbol is an ox-cart heavy with the harvest. Put the two together and the star's theme appears: creation that takes form, effort that becomes something you can touch, store, and carry. Growth here is not abstract. It is crops, children, wealth, art, and a home.
The best-known story belongs to the Moon himself. The 27 nakshatras are personified as 27 sisters, daughters of Daksha, all married to Chandra, the Moon. He was to spend one night with each in turn, but he lingered with Rohini, his favourite, and neglected the rest. Daksha's anger at the slight is the mythic explanation for the Moon's waning: a curse that drains him, softened but never fully lifted, so that he forever swells and shrinks. Whatever else the story carries, it encodes an astronomical fact: the Moon's orbit brings it closest to its exaltation degree here, and observers across centuries have called this the Moon's favourite resting place.
The personality of a Rohini Moon
Classical descriptions of Rohini in the Brihat Jataka sketch a person who attracts rather than chases: charming, pleasing in appearance and speech, fond of comfort and beauty, steady in affection, and quietly persistent about material security. The fixed, "dhruva" nature of the star favours work that compounds: building, farming, finance, art that takes years, anything where patience is the active ingredient.
Because the Moon is the mind in Jyotish, the birth star colours the inner life above all. A Rohini Moon tends to feel its way to decisions, to remember kindness and slight alike for a long time, and to need tangible results before it trusts a plan. Sensuality is part of the picture; so is hospitality. These are people whose homes pull others in.
The same qualities have their heavier side, and the tradition is plain about it: attachment can shade into possessiveness, love of comfort into indulgence, and steadiness into refusal to change course. None of this is a verdict. The standard reading is that awareness and the rest of the chart, especially a well-placed Moon dispositor and measured Venus, give a Rohini native everything needed to keep the growth without the clinging.
The four padas of Rohini
Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3 degrees 20 minutes, and each pada corresponds to one navamsa sign, which is how the birth star plugs into the ninth divisional chart. Rohini's padas run from Aries to Cancer in the navamsa.
| Pada | Degrees of Taurus | Navamsa sign | Flavour |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10°00′ to 13°20′ | Aries | The most driven Rohini: growth pursued actively, appetite up front |
| 2 | 13°20′ to 16°40′ | Taurus | Vargottama; the steadiest expression, material and reliable |
| 3 | 16°40′ to 20°00′ | Gemini | The communicator: art, trade, and charm through words |
| 4 | 20°00′ to 23°20′ | Cancer | The nurturer: home, family, and emotional generosity foremost |
The second pada deserves its note: a planet between 13 degrees 20 minutes and 16 degrees 40 minutes of Taurus sits in Taurus in the navamsa as well. That repetition is called vargottama, and the tradition reads it as reinforcing the placement's stability, like a signature written twice.
Rohini and your dasha timeline
The lord of the birth star opens the Vimshottari dasha, the 120-year cycle of planetary periods laid out in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. For Rohini that lord is the Moon, so a Rohini birth begins inside a Moon mahadasha of 10 years. The exact balance remaining at birth is proportional: a Moon at the very start of Rohini leaves nearly the full 10 years, while a Moon near 23 degrees of Taurus leaves only a sliver before the Mars period begins.
The sequence that follows is fixed for everyone: Moon, then Mars (7 years), Rahu (18), Jupiter (16), Saturn (19), Mercury (17), Ketu (7), Venus (20), Sun (6), and around again. What differs is where you enter the wheel, and that is set entirely by your birth star and the Moon's progress through it. If you have not calculated yours, the find your nakshatra page does it from your birth date, time, and place.
Rohini in compatibility matching
In guna milan, the koota matching used for marriage, several of the 36 points are scored directly from the two birth stars. Rohini enters that arithmetic as a manushya (human) gana star of fixed temperament, and its pairings score differently against deva and rakshasa gana stars. A full match also weighs nadi, yoni, and the Moon-sign relationship between the charts.
No single nakshatra makes or breaks a match, and the classical method never reads one star in isolation; the count runs across eight kootas precisely so that no one factor dominates. If you want to see a full 36-point calculation for two charts, the kundli matching tool runs the whole table.
Rohini in the classics
The attributions on this page are the stable, named ones: the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra carries the nakshatra scheme and the Vimshottari sequence seeded from the birth star; the Brihat Jataka describes the temperament of those born under each star, Rohini's among the most favourable. Where modern writers embroider, the old texts are brief, and this page keeps to what they agree on.
Reading further is best done sideways and upward: sideways to Rohini's neighbours, Krittika before it and Mrigashira after it, whose contrast makes Rohini's character clearer, and upward to the 27-nakshatra map, where the whole wheel is laid out in one table. To see where your own Moon falls, run a free birth chart and find the nakshatra column.