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Rahu in Indian astrology
Rahu is not a body but a point: the place where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's path (the ecliptic) going north.
- Sanskrit
- Rahu (राहु)
- Weekday
- Saturday (with Saturn)
- Nature
- a shadow planet, treated like a malefic
- Rules
- No sign of its own in the usual tables
- Exalted
- Taurus (the choice used in our calculations; some traditions say Gemini)
- Debilitated
- Scorpio (some traditions say Sagittarius)
- Dasha length
- 18 years of the 120-year Vimshottari cycle
- Signifies
- ambition, the unconventional, foreign things, sudden change and obsession
- Rules the stars
- Ardra, Swati, Shatabhisha
Because eclipses happen near it, the myths call it a head without a body. Tradition reads Rahu as hunger and restlessness: a drive toward whatever is new, foreign or out of reach. It always moves backward through the zodiac.
In the dasha cycle
In the Vimshottari order, Rahu is followed by Jupiter. The period of Rahu lasts 18 years when it runs in full. Read more about the system on the dasha page.
See it in your own chart
The terms on this page appear in every birth chart report, explained for your own planets and dates.