Nakshatra 4 of 27
Rohini nakshatra
Rohini is the 4th of the 27 nakshatras, the lunar mansions of Vedic astrology. It spans 10°00′ to 23°20′ of sidereal Taurus, is ruled by the Moon, and its deity is Prajapati, the creator. Its symbol is an ox cart, its power is growth, and its themes are beauty, fertility, making things flourish and being desired.
Rohini at a glance
- Name
- Rohini, “the red one,” after its red star
- Position
- 10°00′ Taurus – 23°20′ Taurus (sidereal, Lahiri)
- Sign
- Taurus
- Ruling planet
- Moon (its Vimshottari period lasts 10 years)
- Deity
- Prajapati (Brahma): the creator who makes worlds by desiring them; Rohini is the Moon's most beloved wife
- Symbol
- an ox cart or chariot
- Shakti
- the power of growth (rohana)
- Themes
- beauty, fertility, sensual creation, being desired, making things flourish
- Stars
- Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), the Bull’s red eye, at about 15°56′ sidereal Taurus
The stars of Rohini
Rohini’s star is Aldebaran, the bright orange-red eye of the Bull, easy to find in the winter sky from North America to the left of the Pleiades and above Orion. Its name comes from the Sanskrit rohita, “red.” Measured in the sidereal zodiac, Aldebaran sits at about 15°56′ Taurus, close to the middle of the mansion that is named for it.
The Bull’s face, the V-shaped Hyades cluster, belongs to Rohini too. Old Indian texts picture the cluster as a cart, which is where the symbol comes from.
The deity and the story
Rohini’s deity is Prajapati, the creator who makes worlds by wanting them. That is the mansion’s first idea: creation that starts with desire.
The best-known story is about the Moon. Soma, the Moon god, married the 27 daughters of Daksha, one for each lunar mansion, and promised to love them all the same. He did not. He stayed with Rohini, his favorite, night after night. The other sisters complained to their father, and Daksha cursed the Moon to waste away. The curse was softened, not lifted: the Moon would shrink and then grow back, again and again. The old storytellers used it to explain why the Moon waxes and wanes, and why it seems to glow brightest when it passes through Rohini.
Tradition also places Krishna’s birth under a Rohini Moon. His birthday, Janmashtami, is still timed by it in many places.
What Rohini is about
Rohini is about growth you can touch: gardens, bodies, food, money that compounds, a room made beautiful, a person who feels wanted. Its shakti in the old Vedic list is rohana, the power of growth. Where Krittika before it cuts, Rohini grows what is left.
When the Moon sat here at someone’s birth, the mansion is read as a taste for comfort, beauty and steady pleasure, and a pull toward building things that last. The shadow side in classical texts is the same story as the myth: wanting to be the favorite, and finding it hard to share.
In Twenty-Seven’s view the Moon here is a clock, not a cause. It marks the kind of season someone’s feelings tend to move through. It does not decide what happens in a life.
The four padas of Rohini
Each nakshatra splits into four quarters of 3°20′, called padas. Each pada falls in a navamsa sign (the ninth-part chart), which colors how the mansion’s theme comes out.
- Pada 1 (10°00′–13°20′ Taurus, Aries navamsa): growth with a push. Starting, claiming, wanting it now.
- Pada 2 (13°20′–16°40′ Taurus, Taurus navamsa): Rohini at its purest. The senses, steadiness, what can be held. Aldebaran sits here.
- Pada 3 (16°40′–20°00′ Taurus, Gemini navamsa): growth through words, trade and play. Curious, quick, social.
- Pada 4 (20°00′–23°20′ Taurus, Cancer navamsa): growth as care. Home, family, feeding people, deep feeling.
The Moon in Rohini
Taurus is the sign where the Moon is exalted, and Rohini sits in the heart of it. The Moon also rules this mansion. So in the old texts a Rohini Moon is the Moon at home: calm, fertile and rich in feeling.
The Moon passes through Rohini about once every 27.3 days and stays about a day. At noon UTC it is in Rohini on Oct 28, Nov 25, Dec 22 (2026), from our chart engine. To check your own birth Moon, use the nakshatra calculator.
Questions people ask
What is Rohini nakshatra known for?
Beauty, growth and creation. Its deity is Prajapati, the creator, its symbol is an ox cart, and in myth it is the Moon’s favorite of his 27 wives.
Which zodiac sign is Rohini in?
Rohini lies entirely in sidereal Taurus, from 10°00′ to 23°20′. In the Western (tropical) zodiac the same stretch of sky is roughly 4° Gemini to 18° Gemini today, because the two zodiacs are about 24° apart.
What is the ruling planet of Rohini?
The Moon. In the Vimshottari dasha system, someone born with the Moon in Rohini starts life in a Moon period, which lasts 10 years in full.
Is Rohini a good nakshatra?
No nakshatra is good or bad. Each one is a different kind of time. Rohini’s is a season for growing and enjoying, with the risk of holding on too tightly.
Was your Moon in Rohini?
Twenty-Seven finds your Moon’s mansion from your birth date, time and place, then reads it to you from its old stories and talks it through. It is an AI astrologer, and it remembers what you tell it.
Twenty-Seven is an AI astrologer, not a person. It makes no predictions: in its view the planets are clocks, not controllers.