The sign and its names
Mesha is the Sanskrit word for a ram, and the sign is drawn as a ram's horns. English names it Aries, the Latin word for the same animal. It is the first sign of the zodiac. In Devanagari the Sanskrit name is written मेष.
Element, quality and ruler
In the traditional labels, Aries belongs to the fire group (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius) and to the movable group (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn). The movable signs open each run of three: the first, fourth, seventh and tenth. The fire signs are the first, fifth and ninth of the twelve. Elements are spaced 120 degrees apart, and the qualities repeat every three signs.
The ruling planet of Aries is Mars. Mars also rules Scorpio. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and takes about 687 days to go round it, so it spends roughly 57 days in each sign on average. Its red colour comes from iron oxide on its surface.
The nakshatras in Aries
Aries covers sidereal longitude 0 to 30 degrees, which is exactly nine padas, or two and a quarter nakshatras. The nakshatras with a part inside it are: Ashwini (all four padas); Bharani (all four padas); Krittika (pada 1 only). Their ruling planets are Ketu, Venus and Sun. The count of signs starts here: Mesha begins at zero degrees of the sidereal zodiac, the same point where Ashwini nakshatra begins. Its opposite sign, seven signs on, is Libra.
The Moon takes about two to two and a half days to cross a sign, so a moon sign of Aries lasts that long each month. The nakshatra the Moon is in narrows it down further. Use the nakshatra finder to see both for your birth.
Moon sign Aries and Sun sign Aries
A moon sign counts the sidereal position of the Moon at birth, while a Western sun sign counts the tropical position of the Sun. The zodiacs are offset by the ayanamsa, about 24 degrees 13 minutes in 2026.
For Aries the dates show it. In 2026 the Sun is in sidereal Aries from 14 April 2026 to 15 May 2026, and in the Western Aries from 20 March 2026 to 20 April 2026. Only about 6 days of those two ranges overlap, so most people with a Western sun sign of Aries have a Vedic sun sign in Pisces, and a moon sign in any of the twelve. The moon sign changes every couple of days, so the moon sign calculator asks for your birth time and place.
The padas of Aries and the navamsha
The nine padas inside Aries take nine navamsha signs in a row. They start at Aries and run on to Sagittarius, then the next sign, Taurus, starts again at Capricorn. That is how a single degree of the moon sign points to a second sign in the D9 chart, which is read for finer detail.
Counting from Aries
When a planet is described as being some number of signs from the Moon, the count starts at the moon sign itself. For Aries that gives: Taurus is second, Gemini is third, Cancer is fourth, Leo is fifth, Virgo is sixth, Libra is seventh, Scorpio is eighth, Sagittarius is ninth, Capricorn is tenth, Aquarius is eleventh, Pisces is twelfth. Opposite Aries lies Libra, while Leo and Sagittarius make the trine.
Sun in Aries: Mesha Sankranti
The Sun enters Mesha in mid April. That day starts the Tamil month Chithirai and the Malayalam month Medam, and it is the solar new year in several regions.
Calculated with the Lahiri ayanamsa and whole sign houses; every setting is on the method page. Last checked 2026-10-04.