The sign and its names
Simha means a lion, and the sign is drawn as a lion. Leo is the Latin word for lion. It is the fifth sign. In Devanagari the Sanskrit name is written सिंह.
Element, quality and ruler
In the traditional labels, Leo belongs to the fire group (Leo, Aries and Sagittarius) and to the fixed group (Leo, Taurus, Scorpio and Aquarius). The fixed signs sit in the middle of each run of three: the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh. 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 Leo is Sun. Leo is the only sign Sun rules. The Sun is a star, not a planet, but Vedic astrology counts it among the nine grahas. It moves about one degree a day against the stars, so it spends close to a month in each sign.
The nakshatras in Leo
Leo covers sidereal longitude 120 to 150 degrees, which is exactly nine padas, or two and a quarter nakshatras. The nakshatras with a part inside it are: Magha (all four padas); Purva Phalguni (all four padas); Uttara Phalguni (pada 1 only). Their ruling planets are Ketu, Venus and Sun. Leo is the only sign ruled by the Sun. It holds the bright star Regulus in its first part. Its opposite sign is Aquarius.
The Moon takes about two to two and a half days to cross a sign, so a moon sign of Leo 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 Leo and Sun sign Leo
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 Leo the dates show it. In 2026 the Sun is in sidereal Leo from 17 August 2026 to 17 September 2026, and in the Western Leo from 23 July 2026 to 23 August 2026. Only about 6 days of those two ranges overlap, so most people with a Western sun sign of Leo have a Vedic sun sign in Cancer, 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 Leo and the navamsha
The nine padas inside Leo take nine navamsha signs in a row. They start at Aries and run on to Sagittarius, then the next sign, Virgo, 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 Leo
When a planet is described as being some number of signs from the Moon, the count starts at the moon sign itself. For Leo that gives: Virgo is second, Libra is third, Scorpio is fourth, Sagittarius is fifth, Capricorn is sixth, Aquarius is seventh, Pisces is eighth, Aries is ninth, Taurus is tenth, Gemini is eleventh, Cancer is twelfth. Opposite Leo lies Aquarius, while Sagittarius and Aries make the trine.
Sun in Leo: Simha Sankranti
The Sun enters Simha in mid August. It starts the Tamil month Aavani and the Malayalam month Chingam, which opens the Kollam year.
Calculated with the Lahiri ayanamsa and whole sign houses; every setting is on the method page. Last checked 2026-10-04.