The sign and its names
Tula means a balance, a pair of scales, and the sign is drawn as a merchant holding scales. Libra is Latin for scales. It is the seventh sign. In Devanagari the Sanskrit name is written तुला.
Element, quality and ruler
In the traditional labels, Libra belongs to the air group (Libra, Gemini and Aquarius) and to the movable group (Libra, Aries, Cancer and Capricorn). The movable signs open each run of three: the first, fourth, seventh and tenth. The air signs are the third, seventh and eleventh of the twelve. Elements are spaced 120 degrees apart, and the qualities repeat every three signs.
The ruling planet of Libra is Venus. Venus also rules Taurus. Venus also rules Libra. Seen through a telescope it shows phases like the Moon, and it returns to the same place in the sky relative to the Sun every 584 days.
The nakshatras in Libra
Libra covers sidereal longitude 180 to 210 degrees, which is exactly nine padas, or two and a quarter nakshatras. The nakshatras with a part inside it are: Chitra (padas 3 to 4); Swati (all four padas); Vishakha (padas 1 to 3). Their ruling planets are Mars, Rahu and Jupiter. Libra begins at 180 degrees, the halfway point of the sidereal circle, and holds Swati and most of Vishakha. Its opposite sign is Aries.
The Moon takes about two to two and a half days to cross a sign, so a moon sign of Libra 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 Libra and Sun sign Libra
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 Libra the dates show it. In 2026 the Sun is in sidereal Libra from 17 October 2026 to 16 November 2026, and in the Western Libra from 23 September 2026 to 23 October 2026. Only about 6 days of those two ranges overlap, so most people with a Western sun sign of Libra have a Vedic sun sign in Virgo, 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 Libra and the navamsha
The nine padas inside Libra take nine navamsha signs in a row. They start at Libra and run on to Gemini, then the next sign, Scorpio, starts again at Cancer. 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 Libra
When a planet is described as being some number of signs from the Moon, the count starts at the moon sign itself. For Libra that gives: Scorpio is second, Sagittarius is third, Capricorn is fourth, Aquarius is fifth, Pisces is sixth, Aries is seventh, Taurus is eighth, Gemini is ninth, Cancer is tenth, Leo is eleventh, Virgo is twelfth. Opposite Libra lies Aries, while Aquarius and Gemini make the trine.
Sun in Libra: Tula Sankranti
The Sun enters Tula in mid October. It starts the Tamil month Aippasi and the Malayalam month Thulam.
Calculated with the Lahiri ayanamsa and whole sign houses; every setting is on the method page. Last checked 2026-10-04.