The sign and its names
Kanya means a young woman or maiden, and the sign is drawn as a maiden holding an ear of grain. Virgo is the Latin word for maiden. It is the sixth sign. In Devanagari the Sanskrit name is written कन्या.
Element, quality and ruler
Virgo is an earth sign and a dual sign. The four elements each hold three signs 120 degrees apart, and Virgo shares earth with Taurus and Capricorn. The earth signs are the second, sixth and tenth of the twelve. The three qualities repeat around the circle, and Virgo shares dual with Gemini, Sagittarius and Pisces. The dual signs close each run of three: the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth. These are traditional labels for sorting the signs.
The ruling planet of Virgo is Mercury. Mercury also rules Gemini. Mercury also rules Virgo. As seen from Earth it looks to turn backward three or four times a year, for about three weeks each time, because Mercury, on the faster inside track, overtakes Earth.
The nakshatras in Virgo
Virgo covers sidereal longitude 150 to 180 degrees, which is exactly nine padas, or two and a quarter nakshatras. The nakshatras with a part inside it are: Uttara Phalguni (padas 2 to 4); Hasta (all four padas); Chitra (padas 1 to 2). Their ruling planets are Sun, Moon and Mars. Virgo holds Hasta and the first half of Chitra, the nakshatra marked by Spica, the brightest star of the constellation. Its opposite sign is Pisces.
The Moon takes about two to two and a half days to cross a sign, so a moon sign of Virgo 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 Virgo and Sun sign Virgo
Your Vedic moon sign, the rashi, is the sidereal sign the Moon was in at birth. Your Western sun sign is the tropical sign the Sun was in. They are different measures, and the sidereal zodiac sits about 24 degrees 13 minutes behind the tropical one in 2026.
For Virgo the dates show it. In 2026 the Sun is in sidereal Virgo from 17 September 2026 to 17 October 2026, and in the Western Virgo from 23 August 2026 to 23 September 2026. Only about 6 days of those two ranges overlap, so most people with a Western sun sign of Virgo have a Vedic sun sign in Leo, 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 Virgo and the navamsha
The nine padas inside Virgo take nine navamsha signs in a row. They start at Capricorn and run on to Virgo, then the next sign, Libra, starts again at Libra. 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 Virgo
Vedic readers often count planets by their distance in signs from the moon sign, called the position from the Moon. With a moon sign of Virgo, the count runs: Libra is second, Scorpio is third, Sagittarius is fourth, Capricorn is fifth, Aquarius is sixth, Pisces is seventh, Aries is eighth, Taurus is ninth, Gemini is tenth, Cancer is eleventh, Leo is twelfth. The sign opposite Virgo is Pisces, and the two signs in a trine with it are Capricorn and Taurus.
Sun in Virgo: Kanya Sankranti
The Sun enters Kanya in mid September. It starts the Tamil month Purattasi and the Malayalam month Kanni.
Calculated with the Lahiri ayanamsa and whole sign houses; every setting is on the method page. Last checked 2026-10-04.