Rashi 10 of 12 · Earth · Movable
A creature of two elements, half land and half deep water, climbs out of the sea. Makara is the long ascent, and what endures when no one is clapping.
Marks on each heading:Attributed A named tradition or text says this. It is not proof that anything will happen.Calculated An observation from astronomy or arithmetic, with its conventions stated.Editorial Our own wording. It is not a quotation of any source.
Not the leap. The step.And then the next one.The mountain has no opinion of you.It has weather, and height,and all the time in the world.So you bring bread, and you bring patience,and you learn each stoneby putting your weight on it.At the top there is no applause,only a wide cold lightand, if you are lucky, someone behind youwho learned the way by following.
An original poem for this sign, written for the site.
Makara is an earth sign in the movable quality, ruled by Saturn (Śani). It starts things by committing. The sign begins when the Sun turns north at the winter solstice, a moment the Indian calendar celebrates as Makara Saṅkrānti, the day light starts to return.
Saturn’s themes are time, limits, discipline and the long view. Makara is the sign that expresses them in their most worldly form: career, structure, responsibility and the patient climbing of a mountain. The tradition links it with the careers of builders, administrators, officials and anyone who is asked to carry a load.
Makara is also a sign of paradox. Mars, the planet of action, is exalted here, which pairs force with discipline. Jupiter, the planet of expansion, is debilitated, which pairs growth with limits. The result is often described as effort with a long horizon.
These are traditional associations, gathered from the classical texts and summarised. Jyotisha schools describe each house at much greater length, and they do not always agree.
Makara in Sanskrit is a sea-monster, often drawn with the head of an antelope or crocodile and the tail of a fish. It is the vehicle of the river goddess Gaṅgā and of Varuṇa, god of the waters. Western tradition renders it “sea-goat”, a hybrid that goes back to Babylonian art.
Saturn rules Makara and Kumbha. In Makara it is practical and ambitious. A strong Saturn is read as steadiness, integrity and endurance. A strained Saturn is read as fear of failure, harshness, isolation or work taken too far. The tradition holds that Saturn rewards time and tests those who hurry.
See elements and qualities and the nine grahas for the full framework.
Every sign carries both lists. They record what the tradition associates with the sign, not what any person with this sign is like. The Moon, the rising sign, every planet and every house in a chart change the picture, and so does a life.
A sign holds nine padas, which is two and a quarter nakshatras. These are the lunar mansions that fall inside Makara, with their traditional lords, deities, symbols and stars. A nakshatra can be shared between two signs, which is why some are listed with only some of their padas.
| Nakshatra | In this sign | Lord | Deity | Symbol | Star |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UttarāṣāḍhāNo. 21 | padas 2–4 | Sun | the Viśvedevas, all-gods | the elephant’s tusk, a planked bed | σ Sagittarii (Nunki) |
| ŚravaṇaNo. 22 | all four | Moon | Viṣṇu, the preserver | an ear, or three footprints | Altair |
| DhaniṣṭhāNo. 23 | padas 1–2 | Mars | the eight Vasus, gods of abundance | a drum | β Delphini |
The identification of stars varies between texts. See the 27 nakshatras for the whole wheel.
Capricornus is a dim, wide triangle. The brightest star, Deneb Algedi at magnitude 2.9, is at the tail, and its name means “the tail of the goat”. It is a modest constellation with no famous stars, so it is best found by looking south-east of the bright star Altair. Altair is Śravaṇa, the nakshatra of listening. The sidereal sign Makara contains three padas of Uttarāṣāḍhā, all of Śravaṇa and the first two padas of Dhaniṣṭhā.
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Deneb Algedi | 2.85 |
| Dabih | 3.05 |
| Nashira | 3.69 |
| Yen | 3.77 |
| Wei | 4.13 |
| Prima Giedi | 4.30 |
In Babylon the sea-goat was the form of Ea, the god of the deep and of wisdom. The Greeks linked it to Pan, who leapt into the Nile to escape a monster and became half goat and half fish. In India the sign’s image is the makara itself, protector of the gates of temples, carved on the lintels of gateways.
In the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa, the Sun is in Makara about 15 January to 12 February. The dates move by a day or so from year to year, and shift by a few days under a different ayanamsa. If you were born in that window, your Sun is in Makara.
In Jyotisha the sign most people mean by “my rāśi” is the sign the Moon was in, which changes every two and a half days. It can only be found from a birth date, a birth time and a birth place. Try the conversion tool to see where the Sun stood on a given day.
For eleven years Lakshmi had worked the night shift at the bakery, because the night shift paid more and the days were for her daughter.
She was good at the dark. She knew how long to let the dough rest and how to cross an empty kitchen without a sound. At four, when the first loaves came out, the whole street seemed to hold its breath for the smell. She did not mind that nobody saw her. A mountain, she sometimes thought, is not built to be admired. It is built to stand where it stands, and let the rivers begin.
In June her daughter graduated. The hall was full of people who had arrived with flowers and opinions about seating. Lakshmi sat at the back with her shoes aching and a paper bag on her lap, still faintly warm.
When the name was called, the girl crossed the stage and, instead of looking at the dean, looked straight to the last row, and bowed her head once to the one person in the room who knew what the diploma weighed.
Lakshmi did not cry. She was not that sort. She sat very straight, held the warm bag, and let the applause go on without her, the way a mountain lets the weather.
Invented. No real person is described, and the story is not a portrait of anyone born under this sign.
These are prompts and not predictions. You can use them whether or not you take astrology seriously.
The Rāśi is a thirty-degree division of the zodiac belt, counted against the fixed stars. The constellation Capricorn is a star pattern whose size and edges are irregular. They share a name and a region of sky, but not an exact boundary.
See the constellations page for all twelve charts, how long the Sun spends in front of each, and why the two are not the same thing.