THERE ARE twelve signs. A sign is called a Rashi in Sanskrit. The word Rashi literally means a heap, a cluster. As a sign in the zodiac was identified by the characteristic heap or cluster of the stars constituting it, it came to be known as a Rashi.

This is a general term for a sign, but in Hindu astrology the sign in which the Moon is placed at the time of birth is commonly referred to as Rashi. When a brief question is put to a person, "what is your Rashi?" it means in which sign the Moon was at the time of your birth?

As we shall have occasion to see, the Moon sign (the sign which was occupied the Moon at Birth) is as important as the sign ascending at birth (the ascendant). Rather, for purposes of transits of planets and their effects the importance given to the Moon sign is even greater than the ascendant. The Moon sign is considered a co-ascendant and we shall in this work refer to it as the lunar ascendant or Moon sign.

The rising sign is referred to as Lagna-rashi or simply as Lagnam. The names of the twelve signs have been given before. However some attributes or characteristics of each sign are given below. These characteristics apply to the sign whether they are at the eastern horizon or anywhere else.

1. The zodiac is taken as representing the body of eternal time. The sanskrit work used by Hindu astrologers is Kala-Purusha and many learned and philosophical dissertations on time fine a place in Sanskrit texts.

The eternal time which has no beginning and no end is identified as God, the supreme power of the universe; and just as the hour hand, the minute hand and the second hand of the watch are tokens or indicators of time by a watch, so also the Earth's movement on the ecliptic is treated as the hand of eternal time (God).

This ecliptic has also been referred to mythological as the Sudarshan Chakra (the 'grand splendid wheel') in the hand of God. This zodiac has also been referred to as the 'grand white python' whose hood has a thousand glistening gems, the stars.