Meaning
Mithuna is the couple, and the Brihat Jataka draws them: "of the shape of a man and woman, (the former) with a stick and (the latter) with a lyre, both seated in one seat" (I.5, Iyer 1885). Its other name is Jituma, one of those Iyer notes as Greek.
It is dual, the text's "both movable and fixed", odd and masculine, and its triangle with Tula and Kumbha faces west. The text counts it among the night signs but, alone among them, rising by its head. Budha rules it; no graha is exalted or debilitated in it in the Brihat Jataka.
Our chart's text for a Mithuna lagna describes a communicative, versatile and youthful bearing and suggests gathering scattered interests round one purpose.
The Moon of the sample person on our system page stands here, in Ardra, which lies wholly within Mithuna.
In the chart
Mithuna is the third rashi, 60° to 90° of the sidereal zodiac, and it holds the last two padas of Mrigashira, Ardra and the first three padas of Punarvasu. In the whole-sign houses of the chart, the rashi of the lagna is the first bhava and each rashi after it the next, so Mithuna is the first bhava for a Mithuna lagna, the seventh for a Dhanu lagna, and so on round the twelve.
Its navamsas begin with Tula: the nine parts of 3°20′ run Tula, Vrishchika, Dhanu, Makara, Kumbha, Meena, Mesha, Vrishabha and Mithuna, as the Brihat Jataka's rule gives them, the movable rashis starting from themselves, the fixed from the ninth and the dual from the fifth. In 2026 the rashi covers about 24°13′ Gemini to 24°13′ Cancer of the tropical zodiac, by the Lahiri measure, so a planet in tropical Gemini is often in Vrishabha here; another ayanamsa would move the edges by up to about 2.5°.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Shape (Brihat Jataka I.5, Iyer 1885)
- "of the shape of a man and woman, (the former) with a stick and (the latter) with a lyre, both seated in one seat" sourced
- Other name (I.8)
- Jituma, one of the names Iyer notes as Greek sourced
- Direction of its triangle (I.11)
- west sourced
- Day or night (I.10)
- a night sign, powerful by night; rises by its head sourced
- Exalted here (I.13)
- no graha sourced
- Debilitated here (I.13)
- no graha sourced
- Themes in our chart's text, our words
- a communicative, versatile and youthful bearing our construction
How the schools read it
- The Brihat Jataka (Varahamihira, 6th century; Iyer 1885)
- "A man and woman, (the former) with a stick and (the latter) with a lyre, both seated in one seat"; called Jituma; dual, odd and masculine; its triangle faces west; a night sign rising by its head; lord Mercury.
- Modern Jyotisha
- A dual air rashi ruled by Budha, its element and quality grouped as in the Western triplicities.
- Western tropical astrology
- Gemini, the same twelfth of the circle counted from the March equinox, about 24° ahead in 2026.
- Other ayanamsas
- Raman's about 1.5° smaller than Lahiri's, Krishnamurti's about 5′ smaller, Fagan-Bradley's about 53′ larger: a placement near an edge can change rashi.
- The chart forms
- South Indian: Mithuna has its own fixed box; North Indian: the boxes are the bhavas and the rashi's number, 3, moves with the lagna.
- EsoTerrier
- Our chart's text for a Mithuna lagna: "Mithuna lagna is a dual air rashi ruled by Budha, traditionally pictured as a couple, one holding a stick and the other a lyre. It lends a communicative, versatile and youthful bearing, and gathering scattered interests around one purpose helps Budha's quick intelligence reach its potential." Our words.
Claims about it
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The sidereal rashi shows the sky as it really is: it is the constellation of that name.
falseWhat the record shows: Both zodiacs measure the same positions from different starting points. A rashi is an equal 30° division counted from a point set by the ayanamsa, not the constellation of the same name.
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The Lahiri ayanamsa is accepted everywhere.
falseWhat the record shows: Lahiri is India's national standard and by far the most used, but the KP school, B. V. Raman's followers and Western siderealists use other values, up to about 2.5° apart; a placement near a rashi's edge can change rashi between them.
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The sidereal signs sit about 24° behind the tropical ones whichever ayanamsa is used.
disputedWhat the record shows: True for Lahiri (about 24°13′ in 2026) and close for Krishnamurti; Raman's is about 1.5° less and Fagan-Bradley's about 0°53′ more.
