Current Planetary Transits

A planetary transit — Sanskrit grah gochar (ग्रह गोचर, "the range of movement" — the field within which a planet moves and exerts influence) — is the real-time position of a planet in the sky, as opposed to where it was at the moment of your birth. Your natal chart is a fixed snapshot, but the planets keep moving. When a transiting planet activates a specific house, sign, or point in your birth chart, its energy is understood to influence the corresponding life area. Vedic predictive astrology (Phalit Jyotish) relies heavily on transits to time real-world events: career shifts, marriage, health changes, spiritual openings, and financial cycles.

Nakshatrica computes live transit positions for all nine classical Vedic planets — Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu, and Ketu — using the Swiss Ephemeris with the sidereal Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) Ayanamsha. Every reading auto-adjusts to your local timezone.

Transit cadence — how fast each planet moves

Understanding transit speed is fundamental to predictive work. Slower planets bring longer, more transformative influences; faster planets bring daily and weekly rhythms.

The nine Vedic planets and their transit signatures

• Sun (Surya) — a solar month per sign, marked by Sankranti. Sun transits illuminate the house he enters; his aspect on the 7th house is often considered mildly stressful, but his transit through your 10th house (from Moon) is auspicious for career recognition.
• Moon (Chandra) — the fastest-moving body. Governs the mind, emotions, and daily rhythm. Traditional Vedic timing (Muhurta selection, daily rituals, Vrat observance) hinges on the Moon's Nakshatra at any given moment.
• Mars (Mangal) — brings energy, initiative, conflict, and courage. A Mars transit through your 3rd or 6th house (from Moon) is considered energizing; through the 8th, health-taxing.
• Mercury (Budha) — governs communication, learning, commerce, and analysis. Watch for its Vakri (retrograde) periods — three per year — often associated with reviewing contracts, re-doing tasks, and communication delays.
• Jupiter (Guru) — the great benefic, spending roughly a year in each sign. A Jupiter transit through your 2nd, 5th, 9th, or 11th house (from natal Moon) is traditionally the most favourable, bringing expansion, wisdom, and good fortune; the 6th, 8th, and 12th are the classically difficult placements.
• Venus (Shukra) — love, beauty, relationships, art, and comfort. Venus transits favor marriage decisions, artistic ventures, and luxury purchases — except during retrograde windows.
• Saturn (Shani) — discipline, karma, restriction, and long-term structure. Saturn transits are the slowest and most transformative — his 2.5-year stay in each sign frames chapters of your life. Sade Sati (Saturn's 7.5-year transit through the 12th, 1st, and 2nd from natal Moon) is the most-discussed transit event in Vedic astrology.
• Rahu & Ketu (Chhaya Grahas) — the lunar nodes, always axis-opposite each other. The mean node is retrograde by construction; the true node — which is what this site computes — oscillates around it and turns direct roughly a quarter of the time, usually for a few days at a stretch. Their 18-month sign changes bring karmic redirections — a Rahu-Ketu axis shift often coincides with major life reorientations. Rahu amplifies worldly ambition; Ketu strips away and turns inward.

Retrograde motion — Vakri Grah

When a planet appears to move backward through the zodiac as seen from Earth, it is called Vakri (वक्री, retrograde). This is an optical effect — no planet actually reverses direction — caused by Earth overtaking the outer planets or being overtaken by the inner ones. In Vedic astrology, retrograde planets are considered to give unusual, karmic, or delayed results, and their windows are traditionally not favoured for beginning new ventures tied to that planet's significations.

The Sun and Moon are never retrograde. Rahu and Ketu are retrograde by construction in their mean form; the true node, which is what this site computes, oscillates around the mean and turns direct roughly a quarter of the time. For the remaining five:

• Mercury (Budha) — about three times a year, ~21 days each. Traditionally avoided for signing contracts, publishing, and travel booking.
• Venus (Shukra) — once every ~19 months, ~42 days. Traditionally avoided for weddings, engagements, and major purchases.
• Mars (Mangal) — once every ~2 years, ~70–80 days. Traditionally avoided for surgery, disputes, and property deals.
• Jupiter (Guru) — roughly once a year, ~4 months. A long window, so it is read as a period of review rather than a pause.
• Saturn (Shani) — roughly once a year, ~4.5 months. Also long, and treated as a phase of consolidation and revisiting.

How transits interact with your birth chart

Transits alone do not produce events — they trigger the potential already encoded in your natal chart. Three natal reference points are typically used to evaluate a transit's effect:

• From the natal Moon (Chandra Kundli) — the primary Vedic transit reference. Gochar phalit is judged by which house from the natal Moon a transiting planet occupies.
• From the Ascendant (Lagna) — a secondary reference, especially for events tied to the physical body and personal identity.
• From the natal Sun (Surya Kundli) — used for evaluating vitality, authority, and career-related transits.

The Ashtakavarga system further refines transit prediction by assigning point values (bindus) to each planet's transit through each of the twelve houses. Higher-bindu houses indicate more auspicious transit effects.

Sade Sati & other major transit events

• Sade Sati — Saturn's ~7.5-year transit through the 12th, 1st, and 2nd houses from your natal Moon. Occurs roughly every 29–30 years and is considered one of the most karmically significant periods in a lifetime. Each 2.5-year phase has distinct effects: 12th (financial pressure, isolation), 1st (health, identity), 2nd (family, resources).
• Dhaiya / Kantak Shani — Saturn's 2.5-year transit through the 4th or 8th house from your natal Moon. Sub-events of Saturn's cycle, often associated with home/property disturbances or health tests respectively.
• Guru Peyarchi (Jupiter transit) — Jupiter's 12-month move into a new sign, watched closely for effects on wealth, children, spouse, and dharma. Jupiter's drishti (aspects) on your 5th, 7th, and 9th houses are considered particularly auspicious.
• Rahu-Ketu axis shift — every 18 months, the nodal axis moves to a new sign pair. These shifts often coincide with sudden, unexpected redirections in life.
• Retrograde stations — the exact moment a planet turns retrograde or direct is called a station. Traditional astrology considers these liminal moments especially potent for events related to that planet's significations.

Reading the live tracker

Each planet card above shows the transit position at the current moment — sign, Nakshatra, Pada, degree, retrograde status, and combustion. Combust (Asta) means a planet is within a specific orb of the Sun and its light is "burned" — its influence is considered weakened. The orbs below are the classical asta (heliacal setting) figures given in the Surya Siddhanta. Mercury and Venus take a narrower orb when retrograde, because as inner planets their retrograde conjunction passes between Earth and the Sun, so they re-emerge from the Sun's glare sooner:

All flags are computed live from Swiss Ephemeris data.

Sidereal vs. Tropical positions

Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, anchored to the spring equinox. Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, anchored to fixed stars. Due to the precession of the equinoxes (Earth's axis wobbles about 1° every 72 years), the two zodiacs have drifted apart by roughly 24° in the current era. So a planet at 10° Aries tropical is at approximately 16° Pisces sidereal. Nakshatrica uses sidereal positions with Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) Ayanamsha — the standard adopted by the Indian Calendar Reform Committee and used across mainstream Vedic astrology.

Do transits depend on my location?

Planetary positions (longitude in the zodiac) do not vary by geography — a planet is at the same sidereal longitude whether you're in Delhi, London, or New York at the same UTC moment. However, the times shown for entry into a sign or Nakshatra do depend on your local timezone. Nakshatrica auto-detects your timezone so entry/exit times display in your local wall clock. The underlying calculation happens in UTC and only the display is localized.

Explore the rest of Nakshatrica

One tool won't answer everything. Nakshatrica pairs each landing page with a full set of free, Swiss-Ephemeris-precise Vedic tools — pick whichever you need next.