Shashthi tithi, also written Shashti tithi, is the sixth lunar day of each fortnight. While the Moon waxes it covers sixty to seventy-two degrees of separation from the Sun, a thick crescent nearing half; while it wanes it covers 240 to 252 degrees, a Moon about a week past full and still two-thirds lit or more. It is the day of Skanda, the young commander of the gods, it opens the second run of five tithis in the fortnight as a Nanda tithi, and in the east of India it is above all the day of Chhath. Roughly one birth in fifteen falls on it. What follows explains what being born on shashthi tithi means, where the Moon usually sits for each birth month, the traditions attached to the day, and how all of that compares in weight with the rest of the chart that the kundali calculator shows.
The preceding tithi is Panchami, whose last minutes and Shashthi’s first form a tithi gandanta junction, and the next is Saptami, the Sun’s tithi.
Conventions used. Tithi means the lunar day current at the moment of birth, one tithi for every twelve degrees the Moon gains on the Sun. Signs are sidereal with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and the Sun’s months in the table are approximate. Shares come from Swiss Ephemeris positions at random moments over 1950 to 2010.
Born on Shashthi? Read the Moon behind the tithi.
A consultation reads where your Moon actually sits, its sign, nakshatra and strength, together with Venus, the lagna and the dasha you are running, and puts the birth tithi in context.
In this article
- Shashthi tithi in short
- Shukla Shashthi: a crescent nearing half
- Krishna Shashthi: a week past full
- Where your Moon falls, by birth month
- Skanda, the young commander
- A Nanda tithi, and the giver of fame
- Venus as the tithi’s planet
- Aries and Leo: the burnt signs
- Shashthi Devi, Chhath and Skanda Shashthi
- Shashthi and the KP approach
- Two Shashthi births
- Frequently asked questions
Shashthi tithi in short
The shashthi tithi meaning is the sixth. The Muhurta Chintamani names Guha, that is Skanda or Kartikeya, as its deity; it is a Nanda tithi like Pratipada and Ekadashi; some lists call it Yashaprada, the giver of fame; and when the tithis are matched to the planets in weekday order it belongs to Venus. Its burnt signs are Aries and Leo. Of the random births sampled, 3.3 percent landed on the bright Shashthi and 3.4 percent on the dark one.
Shukla Shashthi: a crescent nearing half
On Shukla Shashthi the Moon is between a quarter and a third lit, well up in the western sky at dusk. The Moon lies in the third sign counted from the Sun in 80 percent of shukla shashthi births and in the fourth sign otherwise. Classically it has two more tithis of weakness ahead of it, yet this is its last tithi as a slim crescent before it swells towards half. The traditional reading is of a nature that is growing into confidence quickly, active and enterprising, with a fighting spirit that comes from the tithi’s commander deity.
Krishna Shashthi: a week past full
On Krishna Shashthi the Moon is 65 to 75 percent lit, rising late in the evening and still strong by phase, with two more tithis to go before it turns weak. Counting from the Sun, it usually occupies the ninth sign in krishna shashthi births, 80 percent of the time, and otherwise the tenth. People born on this half are usually read as warm, capable and protective, with the Moon’s generosity joined to Skanda’s sense of duty, often the ones who look after a family or a team.
Where your Moon falls, by birth month
Because a tithi fixes the angle between the Sun and the Moon, the Sun’s sign at birth, which depends on the month, largely decides the Moon’s sign on Shashthi. The table shows the usual result, with the less common alternative in brackets. It is a quick guide, not a substitute for looking at the chart itself: the calculator gives the exact sign in seconds, and the Moon’s nakshatra, which the table cannot show, usually says more than its sign.
| Sun’s sign (roughly) | Moon on Shukla Shashthi | Moon on Krishna Shashthi |
|---|---|---|
| Aries (mid-April to mid-May) | Gemini (or Cancer) | Sagittarius (or Capricorn) |
| Taurus (mid-May to mid-June) | Cancer (or Leo) | Capricorn (or Aquarius) |
| Gemini (mid-June to mid-July) | Leo (or Virgo) | Aquarius (or Pisces) |
| Cancer (mid-July to mid-August) | Virgo (or Libra) | Pisces (or Aries) |
| Leo (mid-August to mid-September) | Libra (or Scorpio) | Aries (or Taurus) |
| Virgo (mid-September to mid-October) | Scorpio (or Sagittarius) | Taurus (or Gemini) |
| Libra (mid-October to mid-November) | Sagittarius (or Capricorn) | Gemini (or Cancer) |
| Scorpio (mid-November to mid-December) | Capricorn (or Aquarius) | Cancer (or Leo) |
| Sagittarius (mid-December to mid-January) | Aquarius (or Pisces) | Leo (or Virgo) |
| Capricorn (mid-January to mid-February) | Pisces (or Aries) | Virgo (or Libra) |
| Aquarius (mid-February to mid-March) | Aries (or Taurus) | Libra (or Scorpio) |
| Pisces (mid-March to mid-April) | Taurus (or Gemini) | Scorpio (or Sagittarius) |
A few combinations stand out. A Shukla Shashthi birth with the Sun in Pisces usually has an exalted Moon in Taurus, and one with the Sun in Taurus a Moon at home in Cancer, while the Sun in Virgo brings a debilitated Moon in Scorpio. On Krishna Shashthi, the Sun in Virgo usually means an exalted Moon, the Sun in Scorpio a Moon in its own sign, and the Sun in Pisces a debilitated one. Those Moon placements say far more about a person than the tithi does.
Skanda, the young commander
Skanda, also called Kartikeya, Murugan and Subrahmanya, is the son of Shiva and Parvati, born to lead the gods’ army against the demon Taraka, whom he defeated in his youth. He is the patron of courage, discipline and focused effort, and in the south he is among the most loved of deities. A birth on his tithi is traditionally linked with energy, a protective instinct, a liking for clear goals and a capacity to lead younger or less experienced people. The shadow side, in the same reading, is impatience and a tendency to fight battles that could be avoided.
The number six runs through his story. He was nursed by the six Krittika sisters, the stars of the Pleiades, and took six faces to feed from all of them, which is why he is called Shanmukha, the six-faced, and Kartikeya, son of the Krittikas. It is fitting that the sixth tithi should be his, and many devotees of Murugan fast on every Shashthi of the bright half.
A Nanda tithi, and the giver of fame
Shashthi begins the second run of five tithis as the second of the three Nanda tithis, after Pratipada and before Ekadashi. Nanda means joy, and the Nanda tithis suit festive and pleasurable undertakings in muhurta. Some lists also call Shashthi Yashaprada, the giver of fame. Taken together, the tradition sees Shashthi natives as people who enjoy their work, like to be recognised for it and often are.
Being the first tithi after a Purna tithi, Shashthi also opens with a gandanta window. Its first forty-eight minutes or so, together with the last forty-eight of Panchami, make up the tithi gandanta junction described in the Panchami article. Only a small fraction of Shashthi births fall inside it, and a birth later in the tithi is untouched by it.
Venus as the tithi’s planet
In the weekday sequence of tithi lords, Shashthi and Chaturdashi fall to Venus, and a Nanda tithi falling on a Friday, Venus’s own day, counts as Siddha in muhurta. For a Shashthi birth, Venus is worth reading carefully: its sign, whether it is exalted in Pisces or debilitated in Virgo, the houses it rules, its distance from the Sun and the aspects on it. A strong Venus adds grace and appeal to Skanda’s energy, and a weak one leaves the drive without the charm to carry it.
Aries and Leo: the burnt signs
The shunya signs of Shashthi are Aries and Leo, ruled by Mars and the Sun. The traditional expectation is that houses in these signs give a little less than they promise and that Mars and the Sun give weaker results as their lords, with the familiar exceptions. It is worth noticing that Shashthi’s own warrior deity is linked to Mars, which shows how loosely these correspondences fit together. In a birth chart the burnt-sign rule is a fine refinement at most.
Shashthi Devi, Chhath and Skanda Shashthi
Shashthi also names a goddess. Shashthi Devi protects infants and mothers, and in many families the sixth day after a child’s birth is kept in her honour, a rite often called Chhathi. The great festival of the tithi is Chhath, kept in Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and among their communities everywhere, whose evening offering to the setting Sun falls on the Shukla Shashthi of Kartika. The same Shukla Shashthi is Skanda Shashthi in Tamil tradition, when the god’s victory over the demon Surapadman is celebrated. Champa Shashthi honours Khandoba in Maharashtra, Jamai Shashthi in Bengal honours sons-in-law, Hal Shashthi in the dark half of Bhadrapada is kept by mothers for their children, and the sixth day of Navratri belongs to Katyayani.
Shashthi and the KP approach
Nothing in KP judgment depends on the birth tithi. The system reads each matter through a cusp and its sub-lord, cross-checked through the links between cusps described in cuspal interlinks, and the Moon and Venus take part only as significators through their stars and sub-lords. Even the table above, useful as it is for a quick orientation, is not how a KP reader would assess the Moon; the star and sub it occupies matter more than its sign. The tithi is description, and the cusps are where the answers come from.
Two Shashthi births
A woman born around noon on the day of Chhath, details altered, with Capricorn rising. The Sun is at 15 degrees Libra in the tenth house, debilitated, and the Moon at 21 degrees Sagittarius in the twelfth, sixty-six degrees ahead: Shukla Shashthi. Her family, who keep Chhath for the Sun, were uneasy that the Sun was at its weakest on the very festival. Venus, the lord of Libra and the tithi’s own planet, sits in its own sign in the tenth with the Sun, which cancels the debilitation in the way the site’s neecha bhanga guide describes. She is now the chief architect of a mid-sized city, a tenth-house career of authority and design that grew out of exactly the Sun and Venus her family had worried about.
A man born before dawn, details altered, with Leo rising and the Sun at 20 degrees Virgo in the second house. The Moon, at 26 degrees Taurus, stands high in the tenth, 246 degrees ahead of the Sun: Krishna Shashthi, and, as the table predicts for a September birth on this half, an exalted Moon. He is the family doctor of a small town, the kind whose waiting room is never empty, which is what an exalted Moon in the tenth house tends to describe. The tithi contributes its protective, duty-minded tone; the Moon’s sign and house carry the substance.
Frequently asked questions
What is Shashthi tithi?
The sixth lunar day of each fortnight: the Moon 60 to 72 degrees ahead of the Sun on Shukla Shashthi, or 240 to 252 degrees on Krishna Shashthi. It is Skanda’s tithi and a Nanda tithi.
Is it good to be born on Shashthi tithi?
No tithi is good or bad by itself. Shashthi is associated with energy, protectiveness and recognition, and how strongly those show depends on the Moon, on Venus and on the lagna.
How is Shukla Shashthi different from Krishna Shashthi?
The bright-half Shashthi has a thick crescent, a quarter to a third lit, classed as weak, most often three signs on from the Sun. The dark-half Shashthi has a Moon two-thirds to three-quarters lit and still strong, most often nine signs on.
Which sign is my Moon in if I was born on Shashthi?
It depends mainly on the month, since the Sun’s sign fixes where the Moon can be. The table in this article gives the usual sign for each birth month; your chart gives the exact one.
Which deity and planet rule Shashthi?
Skanda, also called Kartikeya or Murugan, is its deity in the Muhurta Chintamani, and Venus is its planet in the weekday scheme of tithi lords.
What are the burnt signs of Shashthi?
Aries and Leo, ruled by Mars and the Sun. Applied to a birth chart it is only a fine adjustment, hedged with exceptions, and never a reason to expect a house to fail.
Which festivals fall on Shashthi?
Chhath and Skanda Shashthi on the Shukla Shashthi of Kartika, Champa Shashthi, Jamai Shashthi, Hal Shashthi and the sixth day of Navratri.
Your Moon's sign says more than your tithi.
A consultation reads your Moon's sign, star and sub-lord, Venus and the lagna, and the dasha you are running, and places the birth tithi where it belongs, as colour rather than verdict.