Mars in Capricorn (Mangal in Makara)

Mars in Capricorn is exalted — deepest at 28°. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and Mars counts Saturn neutral.

The relationship is not mutual, and that is the most useful thing on this page. Mars regards Saturn as neutral, but Saturn regards Mars as an enemy. The classical friendship table is asymmetric, which readers almost always assume it is not. In practice it means Mars settles into Capricorn more warily than the host intends, so the placement behaves differently depending on which of the two is the stronger graha in the chart.

Capricorn is a chara earth sign governing the knees, and Mars is reckoned malefic, governing energy, courage, siblings, property. Whatever Mars signifies — younger siblings, land and property, weapons, surgery, engineering, the armed forces — is what this rashi’s restlessness moves along. Exaltation is not a guarantee of a good outcome either — it says the graha is at full strength, and a malefic at full strength is still a malefic.

The Dignity, Stated Precisely

• In Capricorn: exalted, deepest at 28°.
• Mars’s own signs: Aries and Scorpio.
• Exalted in: Capricorn, deepest at 28°.
• Debilitated in: Cancer.
• Moolatrikona: Aries 0°–12°.
• Capricorn’s lord: Saturn. Capricorn exalts Mars at 28° and debilitates Jupiter at 5°.

What Mars Aspects From Capricorn

Every graha casts a full aspect on the 7th house from itself, and Mars adds the 4th and the 8th — Mars alone aspects the 4th and 8th. Counting from Capricorn, that lands on:

• 4th from Capricorn → Aries (Mesha), ruled by Mars. Mars rules this sign, so it is aspecting its own house from Capricorn.
• 7th from Capricorn → Cancer (Karka), ruled by Moon.
• 8th from Capricorn → Leo (Simha), ruled by Sun.

Note the one that matters: at least one sign Mars aspects from Capricorn is a sign Mars itself rules. A graha aspecting its own rashi protects it, and it is the strongest single argument for reading this placement generously.

How Far Capricorn Is From Mars’s Own Ground

A graha is read partly by how far it has been displaced from the rashi it owns, and that distance is simple counting. Counting inclusively from Aries and from Scorpio, Capricorn falls as follows:

• 10th from Aries — a square, both of them kendra houses.
• 3rd from Scorpio — a 3/11, the upachaya pairing.
• 1st from Capricorn, the sign of its exaltation — the same rashi.
• 7th from Cancer, the sign of its fall — a straight opposition.
• Opposite Capricorn stands Cancer, ruled by Moon — the rashi Mars faces from here, and therefore the one it aspects whatever else it does or does not aspect.

The Company Mars Keeps in Capricorn

Dignity runs in both directions, and the rashi has its own roster. Capricorn runs from 270°00′ to 300°00′ of sidereal longitude — the arc the Sun crosses about Jan 15 – Feb 12 — faces south, is classed female, and as an earth sign is of the Vaishya varna. Within those thirty degrees:

• Ruled by Saturn.
• Exalts Mars at 28° — that is this page: the exaltation degree in Capricorn belongs to Mars.
• Debilitates Jupiter at 5°, a different graha from Mars.
• Holds no moolatrikona. Capricorn contains no graha’s moolatrikona stretch, so there is no privileged arc within it.

So Capricorn carries a fixed dignity point inside it, and the closer Mars sits to that degree the more the reading is dominated by it rather than by the sign as a whole. Capricorn’s own traits — ambitious, disciplined, patient, practical, reserved — are the register in which energy, courage, siblings, property gets expressed when Mars sits here.

The Nine Padas Mars Crosses in Capricorn

A rashi is thirty degrees and a pada is three degrees twenty minutes, so every sign holds exactly nine padas — never a round number of nakshatras. Capricorn holds 3 nakshatras in whole or in part: Uttara Ashadha (padas 2, 3, 4), Shravana and Dhanishta (padas 1, 2).

Mars rules Mrigashira, Chitra, Dhanishta, and one of them falls inside Capricorn: Dhanishta (padas 1, 2). Those degrees are the part of Capricorn where Mars is on its own ground regardless of what the sign lord thinks of it — a nakshatra lordship is a second, finer layer of dignity, and it does not have to agree with the first.

When Mars Is Actually in Capricorn

This is the part of the page that is not in a textbook. Computed from the DE421 sidereal ephemeris, Mars occupies Capricorn for 2 stretches inside 2026 and 2027:

• 16 January 2026 to 23 February 2026 — 38 days, after which Mars moves on to Aquarius.
• 27 December 2027 to 31 December 2027. This stretch is still running when the computed window ends, so the exit falls after 2027 and no date for it is printed here.

Dates rather than clock times, because that is what a placement question needs. The ingress instants are computed and are printed on the monthly readings, where they matter for choosing a day.

Mars also combusts: within 17° of the Sun — the widest orb of any graha. A combust Mars in Capricorn is read as weakened whatever the dignity above says, which is the standard case where the textbook verdict and the actual sky disagree.

Reading Mars in Capricorn

Mars signifies younger siblings, land and property, weapons, surgery, engineering, the armed forces. In Capricorn those significations are filtered through a chara earth sign ruled by Saturn, and the dignity above says how much support they get in the process. At exaltation the significations arrive at full strength and largely undiluted.

This is not a prediction, and it cannot be one: the house Capricorn occupies from the ascendant, which of the nine padas above holds the graha, and the running dasha all change the answer. Mars is reckoned malefic, and it gains in the 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th while it struggles in the 1st, 4th, 7th, 8th and 12th — so Mars in Capricorn is a different placement in each of them. Under Kaal Purush Capricorn is the 10th bhava, so Mars in the 10th house is the same pairing read from the bhava side, with the Capricorn transit dated for each of the twelve ascendants.

For what Mars does when strong and when afflicted, its 7-year mahadasha, and the full remedy set, see the Mars (Mangal) page. The short form: Mars’s day is Tuesday, its gemstone is Red Coral (Moonga), its mantra is Om Mangalaya Namah, and its deities are Hanuman, and Kartikeya.

Mars in the Other Eleven Rashis

The Other Eight Grahas in Capricorn