Sun in Leo (Surya in Simha)

The Sun in Leo is in its own sign, and the first part of the sign, 0°–20°, is its moolatrikona. Leo is ruled by the Sun, which is the Sun itself — so the graha here is its own dispositor, and there is no third party to route its results through.

Leo is a sthira fire sign governing the heart and upper abdomen, and the Sun is reckoned mild malefic, governing soul, ego, vitality, leadership, father. Whatever the Sun signifies — father, government, authority, the soul (atma), medicine, administration — is what this rashi’s fixity holds in place.

The Dignity, Stated Precisely

• In Leo: in its own sign.
• The Sun’s own sign: Leo.
• Exalted in: Aries, deepest at 10°.
• Debilitated in: Libra.
• Moolatrikona: Leo 0°–20°.
• Leo’s lord: Sun. Leo exalts no graha and debilitates no graha.

What the Sun Aspects From Leo

Every graha casts a full aspect on the 7th house from itself, and the Sun has no special drishti beyond it, so the 7th is the whole of its reach. Counting from Leo, that lands on:

• 7th from Leo → Aquarius (Kumbha), ruled by Saturn.

Aquarius is not one of the Sun’s own rashis, so the single aspect the Sun throws from Leo lands on Saturn’s territory. Whose territory it is decides how the aspect is received.

How Far Leo Is From the Sun’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 Leo, Leo falls as follows:

• 1st from Leo — the same rashi. This is the Sun’s own rashi, so there is no displacement at all.
• 5th from Aries, the sign of its exaltation — a trine, the easiest of the distances.
• 11th from Libra, the sign of its fall — a 3/11, the upachaya pairing.
• Opposite Leo stands Aquarius, ruled by Saturn — the rashi the Sun faces from here, and therefore the one it aspects whatever else it does or does not aspect.

The Company the Sun Keeps in Leo

Dignity runs in both directions, and the rashi has its own roster. Leo runs from 120°00′ to 150°00′ of sidereal longitude — the arc the Sun crosses about Aug 17 – Sep 16 — faces east, is classed male, and as a fire sign is of the Kshatriya varna. Within those thirty degrees:

• Ruled by Sun — which is the Sun itself.
• Exalts no graha. Leo is one of the rashis with no exaltation degree in it at all, so nothing gains maximum strength here.
• Debilitates no graha. No graha reaches its lowest point inside Leo.
• Moolatrikona of Sun, 0°–20° — and that is the Sun, so part of this sign is the Sun’s strongest ground short of exaltation.

So Leo holds neither an exaltation nor a debilitation degree, which makes it one of the more neutral hosts in the zodiac. There is no fixed point inside it for the Sun to be measured against, and the reading falls back on the Sun and on the pada. Leo’s own traits — confident, dramatic, generous, creative, proud — are the register in which soul, ego, vitality, leadership, father gets expressed when the Sun sits here.

The Nine Padas the Sun Crosses in Leo

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. Leo holds 3 nakshatras in whole or in part: Magha, Purva Phalguni and Uttara Phalguni (pada 1).

The Sun rules Krittika, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashadha, and one of them falls inside Leo: Uttara Phalguni (pada 1). Those degrees are the part of Leo where the Sun 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 the Sun Is Actually in Leo

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

• 17 August 2026 to 17 September 2026 — 31 days, after which the Sun moves on to Virgo.
• 17 August 2027 to 17 September 2027 — 31 days, after which the Sun moves on to Virgo.

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.

Reading the Sun in Leo

The Sun signifies father, government, authority, the soul (atma), medicine, administration. In Leo those significations are filtered through a sthira fire sign ruled by the Sun, and the dignity above says how much support they get in the process. In its own sign the graha needs no permission from anyone; it delivers its significations directly.

This is not a prediction, and it cannot be one: the house Leo occupies from the ascendant, which of the nine padas above holds the graha, and the running dasha all change the answer. The Sun is reckoned mild malefic, and it gains in the 1st, 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th while it struggles in the 4th, 7th and 12th — so Sun in Leo is a different placement in each of them. Under Kaal Purush Leo is the 5th bhava, so Sun in the 5th house is the same pairing read from the bhava side, with the Leo transit dated for each of the twelve ascendants.

For what the Sun does when strong and when afflicted, its 6-year mahadasha, and the full remedy set, see the Sun (Surya) page. The short form: the Sun’s day is Sunday, its gemstone is Ruby (Manik), its mantra is Om Suryaya Namah, and its deities are Surya, invoked through the Aditya Hridayam.

Sun in the Other Eleven Rashis

The Other Eight Grahas in Leo