Ayurveda

The Moon goes round the sky in about 27 days, and India's astronomers split its path into 27 mansions, the nakshatras, one for each night. Each has a deity and a ruling planet, and four quarters, the padas. The mansion the Moon was in when you were born is your birth star, and it is read before the Sun.

The signs here are counted from the stars (sidereal, with the Lahiri ayanamsa India's calendar uses), so they usually sit one sign behind the tropical signs of Western horoscopes.

Ayurveda sees three doshas at work in everything: Vata, air and space; Pitta, fire and water; Kapha, earth and water. Each rules a third of the day and a third of the night in turn, Kapha from sunrise, then Pitta, then Vata, and again from sunset.