What is a sun sign? Why is it important?

For a vast majority of people, the only thing they know about astrology is their sun sign or zodiac sign and all they do about it is to check the astrology column in some newspaper.

As I have already mentioned in my post about houses – our horoscope details our life by dividing it into 12 parts. Each part represents specific areas of life and are called as houses.

Now, let’s add one more element to this

Each of the 12 houses is associated with one of the zodiac signs – ahha!

Now, that means all 12 zodiac signs are applicable to you in some way or the other

Then, why the emphasis on sun sign and what is this sun sign?

In your horoscope, the zodiac sign of the house in which sun is placed is called as the sun sign

The emphasis on the sun sign is because the sun is the first graha and also can be considered in some sense as the source – that’s why the term solar system is used.

I have observed that in the western approach to astrology – the emphasis on sun sign is more, perhaps because the west is more focussed on the material/extrovert aspect of life. Whereas, in oriental astrology there is more stress on the moon sign ( the sign where moon is placed) because people were more concerned with the inner state and emotional being of a person.

If sun sign is not everything, then what is important?

The sun sign is the placement of sun and tells us something about the person’s ability to shine, his leadership style and so on. However, there are 8 other planets which are placed in different zodiac signs in his chart – so a complete personality sketch about him can arise only if we look at all the other planets and their placements in the various zodiacs – not just the sun!

I hope this is clear and gives you a fair idea about the vastness and diversity of this subject.

Stay tuned for more posts about the basic concepts regarding astrology!