The eight kootas
Vashya Koota Explained: Groups, Points and Meaning
By Match Kundli Editorial Team · Updated · 4 min read
Vashya koota is worth 2 of the 36 points and looks at mutual attraction: whether two natures are drawn to each other easily, and how influence is likely to be balanced between them. It does this by placing each Moon sign in one of five symbolic groups of creatures. On this site, two Moons in the same group score 2, a few friendly combinations score 1, and every other pairing scores 0.
It is a small koota, but it is also one of the more vivid ones, because its symbolism is easy to picture.
What the word means
In Sanskrit, vashya carries the sense of something that can be influenced, held or brought under sway. In marriage matching the idea is softened into magnetism: does each partner feel a natural pull towards the other, or does one tend to dominate while the other resists? The detailed report on this site describes a full score as a steady mutual pull and a zero as a pattern in which one person may unconsciously try to steer the other.
That reading is traditional rather than psychological, but it gives couples a useful prompt for talking about how decisions are made between them.
The five Vashya groups
Each sign is assigned to a kind of creature suggested by its symbol. The ram and the bull are four-footed, the crab and the fish live in water, the lion is wild, the scorpion is an insect, and the twins, the maiden, the figure holding the scales and the water-bearer are human.
| Group | Meaning | Moon signs |
|---|---|---|
| Manav | Human | Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Aquarius, one half of Sagittarius |
| Chatushpad | Four-footed | Aries, Taurus, the other half of Sagittarius, Capricorn 0° to 15° |
| Jalachar | Water-dwelling | Cancer, Pisces, Capricorn 15° to 30° |
| Vanachar | Wild, of the forest | Leo |
| Keeta | Insect | Scorpio |
Why two signs are split in half
Sagittarius and Capricorn each have a composite symbol. Sagittarius is the archer whose lower body is a horse, so one half of the sign counts as human and the other as four-footed. Capricorn is the makara, pictured with the front of a land animal and the tail of a sea creature, so its first 15° count as four-footed and its last 15° as water-dwelling.
This means that, for these two signs only, the Moon's exact degree matters as well as its sign. The worked examples show it clearly: in Example 1 the girl's Moon is at 13°43′ Capricorn, which places her in the four-footed group, while in Example 3 the girl's Moon is at 21°17′ Capricorn, which places her among the water creatures. Both are Capricorn Moons, yet they fall into different Vashya groups. How the Moon's degree is worked out is covered in Moon sign and nakshatra: how they are calculated.
How the points are scored on this site
The calculator uses a simplified, symmetric version of the Vashya rules with three tiers:
- 2 points when both Moons are in the same group.
- 1 point for three friendly cross-group pairings: human with four-footed, four-footed with wild, and water-dwelling with four-footed.
- 0 points for every other combination.
Set out as a grid, it looks like this:
| Manav | Chatushpad | Jalachar | Vanachar | Keeta | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manav | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Chatushpad | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Jalachar | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Vanachar | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Keeta | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
The four-footed group is the most sociable in this scheme, scoring at least 1 with every group except the insect. Scorpio, the only Keeta sign, scores only with another Scorpio Moon.
How classical tables differ
Older almanacs often present Vashya as a one-way relationship, asking which sign is "under the sway" of which, and some award half points for particular combinations. Different traditions also disagree on a few of the pairings. Because the site uses a fixed three-tier version, its Vashya score can differ from another calculator's by a point or so. With only 2 points at stake, that difference rarely changes how a match is read overall, but it is worth knowing if you are comparing two reports side by side. The overview of the eight kootas lists the other places where the site's tables are simplified.
Vashya in the worked examples
| Example | Boy's Moon and group | Girl's Moon and group | Vashya |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example 1 | Pisces, Jalachar | Capricorn 13°43′, Chatushpad | 1 |
| Example 2 | Pisces, Jalachar | Capricorn 20°56′, Jalachar | 2 |
| Example 3 | Taurus, Chatushpad | Capricorn 21°17′, Jalachar | 1 |
Example 2 earns the full 2 points only because the girl's Moon sits in the second half of Capricorn. Had she been born about half a day earlier, with the Moon still in the first half of the sign, the pairing would have become water with four-footed and the score would have dropped to 1.
Reading a low Vashya score
A zero in Vashya is usually read as a reminder that attraction and influence may not flow evenly, and that the couple benefit from noticing who tends to give way. It is not treated as a dosha, and it costs at most 2 points.
Vashya is often read together with Yoni, which looks at physical and instinctive compatibility through animal symbols of its own; see Yoni koota: compatibility and its meaning. Mental rapport, which many people mean when they say "we just get each other", belongs to Graha Maitri instead.