Capricorn

The sign at a glance

Place in the zodiac

10

Persian month

Dey

Element

Earth

Quality

Cardinal

The element and the quality are the classical groupings: every fourth sign shares an element, and every third shares a quality.

The tenth of the twelve borj

The borj are the twelve signs of the zodiac as the Persian calendrical tradition names them. Capricorn holds the tenth place in that order, following Sagittarius and giving way to Aquarius. Its Persian name is Jadi (جدی), the kid or young goat, and the figure of the goat is the one carried by the sign in Persian usage as in Greek and Arabic astronomy before it.

When the Persian solar calendar was given its modern form, the months were cut to follow the signs, so the names of the signs served directly as the names of months. Iran's calendar now uses the Persian month names instead, but the borj names never left the language: they remain the ordinary vocabulary of traditional astronomy and astrology, and they are still the everyday month names of the Solar Hijri calendar used in Afghanistan, where the tenth month is Jadi. That is why a single word can name both a sign and a stretch of the year without any confusion.

What the tradition associates with Jadi

In the tradition, this borj belongs to the element earth, and the readings gathered around it are readings of patience, endurance and long work. The tradition associates it with steadiness under weight, with thoroughness, with keeping to a measure once it has been set, and with the kind of effort that shows its result only after some time has passed. Where other signs are described as quick to begin, this one is described in the tradition as unhurried and difficult to turn aside.

The classical schemes give this borj to Saturn — Keyvan or Zahal in Persian usage — the slowest of the visible wandering stars, and much of what the tradition says about Jadi follows from that assignment. In these accounts Saturn stands for time, limit, structure and the authority of what has been tested, so the borj is associated with order, gravity of manner, respect for boundaries, and care for what is durable rather than what is new. The same tradition calls Saturn's temperament cold and dry, and describes the borj accordingly as reserved, sparing in speech, and slow to warm — a quality the older writers record plainly alongside the constancy they praise in it.

In Persian poetic and proverbial usage the borj also carries the sense of the year's cold and inward season, a time associated with shelter, storage and the quiet continuation of work indoors. The tradition treats these as attributes of the sign and the stretch of the year it names.

These are readings the tradition carries, recorded and retold over centuries. They describe the sign, not any person born in its month.

The sign, the month, and the moving date

The Persian year begins at the vernal equinox, an astronomical moment rather than a chosen square on a grid. Because the months were cut along the zodiac from that starting point, the tenth month and the tenth sign are the same span of the year. In this product the sign therefore follows the month: a birth date falls under this borj because it falls inside the month, and nothing finer than a whole month is claimed. There are no degrees here, no decans, and no time of day, because a civil birth date could not supply them.

The page shows this sign's classical quality as cardinal. In plain language, that means this borj opens one of the year's four seasons in the classical scheme rather than sitting at its centre or closing it and passing it on. The season turns at its beginning, which is part of why the tradition speaks of it in terms of foundations and beginnings of long work.

One consequence follows for anyone comparing calendars. Since the equinox does not fall at the same Gregorian instant every year, the Gregorian date on which this month begins moves, and across a long run of Persian years it has begun on more than one Gregorian date. A printed table that gives a single fixed range will therefore disagree with the calendar for some years. Where that happens, this page treats the printed range as a convenient approximation and follows the calendar's own month boundaries instead.

Why a printed table disagrees

What Dey, the month itself, is called in Iran and in Afghanistan

When Capricorn began

The Persian year starts at the spring equinox, so each month starts on whichever Gregorian day the equinox falls on. That is why these dates move.

Across the 101 years below, Capricorn began on 3 different Gregorian dates. A printed table prints one of them.

From 1950-12-22 to 2051-01-20.

1. December 21

   20 yearsEnded January 19.

   1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024, 2028, 2029, 2032, 2033, 2036, 2037, 2040, 2041, 2044, 2045, 2048, 2049

2. December 22

   78 yearsEnded January 20.

   1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2030, 2031, 2034, 2035, 2038, 2039, 2042, 2043, 2046, 2047, 2050

3. December 23

   3 yearsEnded January 21.

   1951, 1955, 1959