COLORS OF THE ZODIAC AND PLANETS – Vedic Astrology

Colors of the planets Sun is burnt orange Moon is snow white Mars is bright red Mercury is yellow-green Jupiter is saffron Venus is prismatic/crystalline Saturn is black/ dark blue/ purple Rahu and Ketu (the nodes) are smokey and hazy.  We have to acknowledge that it is not as simple as the above makes it seem. For more details please read about the colors of planetary complexions, clothing, and glances. It’s easy to see why the Sun is a tanned orange color. And similarly easy to see why the Moon is a snowy white. Similarly it’s easy to see why Mars is bright red – that’s the actual color of Mars in the sky. But also red represents ambition and agression. Yellow is the color of intelligence, and so it is shared by two planets connected to intellect and learning: Mercury and Jupiter. Mercury’s yellow is greenish mainly because green is the middle of the spectrum and Mercury is always balanced in the middle position of everything. Jupiter’s yellow is saffron because that color has religious significance, being the color of the pollen of lotus flowers. Venus is pure, natural beauty – so she is clear with prismatic effects. Saturn is depressing and anti-solar, so darkness is its color. Cool blue hues also convey its coldness. Rahu and Ketu cause eclipses and are represented by that weird eerie smokey haze color that permeates the sky during eclipses. Signs There is an excellent book (unfortunately out of print), called The Circle of Stars. Page 27 of that book lists the colors connected with the signs – and this is based on a very thorough Cambridge Ph.D. assessing a wide variety of Sanskrit source material. Here are the colors – Aries is red Taurus is white (personally think it may be better to say “crystalline” than white) Gemini is green Cancer is rose-pink Leo is a pale yellow Virgo is multicolored (“prismatic”) Libra is black, or a very dark blue Scorpio is a blend of golden reddish brown – like an oxide color Sagittarius is yellow-brown (bordering towards yellow or “saffron”) Capricorn is spotted gray Aquarius is like red clay Pisces is crystalline/white Aries and Scorpio belong to Mars, so convey variations on the color red, Mars’ color. Taurus belongs to Venus so it is clear / white. Libra belongs to Venus but is special as the exaltation sign for Saturn, so it conveys Saturn’s colors. Interesting. Gemini is greenish like Mercury. Virgo belongs to Mercury too, but is the debilitation sign of Venus and conveys her prismatic colors. Cancer is the Moon’s white in a healthy state: rose-pink. Leo is pale yellow like a rising Sun. Sagittarius conveys the color of its owner, Jupiter: Saffron yellow. Pisces also belongs to Jupiter, but conveys the color of Venus, who exalts here: crystalline. Capricorn and Aquarius are dirt and stone oriented colors, like Saturn. We hear that Capricorn is spotted gray, like dark tombstone granite. This conveys the solidity, coldness and hardness of Saturn, and also the darkness. Aquarius is said to be red clay. It seems inexplicable. Perhaps it is really Capricorn that is red clay in color – because the red planet, Mars exalts here? Source: Vic DiCara