What Is Nakshatra?

A Moon at 5 degrees sidereal longitude falls in Ashwini, which spans 0 to 13 degrees 20 minutes, and in its second pada, which runs from 3 degrees 20 minutes to 6 degrees 40 minutes.

A nakshatra is one of the 27 lunar mansions of Jyotish, equal segments of the sidereal zodiac that the Moon passes through in turn. The word is often translated as “star,” since each is named for a star or star group near the Moon’s path, and in South India people often call their birth nakshatra their star.

The Moon circles the zodiac against the stars in about 27.3 days, so it spends about a day in each mansion. Your birth, or janma, nakshatra is the one it occupied when you were born.

Each carries a name, a symbol, a presiding deity and a ruling planet, and nakshatras still shape naming customs, festival calendars and the daily almanac called the Panchang.

Divide 360 degrees by 27 and you get 13.33 degrees, or 13 degrees 20 minutes. Ashwini begins at 0 degrees sidereal Aries; Revati ends back there.

Each mansion has four padas, or quarters, of 3 degrees 20 minutes: 108 around the circle (27 times 4), or 9 per sign (108 divided by 12). That slice is also the unit of the navamsa (D9) chart, so a planet’s pada gives its navamsa sign.

Nine mansions make exactly 120 degrees, four signs, so the boundaries realign at Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; elsewhere some mansions straddle two signs.

Spans are sidereal longitudes from 0 degrees Aries; rulers follow the Vimshottari order, repeated three times.

Each mansion has a ruler, assigned in a repeating cycle of nine: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury. It runs three times around the zodiac, so Ashwini, Magha and Mula share Ketu, and Revati belongs to Mercury.

This cycle is the backbone of Vimshottari Dasha, a 120-year scheme of planetary periods: Ketu 7 years, Venus 20, Sun 6, Moon 10, Mars 7, Rahu 18, Jupiter 16, Saturn 19 and Mercury 17. Life opens in the period of your birth nakshatra’s ruler, with only the share left that matches the part of the mansion the Moon had yet to cross.

Take a made-up chart with the sidereal Moon at 208 degrees. Multiply by 27 and divide by 360: 208 times 27 is 5,616, and 5,616 divided by 360 is 15.6. Fifteen whole mansions have passed, so the Moon is in the sixteenth, Vishakha, which runs from 200 degrees to 213 degrees 20 minutes.

The Moon is 8 degrees into Vishakha (208 minus 200), 0.6 of the way through. Pada 3 covers 6 degrees 40 minutes to 10 degrees into the mansion, so this is pada 3. At 208 degrees the Moon is 28 degrees into Libra, so the Rashi is Tula; only Vishakha’s fourth pada, from 210 degrees, lies in Scorpio.

Vishakha’s place in the cycle of nine gives its ruler: 16 is nine plus 7, and the seventh ruler is Jupiter, with 16 years. With 0.4 of the mansion left, about 6.4 years of that period remain at birth (0.4 times 16).

The Moon crosses a pada in about six hours (roughly 0.54 degrees an hour), so a birth five hours later would carry it about 2.7 degrees on, past 210 degrees into pada 4 and Scorpio.

With the Moon’s sidereal degree, you can do this by hand.

1. Calculate the Moon’s sidereal longitude from your birth date, time and city, and note the ayanamsa used.
2. Multiply the longitude by 27 and divide by 360. The whole number plus one is the mansion’s number in the table.
3. Multiply the decimal part by 4. The whole number plus one is the pada.
4. Look up the ruler in the table; it names your first Dasha period.
5. If the Moon is within about half a degree of a boundary, recheck with slightly earlier and later birth times.

The Nakshatra calculator on this site computes the Moon’s sidereal position with the Lahiri ayanamsa from your birth date, time and city, then applies the arithmetic above: the whole 27ths of the circle passed, plus one, give the mansion, and the quarter reached gives the pada.

It shows the nakshatra and pada beside your Lagna and Rashi, with the Moon’s exact degree in the graha table. The Dasha and Kundli calculators start Vimshottari periods from this position. A site using another ayanamsa can give a different pada, occasionally a different mansion, near a boundary.

Most people ask this next. The Rashi is the 30-degree sign holding the Moon; the nakshatra narrows it to 13 degrees 20 minutes, and the pada to 3 degrees 20 minutes. Two people with one Rashi can have different nakshatras, and one nakshatra can span two rashis, as Vishakha does.

The Rashi is the broad emotional sign many readers start from. The nakshatra serves finer temperament descriptions, the Dasha, traditional matching, and the custom of taking a baby’s first name syllable from the sound linked to the birth pada. Other planets have nakshatras too, but “birth nakshatra” means the Moon’s.

Do I need an exact birth time? A time within an hour or two usually settles the nakshatra, since the Moon spends about a day in each. The pada changes about every six hours and needs a closer time, as does any Moon near a boundary.

Are some nakshatras unlucky? The tradition gives each mansion a character, gentle in some and sharp in others. These describe styles, not fates; no birth nakshatra is a misfortune.

Is there a 28th nakshatra? Some older lists add Abhijit, still used in certain timing methods; birth charts, including the calculators here, use the standard 27.

Does my nakshatra change during my life? No; it is fixed at birth. The Moon passes through all 27 every month, and its current mansion is the day’s nakshatra in a Panchang.

Near a nakshatra boundary, a different ayanamsa or a small birth-time error can change the nakshatra or pada you are given.