Nakshatra Calculator: Your Lunar Mansion & Pada
A finer cut of the sky than a sign can make.
Nakshatras are the 27 lunar constellations used in Vedic astrology. They divide the zodiac more finely than the twelve signs do, there is no Western equivalent, and yours is the one the Moon occupied when you were born.
What a nakshatra is
A nakshatra is one of 27 segments the Vedic zodiac is divided into, each 13 degrees and 20 minutes wide. In English they are usually called lunar mansions, because the Moon spends about a day in each and crosses all 27 in a sidereal month.
Where a zodiac sign is a broad twelfth of the circle, a nakshatra is a finer twenty-seventh — so it says something more specific about the same Moon. Each carries a ruling planet, a presiding deity, and a set of qualities: gana, yoni and nadi, which are used directly in compatibility matching.
Each nakshatra also divides into four padas of 3°20′. The pada determines your navamsa position in the D9 chart and, traditionally, the syllable a birth name starts with — which is why many people in India know their nakshatra and pada without knowing anything else about their chart.
Find your nakshatra and pada
The 27 lunar mansions divide the zodiac more finely than the 12 signs. Your Moon's nakshatra drives your dasha timing and most of traditional compatibility.
What it is called
Vedic astrology reached the English-speaking world through several routes, so most concepts here carry a Sanskrit name and one or two translations. They are the same thing.
- Nakshatraalso called lunar mansion, star sign (not to be confused with a zodiac sign)
- One of 27 divisions of the zodiac, each 13°20′ wide. The Moon crosses roughly one per day. Yours is the one the Moon occupied at your birth.
- Padaalso called quarter
- A quarter of a nakshatra, 3°20′ wide. It sets the navamsa (D9) position and the traditional birth-name syllable.
- Ganaalso called temperament group
- Deva, manushya or rakshasa — a temperament category assigned to each nakshatra, scored as one of the eight kootas in compatibility matching.
- Yonialso called animal symbol
- An animal assigned to each nakshatra, read in matching for instinctive and physical compatibility.
- Nadialso called constitutional type
- Vata, pitta or kapha, borrowed from Ayurveda. It carries the heaviest weight of the eight kootas — eight of the 36 points.
Twenty-seven divisions, and why twenty-seven
The number comes from the Moon. A sidereal month — the time the Moon takes to return to the same star — is about 27.3 days, so dividing the zodiac into 27 gives segments the Moon crosses at roughly one per day. The system is built around the Moon's actual motion rather than an arbitrary carving of the circle.
That makes the nakshatra a natural unit for anything the Moon governs, and in Vedic astrology it governs a great deal: the mind, memory, the emotional register, and — through Vimshottari dasha — the timing of a whole life. Your dasha sequence does not start from your sign. It starts from your nakshatra, and from how far through it the Moon had travelled at your birth.
Each nakshatra also has a ruling planet, and the sequence of those rulers is fixed: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, repeating three times across the 27. That sequence is the Vimshottari cycle, which is why the two systems are inseparable.
What your nakshatra is used for
This is not a decorative label. Several working parts of a Vedic reading take the nakshatra as their input, and none of them can be computed without it.
- chevron_rightVimshottari dasha — the ruling planet of your Moon's nakshatra determines which planetary period you were born into, and the elapsed degrees determine how much of it remained. The whole 120-year sequence follows from that one figure.
- chevron_rightCompatibility matching — five of the eight kootas in Guna Milan are computed from the two nakshatras — gana, yoni, nadi, tara and bhakoot all read the nakshatra rather than the sign.
- chevron_rightThe navamsa chart — the pada maps directly onto a navamsa sign, which is how the D9 chart is derived. A different pada is a different D9 position for that planet.
- chevron_rightThe birth-name syllable — each pada has an assigned syllable, and traditional naming picks the first sound of a child's name from it. Arivyah reports the syllable for your pada and the full set for your nakshatra.
- chevron_rightMuhurta, or timing a beginning — the nakshatra the Moon is in today is one of the five limbs of the panchang, and it is consulted when choosing a day to start something.
Where to go next
Each of these reads a different part of the same birth data, so once one is computed the rest need nothing more from you.
Calculate your Moon sign (Chandra Rashi)
The broader twelfth of the sky the same Moon sits in, and why it differs from Western.
See your Vimshottari dasha periods
The timing sequence your nakshatra's ruling planet begins, with real dates.
View your Navamsa D9 chart
Built from the pada of every planet, not just the Moon's.
Score a match with Guna Milan
Five of the eight kootas read the nakshatra — gana, yoni, nadi, tara and bhakoot.
See today's nakshatra in the panchang
Where the Moon is right now, as one of the five limbs of the Vedic day.
Generate your full birth chart
Every graha's nakshatra and pada, not only the Moon's.
Questions
What is a nakshatra?add
One of 27 segments the Vedic zodiac is divided into, each about 13 degrees and 20 minutes wide. They are often called lunar mansions in English, because the Moon spends roughly one day in each and completes the circuit in a sidereal month. Where a sign is a broad twelfth of the sky, a nakshatra is a finer twenty-seventh — so it says something more specific about the same Moon position.
How is a nakshatra different from a zodiac sign?add
Only in resolution and lineage. Both divide the same 360 degrees; signs cut it into twelve, nakshatras into twenty-seven. But nakshatras are older in the Indian tradition than the twelve-sign zodiac and carry a different kind of information: each has a ruling planet, a presiding deity, and a set of qualities — gana, yoni, nadi — that are used directly in compatibility matching. Signs carry none of that.
What is a pada?add
Each nakshatra divides into four quarters of 3 degrees 20 minutes, called padas. They matter for two reasons. First, the pada determines which navamsa sign the position falls in, which is how the D9 chart is built. Second, tradition assigns each pada a syllable, and that syllable is conventionally used to choose a birth name — which is why many people in India know their nakshatra and pada without knowing anything else about their chart.
Do I need an accurate birth time for my nakshatra?add
More than for your Moon sign, yes. The Moon crosses a full nakshatra in about a day, so an hour of error is usually harmless — but it takes only about six hours to cross a pada, so a rough time can genuinely put you in the wrong quarter. If your time is uncertain, the calculation reports the degree so you can see how near an edge you are rather than being handed a false certainty.
What are gana, yoni and nadi?add
Three of the qualities each nakshatra carries, and three of the eight kootas scored in Guna Milan. Gana sorts nakshatras into deva, manushya and rakshasa temperaments. Yoni assigns an animal, read for physical and instinctive compatibility. Nadi maps to one of three constitutional types, borrowed from Ayurveda, and it carries the largest single weight in the matching score. Arivyah computes all three from your Moon's nakshatra.
Which nakshatra is best?add
None of them, and any source that ranks them is selling something. Classical texts describe each nakshatra as suited to different things and difficult in others — there is no hierarchy, and a quality that reads as a liability in one context reads as an asset in another. What is genuinely useful is knowing yours and what tradition associates with it, which is what this page gives you.
How this is calculated
The arithmetic, and where it stops
The Moon's sidereal longitude is computed from Swiss Ephemeris data with the Lahiri ayanamsa, then divided by 13°20′ to give the nakshatra index and by 3°20′ within it to give the pada. Both are arithmetic on a measured position — no judgement enters at that stage, and the figure can be checked against any ephemeris.
Gana, yoni, nadi, varna, vashya, paya, the presiding deity and the name syllables are fixed traditional attributes of each nakshatra and pada, read from classical tables rather than derived. They are reported as what tradition assigns, not as findings.
Pada resolution is where birth time bites: about six hours of Moon motion covers one pada. Where your time is uncertain the chart reports the degree within the nakshatra so you can judge how near a boundary you are.
Positions are astronomy and can be checked against any ephemeris. What a position is said to mean is astrological interpretation, and this site presents it as tradition rather than as established fact. How every chart here is calculated.
Your nakshatra, pada, and everything downstream of it
The same calculation gives your gana, yoni and nadi, your name syllable, your navamsa position and the dasha sequence your nakshatra's lord begins.