Mrigashira Nakshatra: the Moon-deity star across Taurus and Gemini, its padas, Mars dasha and texts

Mrigashira is the fifth nakshatra. Like Krittika it straddles a sign boundary: its first two padas close Taurus and its last two open Gemini. It is the first nakshatra ruled by Mars in the Vimshottari scheme, and its classical deity is the Moon. If your Moon was in Mrigashira at birth, it sets the Mars Mahadasha your life began in, gives you the Serpent yoni, Deva gana and Madhya nadi in matching, and places your Moon under a particular sub-lord. Find your nakshatra and pada with the nakshatra calculator.

This page brings together what the classical books in this app's corpus say about Mrigashira, cited by chapter, sloka or page, and what this app's engine computes for it. The books are Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS), Kalyana Varma's Saravali, Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara and Advanced Predictive Astrology, all listed on the sources page. For Moon sign and nakshatra in general see Moon sign and nakshatra; for the two signs it touches, Taurus and Gemini.

Where Mrigashira sits: two padas in Taurus, two in Gemini

Each nakshatra spans 13 degrees 20 minutes and each pada 3 degrees 20 minutes (Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, Ch. II, pp. 22-23). Four nakshatras take the zodiac to Taurus 23 degrees 20 minutes, so Mrigashira runs from there to Gemini 6 degrees 40 minutes, split evenly across the two signs. Its sign lord is Venus for padas 1 and 2 and Mercury for padas 3 and 4.

In Taurus, BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54 makes everything after the first 3 degrees the Moon's Mooltrikona, so a Moon in Mrigashira's first two padas is in Mooltrikona by the text. In Gemini the Moon has no special dignity. Gemini has no exaltation or own-sign status for the Moon in Sl. 49-54, and the engine labels it a friendly sign for the Moon, because Mercury, its lord, is among the Moon's natural friends.

The engine's rule counts a fixed sign's navamsas from its 9th sign and a dual sign's from its 5th: Taurus counts from Capricorn, so its 8th and 9th navamsas are Leo and Virgo; Gemini counts from Libra, so its first two are Libra and Scorpio. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 reaches the same four signs from the nakshatra: four nakshatras have passed, 4 divided by 3 leaves 1, times 4 is 4, plus the pada gives the 5th to 8th signs from Mesh. No pada returns to its own sign, so no graha in Mrigashira is Vargottama. Check yours in the Navamsa (D9) calculator.

The Moon as deity, and a cat's foot

BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the nakshatra deities as the lords of the Saptavimshamsa's 27 parts, and the fifth is Candr, the Moon. So Mrigashira is a Mars-ruled nakshatra in Vimshottari whose presiding deity is the Moon. The Saptavimshamsa (D27) calculator uses the same list.

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's entry (Ch. IV, pp. 94-95) agrees on the deity, Chandra, and describes the asterism as three stars in the form of a cat's foot. It calls the nakshatra a eunuch, matching its classification of Mrigashira as one of only three neuter stars, gives its tatthwa as Prithvi (earth), its region as Central, its body part as the eyebrows, and says it is represented by quadrupeds. The direction table (p. 90) and body-part table (p. 91) agree on Central and eyebrows. The entry also names a caste, which is not carried over here or by the engine.

The entry lists occupations and likings too: performers of yagas, revered men, writers, painters and singers, and a fondness for perfumes, dresses, ornaments, fruits and flowers, precious stones, and wild beasts, birds and deer. These are the book's classical associations, reported as it gives them.

How Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara classifies Mrigashira

The body-part table has a stated use: the book says it helps in predicting the location and spread of disease, read together with the 6th lord's placement in the Rasi and Navamsa charts (p. 91). For Mrigashira that part is the eyebrows. This is reported as the book's claim, not medical advice, and the app does not use it. The book ties its "nature" labels to timing in one sentence: during the period of a planet situated in a particular star, effects will be felt according to these characteristics (p. 91). In that book's terms the dasha of any graha placed in Mrigashira takes a soft quality. It says nothing more specific, and the engine does not use the label. The yoga list (pp. 28-29) adds that the 25th yoga, Brahma, begins at Mrigashira by the book's yoga-point arithmetic; that places the yoga on the zodiac and does not describe people born in Mrigashira.

What the texts say about a person born in Mrigashira

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's two descriptions overlap but stress different things. The prose (p. 95) says the person born in this constellation will be of firm principles, able, timid, of good speech, of active habits and rich, with a line on sensual pleasure. The translated sloka says the person is interested in archery, humble, affectionate, well-mannered and devout, and virtuous in conduct. As for every entry, the book says the effects come fully only if the Moon is powerful (p. 91).

The engine's NAKSHATRA_TRAITS table follows the sloka: you tend to be "humble, affectionate and well-mannered, with a devoted, virtuous streak". Its comment records the standing omissions for all 27 entries (caste dropped, appearance and spouse lines dropped, harsh verdicts softened); for Mrigashira, the sloka needed nothing softened, and the prose's sensual clause is simply not used.

A Mrigashira Moon is a Taurus Moon in padas 1 and 2 and a Gemini Moon in padas 3 and 4, so Saravali's sign-level chapter, Ch. 23, applies one way or the other; it is covered on the Taurus and Gemini pages and not repeated here. Saravali does not name Mrigashira itself anywhere in the corpus copy, and neither does Bhrigu Sutras.

The Moon's Navamsa in each pada: Saravali Ch. 24

Saravali Ch. 24 reads the Moon by its Navamsa and the graha aspecting it, which is where the pada makes a difference. A Mrigashira Moon is in the Navamsa of the Sun in pada 1 (Leo, Sl. 13-15), of Mercury in pada 2 (Virgo, Sl. 7-9), of Venus in pada 3 (Libra, Sl. 4-6) and of Mars in pada 4 (Scorpio, Sl. 1-3). Some of the milder readings: a Leo Navamsa aspected by Mercury is tied to an interest in astrology and heroic history, and affluence; a Mercury Navamsa aspected by Jupiter to a minister and a repository of good qualities; a Venus Navamsa aspected by Mercury to skill with musical instruments and an interest in dance and music; a Mars Navamsa aspected by Mars to winning over enemies and valour. Many other lines in the chapter are harsh verdicts and are not repeated here.

Sl. 22-24 then scale the effects: full in a Vargottama Navamsa, medium in the Moon's own Navamsa, minor in any other. None of Mrigashira's padas is Vargottama and none is in Cancer, the Moon's own Navamsa, so on Saravali's terms every Mrigashira Moon gives its Navamsa reading at the minor level, unless the Navamsa lord is stronger than the sign lord, in which case the Navamsa effects prevail. The app does not implement Ch. 24; the Navamsa and aspects it shows let you read it by hand.

Mars, the lord of Mrigashira, and the Mars Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15 begins the Vimshottari cycle at Krittika with the Sun, then the Moon, then Mars, so Mrigashira, third in that cycle, belongs to Mars, with 7 years. The engine's nakshatraSubdivision() confirms it. Mars rules the same position in the later cycles, Chitra and Dhanishta, and both of those, like Mrigashira, straddle a sign boundary at their midpoint. For Mars as a graha, see Mars in Vedic astrology.

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 16 is the rule behind that arithmetic: the dasha's years times the part of the nakshatra not yet crossed. Your own dates are in the Vimshottari Dasha calculator, and the period is described on the Mars Mahadasha page. BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 1-8 makes the content of any dasha depend on the lord's house rulership and placement in your chart; the nakshatra supplies the dates.

The sub-periods inside the Mars Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 51 Sl. 2 gives the first Antar Dasha of any Mahadasha to its own lord, and the rest follow in Vimshottari order, each lasting the Mahadasha's years times the sub-lord's years divided by 120. For the 7-year Mars period that works out, by hand, as below; the nine add back to 7 years.

This is the same proportion the engine uses to cut the nakshatra into sub-lord arcs, which gives a useful link: the Moon's sub-lord at birth is the Antar Dasha running at birth. In the worked example the Moon at Taurus 28 degrees 20 minutes is in the Saturn sub (Taurus 27 degrees 53 minutes to 30 degrees, in the table further down), and by the arithmetic 2.625 of Mars's 7 years had already elapsed at birth, past the Mars, Rahu and Jupiter sub-periods (2.39 years together) and into Saturn's. Both routes give Saturn.

Mars's relationship to the two sign lords is where the sources disagree. Worked from Mars's Mooltrikona, Aries, by BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55: Venus rules the 2nd sign (a friend position) and the 7th (not), so is neutral; Mercury rules the 3rd and 6th, neither a friend position, so is an enemy. The engine's NATURAL_RELATIONS table matches that exactly (Mars's only enemy is Mercury). Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's table (Ch. III, p. 85), built by another method, instead lists Sukra and Sani as Mars's enemies and Budha as neutral. So for a Mrigashira Moon in Gemini the engine counts the star lord as hostile to the sign lord, and that book would not. The disagreement is reported, not resolved.

Mrigashira as a dignity for every graha

The Moon's Taurus label is the one place the engine departs from BPHS. Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54 makes Taurus after 3 degrees the Moon's Mooltrikona, and the engine's own MOOLATRIKONA table says the same, but dignityOf() checks exaltation first and gives the Moon no exaltation end-point, so every Taurus Moon is labelled Exalted. The two score the same on the engine's strength ladder; only the label differs. Mars, the nakshatra's own lord, is in an enemy sign in Gemini by the engine's table, which follows from the Mars-Mercury enmity above.

On Saravali's ray scale (Ch. 36 Sl. 3-6: 7 rays at exaltation, 0 at debilitation, by the rule of three from the deep debilitation point, the formula the engine's planetaryRays() uses), worked by hand, a Moon in Mrigashira has about 6.21 rays at the start and 5.69 at the end, and Mars, moving towards its debilitation point at Cancer 28 degrees, only about 2.5 falling to 2.0. The Sun crosses Mrigashira once a year: the engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters it on 8 June and leaves for Ardra on 22 June.

Mrigashira rising

When the Ascendant rather than the Moon is in Mrigashira, the sign split matters even more, because it changes the rising sign and with it every house lord. Padas 1-2 rising make a Taurus Ascendant; padas 3-4 a Gemini Ascendant. BPHS Ch. 3 (translator's addition to Sl. 4-6) says a sign takes about two hours to rise, roughly four minutes a degree, depending on latitude, so the Ascendant crosses a 3 degree 20 minute pada in something like a quarter of an hour. The Lagna calculator needs the birth time and place for that reason.

BPHS Ch. 34 gives the role of each graha by rising sign, which says something about Mars, Mrigashira's lord, in each case. For a Taurus Ascendant (Sl. 23-24) the text names Saturn and the Sun as auspicious, Saturn as the Raj Yoga giver, and says the Jupiter group (Jupiter, Moon, Venus) and Mars "will inflict death", the classical maraka role. For a Gemini Ascendant (Sl. 25-26) Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are malefics and Venus the only auspicious graha. The engine's YOGA_KARAKA_BY_LAGNA table matches the text for Gemini and for Taurus's benefics and Yoga Karaka, but its Taurus row lists no killers at all, where the text names Mars and the Jupiter group. That gap is reported here rather than filled.

The nine sub-lords inside Mrigashira

The engine divides Mrigashira into nine arcs in proportion to the Vimshottari years, starting with Mars's own (BPHS Ch. 51 Sl. 2). The Saturn sub ends exactly at the Taurus-Gemini boundary, and Mercury's begins there. The sub-lord calculator reports these for every graha.

That the Saturn-Mercury sub boundary falls on the sign boundary is a coincidence of the arithmetic, not a rule; it happens because Mars, Rahu, Jupiter and Saturn's years (7 + 18 + 16 + 19 = 60) are exactly half of 120. For why sub-lords need an accurate birth time, see the sub-lord and birth time.

Mrigashira heads a Kala Chakra group

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 56-58 puts Mrigashira in the Apsavya (counter-clockwise) Kala Chakra, and Sl. 77 makes it the model for eight nakshatras: "In the 4 Padas of the Apsavya Nakshatras Mrigashira, Ardra, Purvaphalguni, Uttaraphalguni, Anuradha, Jyeshtha, Dhanishtha and Shatabhisha the Deha and Jiva and the Dasha Lords will be the same, as for Mrigashira." Sl. 78-81 then give each pada's Deha and Jiva (in the first table) and its nine dasha signs.

The totals are a check on the translation. Sl. 89 gives the full years for a Navamsa as 100 for Mesh, 85 for Vrishabh, 83 for Mithun and 86 for Kark, and the same for the 5th and 9th signs from them. Mrigashira's Navamsas, Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, therefore carry 100, 85, 83 and 86. The row totals, 86, 83, 85 and 100, are exactly those four figures in reverse pada order, which fits a counter-clockwise chart. All four Mrigashira rows pass this check, which is more than the Rohini rows of the same chart do. The app computes the Kala Chakra Dasha from these rows, with its balance and dates; the text's use of these totals as a span of life is not repeated here.

Ashtottari (Sl. 17-20) places Mrigashira in Venus's group of three with Krittika and Rohini, 21 years in that system, and the engine builds it in full, balance and dates included; Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41) lists it under the Sun, 10 years, which the engine shows with a balance at birth and dated periods by the rule "as in Vimshottari", which BPHS does not state and the app takes from a published reference outside it (Sanjay Rath). These and the six other systems the engine builds appear in the alternate dashas calculator. For a Mrigashira Moon: Shodshottari Sun 11 years, Dwadashottari Saturn 19, Panchottari Mercury 13, Shatabdik Mars 20, Chaturashiti-sama Mercury 12, Dwisaptati-sama Venus 9. BPHS ties each system to a particular kind of chart, and the calculator shows which apply to yours.

Mrigashira in Ashtakoot matching

The engine's ashtakoot() function gives a Mrigashira Moon the values below; the Kundli matching calculator applies them to two charts.

Rohini and Mrigashira share the Serpent yoni, so a Rohini-Mrigashira pair scores the full 4 on Yoni and 3 on Tara (they are neighbours) but differs on Gana (Manushya against Deva, 3 of 6) and Nadi (Antya against Madhya, the full 8). The engine's comment says these are the conventional tables, kept because no book in the corpus prints the Ashtakoot rules; its Tara rule cannot score 0, since the two inclusive counts between different stars always total 29 and cannot both leave 3, 5 or 7 after dividing by 9.

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 225) offers an outside comparison for Nadi: its "humour producing asterisms" table puts Mrigasira in the Pitta column, whose nine stars are exactly the engine's Madhya group. The book uses that grouping for health tendencies; that is its view, not medical advice. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's vainasika rule (Ch. IV, p. 89), the 22nd star from one's birth star to be avoided for auspicious events, gives Uttara Bhadrapada for Mrigashira, counting Mrigashira as the first. The app uses neither.

Mrigashira in muhurat

In the engine's muhurat finder, Mrigashira is on three of six activity lists: Marriage, Property purchase and Travel. With the Moon in a listed nakshatra a window gains 16 points; otherwise it loses 6. Tithi, paksha, the Moon's house from your chart, the weekday, Rahu Kaal and your numerology day are added on top, so the nakshatra never settles a window by itself. The lists cite no source, and no book in this corpus gives per-activity muhurat lists; Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's only relevant label is that Mrigashira is soft.

From the engine's own Moon positions, sampled every ten minutes, the next passes through Mrigashira are 29 October 2026 11:20 to 30 October 09:10 IST, 25 November 20:40 to 26 November 17:50 IST, and 23 December 08:00 to 24 December 05:00 IST, each a little under 22 hours. The muhurat finder samples three windows a day, so each pass yields two or three Mrigashira windows. The Panchang shows the current nakshatra.

Checking Mrigashira in your own chart

The Moon's nakshatra needs a date and time; the birth place is needed only for the Ascendant and houses. The Moon crosses a pada in about six hours. Its longitude in this app is good to about 0.1-0.3 degrees, as the methodology page explains, so a Moon within a few tenths of a degree of Taurus 23 degrees 20 minutes, Gemini 6 degrees 40 minutes, or the Taurus-Gemini line can honestly fall on either side; at that middle line the Moon sign changes as well as the pada. The ayanamsa moves all of these boundaries together; see why apps disagree on your nakshatra. The Moon sign calculator shows the sign and nakshatra together.

Mrigashira between Rohini and Ardra

Before Mrigashira lies Rohini, the Moon's own star, which shares Mrigashira's Serpent yoni; after it comes Ardra, ruled by Rahu, wholly in Gemini, and reckoned in the Kala Chakra with Mrigashira's own group. In Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's triple grouping, Rohini, Mrigashira and Aardra run Sristi, Sthithi, Laya. Mrigashira is also the last of the five earth (Prithvi) stars that run unbroken from Ashwini; the water stars begin with Ardra.

Which planet rules Mrigashira nakshatra?

Mars, with a Mahadasha of 7 years, in the Vimshottari scheme of BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15. The sign lord is Venus for padas 1-2 (Taurus) and Mercury for padas 3-4 (Gemini).

Who is the deity of Mrigashira?

The Moon. BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 lists Candr fifth among the nakshatra deities, and Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. IV, p. 94) names Chandra as the presiding deity.

What is the symbol of Mrigashira?

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara describes three stars in the form of a cat's foot, represented by quadrupeds. The engine's Yoni animal for Mrigashira is the Serpent, shared with Rohini.

Is Mrigashira in Taurus or Gemini?

Both: padas 1 and 2 are Taurus 23 degrees 20 minutes to 30 degrees, padas 3 and 4 are Gemini 0 to 6 degrees 40 minutes.

What is the gana, yoni and nadi of Mrigashira?

Deva gana, Serpent yoni and Madhya nadi in this app's matching engine, which uses the conventional tables.

Is Mrigashira good for marriage or travel muhurat?

In this app's muhurat engine it is on the Marriage, Property purchase and Travel lists, worth 16 points on the nakshatra factor. It is one factor among several. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara classes Mrigashira as soft.

Is any pada of Mrigashira Vargottama?

No. Its padas fall in the Navamsa signs Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, and BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 gives the same four.

When is the Sun in Mrigashira?

Once a year for about two weeks. The engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters Mrigashira on 8 June and Ardra on 22 June; roughly the first week is in Taurus and the second in Gemini.

Which Kala Chakra group does Mrigashira belong to?

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 77 makes Mrigashira the model for eight Apsavya nakshatras: Mrigashira, Ardra, the two Phalgunis, Anuradha, Jyeshtha, Dhanishta and Shatabhisha share its Deha, Jiva and dasha signs. The app computes the Kala Chakra Dasha on the alternate dashas calculator and the Kundali screen.

How long is the Mars dasha at birth for a Mrigashira Moon?

Up to 7 years: 7 times the share of Mrigashira still ahead of the Moon. A Moon 5 degrees in leaves 4.375 years.