Punarvasu Nakshatra: Aditi's star across Gemini and Cancer, two Vargottama padas, Jupiter dasha

Punarvasu is the seventh nakshatra. Its first three padas close Gemini and its fourth opens Cancer, so it is another of the nakshatras that straddle a sign line, and unusually it has two Vargottama padas. It is the first nakshatra ruled by Jupiter in the Vimshottari scheme. If your Moon was there at birth, it sets the 16-year Jupiter Mahadasha your life began in, gives you the Cat yoni, Deva gana and Aadi nadi in matching, and places your Moon under a sub-lord. The nakshatra calculator shows your nakshatra and pada.

This page collects what the books in this app's corpus say about Punarvasu, with chapter, sloka or page, alongside what the engine computes for it: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS), Kalyana Varma's Saravali, Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara and Advanced Predictive Astrology, all on the sources page. For Moon sign and nakshatra in general see Moon sign and nakshatra; for the two signs, Gemini and Cancer.

Where Punarvasu sits: three padas in Gemini, one in Cancer

Six nakshatras of 13 degrees 20 minutes reach Gemini 20 degrees, so Punarvasu runs from there to Cancer 3 degrees 20 minutes (Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, Ch. II, pp. 22-23, for the arithmetic). Padas 1 to 3 are in Gemini, ruled by Mercury; pada 4 is the first 3 degrees 20 minutes of Cancer, ruled by the Moon. That last pada matters for dignity: BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 makes Cancer Jupiter's exaltation sign, deepest at 5 degrees, and the seventh-sign rule makes it Mars's debilitation sign. So in Punarvasu's fourth pada, Jupiter, the nakshatra's own lord, is exalted, a little before its deepest point, which lies just inside the next nakshatra, Pushya.

Two hand checks agree with the engine. Gemini is dual, so its navamsas count from the 5th sign, Libra; the 7th to 9th navamsas of Gemini are Aries, Taurus and Gemini. Cancer is movable and counts from itself, so its first navamsa is Cancer. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 counts from the nakshatra instead: six have passed, 6 divided by 3 leaves 0, plus the pada gives the 1st to 4th signs from Mesh. Padas 3 and 4 therefore return to their own signs, Gemini and Cancer, making any graha there Vargottama, the same sign in the birth chart and the Navamsa (D9). A Moon in pada 4 is Vargottama in its own sign. Why that is weighed is explained in Navamsa, the second chart.

Aditi, the bow and five stars

BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 lists the nakshatra deities as the lords of the Saptavimshamsa's 27 parts; the seventh is "Adhiti", Aditi. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. IV, p. 96) agrees and describes Punarvasu as five stars in the form of a bow. The Saptavimshamsa (D27) calculator uses the BPHS list.

The entry gives Punarvasu's sex as male, its tatthwa as Jala (water), its region as the East and its body part as the nose; the direction table (p. 90) and body-part table (p. 91) agree. It names a caste, which is not carried over here or by the engine. It describes the people born in it as truthful, generous, respectable, clean, wealthy, concerned with personal beauty and fond of the company of painters and sculptors.

How Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara classifies Punarvasu

The missing nature label is a real gap in the book, not an omission on this page. Its nature lists cover 26 of the 27 nakshatras (Hasta appears twice, as light and as movable) and leave Punarvasu out. So the book's sentence tying nature to timing, that during the period of a planet in a particular star effects will be felt according to its characteristics (p. 91), has nothing to say about Punarvasu. This page does not fill the gap from elsewhere. The body-part table does have a stated use: read with the 6th lord's position in the Rasi and Navamsa charts, the book says, it helps locate where a disease shows (p. 91); for Punarvasu the part is the nose. That is the book's claim, not medical advice, and the app does not use it. The book's yoga list (pp. 28-29) adds that the 27th yoga, Vaidhriti, begins at Punarvasu by its yoga-point arithmetic; that places the yoga on the zodiac and does not describe people.

What the texts say about a person born in Punarvasu

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's two descriptions of Punarvasu agree and are favourable. The prose (p. 96), quoted above, stresses truthfulness, generosity, cleanliness and an eye for beauty and the arts. The translated sloka says the person has many friends, loves to study the scriptures, is fond of jewels and fine garments, is generous and bold, and is honoured by people. As for every entry, the book says the effects come fully only if the Moon is powerful (p. 91).

The engine's NAKSHATRA_TRAITS line follows the sloka closely: you tend to be "sociable and studious, generous and bold, naturally well-regarded by others". Its comment lists the standing omissions for all 27 entries (caste dropped, appearance and spouse lines dropped, harsh verdicts softened); for Punarvasu nothing harsh needed softening.

Saravali does not name Punarvasu in the corpus copy, and neither does Bhrigu Sutras. A Punarvasu Moon is a Gemini Moon in padas 1-3 and a Cancer Moon in pada 4, so Saravali's sign chapter (Ch. 23) applies either way; it is covered on the Gemini and Cancer pages. Advanced Predictive Astrology puts Punarvasu in the Vata column of its humour table (Vol. II, p. 225) and among nine stars it says rule over wind (p. 240), a modern grouping reported as such, not medical advice. The same book (p. 83) remarks that when the Ascendant and the Moon fall in one constellation ruled by one planet, the mind dwells strongly on that star's themes; its example is Swati, and it is one author's view that the app does not apply.

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

Saravali Ch. 24 reads the Moon by its Navamsa and the graha aspecting it. A Punarvasu Moon is in Mars's Navamsa in pada 1 (Aries, Sl. 1-3), Venus's in pada 2 (Taurus, Sl. 4-6), Mercury's in pada 3 (Gemini, Sl. 7-9) and its own in pada 4 (Cancer, Sl. 10-12). Some of the milder readings: Mars's Navamsa aspected by Mars, victory over enemies and valour; Venus's aspected by Mercury, skill with musical instruments and an interest in dance and music; Mercury's aspected by Mercury, skill in the fine or mechanical arts and poetry; the Moon's own Navamsa aspected by Jupiter, a minister or a king. Other lines are harsh and not repeated.

Sl. 22-24 decide how much of that applies: effects are full if the Moon is in a Vargottama Navamsa, medium in its own Navamsa, minor otherwise (the reverse for evil effects), and the Navamsa effects prevail if the Navamsa lord is stronger than the sign lord. Punarvasu is the nakshatra where this rule bites hardest. Pada 3 is Vargottama, so its Mercury reading is full. Pada 4 is both Vargottama and the Moon's own Navamsa, so its reading is full too. Padas 1 and 2 give minor effects. The app does not compute Ch. 24; its Navamsa chart shows what you need to read it by hand.

Jupiter, the lord of Punarvasu, and the 16-year Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15 begins the Vimshottari cycle at Krittika: Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, then Jupiter with 16 years, so Punarvasu, fifth in the cycle, is Jupiter's. The engine's nakshatraSubdivision() agrees. Jupiter also rules Vishakha and Purva Bhadrapada, both of which, like Punarvasu, cross a sign boundary in their last pada. For Jupiter as a graha, see Jupiter in Vedic astrology.

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 16 gives the balance rule. Your dates are in the Vimshottari Dasha calculator, and the period is described on the Jupiter Mahadasha page. BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 1-8 makes what a dasha brings depend on the lord's house lordship and placement in your chart; the nakshatra supplies the dates.

The sub-periods inside the Jupiter Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 51 Sl. 2 gives the first Antar Dasha to the Mahadasha's own lord, then the Vimshottari order, each lasting the Mahadasha's years times the sub-lord's years divided by 120. Worked by hand for Jupiter's 16 years:

In the worked example 0.375 of 16 years, 6 years, had passed at birth: past Jupiter's and Saturn's sub-periods (4.67 years together) and into Mercury's, which runs to 6.93 years. The engine's sub-lord table, built from the same proportions, puts Gemini 25 degrees in the Mercury sub (Gemini 23 degrees 53 minutes to 25 degrees 47 minutes). The Moon's sub-lord at birth is the Antar Dasha lord at birth, by construction.

Jupiter's relationship to the sign lords is consistent across the sources. Worked from Jupiter's Mooltrikona, Sagittarius, by BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55, Mercury rules the 7th and 10th signs, neither a friend position, so Mercury is Jupiter's enemy; the Moon rules Cancer, Jupiter's exaltation sign and the 8th from Sagittarius, so the Moon is a friend. The engine's NATURAL_RELATIONS table and Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's table (Ch. III, p. 85) both say the same. So the star lord is hostile to the sign lord in padas 1-3 and friendly to it in pada 4.

Punarvasu as a dignity for every graha

The jump at the Gemini-Cancer line is the largest in any nakshatra so far: Jupiter goes from an enemy's sign to exaltation, Mars from an enemy's sign to debilitation, in the space of a few arc-minutes. On Saravali's ray scale (Ch. 36 Sl. 3-6, the formula the engine's planetaryRays() uses), worked by hand, Jupiter rises through Punarvasu from about 6.42 to 6.94 rays, and Mars falls from about 1.48 to 0.96. The Sun crosses Punarvasu once a year: the engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters on 6 July and leaves on 20 July.

BPHS also has a name for a graha in Jupiter's position here. Ch. 50 Sl. 78-83 classifies dashas by the condition of their lord, and calls the dasha of a graha placed between its deep debilitation and its deep exaltation, and moving towards exaltation, "Rohini (ascending)", as opposed to Avrohini, descending. Jupiter's deep debilitation is Capricorn 5 degrees and its deep exaltation Cancer 5 degrees, so a Jupiter anywhere in Punarvasu is on the rising side of that arc and only a few degrees short of its peak; in pada 4 it is also in its exaltation sign and Vargottama at once. Saravali Ch. 36 Sl. 5 says the same in its own vocabulary, calling the rays of a graha moving from debilitation towards exaltation Abhimukha, facing upwards. The engine computes the ray count but not the ascending or descending label, and neither BPHS nor Saravali attaches a separate prediction to the label beyond its name.

With Punarvasu rising, the Ascendant is Gemini in padas 1-3 and Cancer in pada 4, and BPHS Ch. 34 treats Jupiter very differently in the two. For a Gemini Ascendant (Sl. 25-26) Mars, Jupiter and the Sun are malefics and Venus the only auspicious graha. For a Cancer Ascendant (Sl. 27-28) Mars, Jupiter and the Moon are auspicious, Mars can give a full Yoga, and Saturn and the Sun are killers. The engine's YOGA_KARAKA_BY_LAGNA rows for both signs match the text. The Lagna calculator needs a birth time and place.

The nine sub-lords inside Punarvasu

The engine divides Punarvasu in proportion to the Vimshottari years, starting with Jupiter's own arc. The Moon's sub straddles the Gemini-Cancer boundary. The sub-lord calculator reports these for every graha.

Sub-lords are much more sensitive to birth time than padas; see the sub-lord and birth time.

Punarvasu in the Kala Chakra and the other dasha systems

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 56-58 places Punarvasu at the head of the second Savya triad (Punarvasu, Pushya, Aslesha) and lists it among the nakshatras whose padas are reckoned "in the same manner, as the Padas of Ashvini", so it takes Ashwini's Deha and Jiva, shown in the first table. Ashwini's rows can be checked against Sl. 89 (100 years for a Mesh Navamsa, 85 for Vrishabh, 83 for Mithun, 86 for Kark): adding the Sl. 84 years along the pada 1 row gives 100, pada 3 gives 83 and pada 4 gives 86, and Punarvasu's padas 1, 3 and 4 fall in exactly those Navamsas, Aries, Gemini and Cancer. The pada 2 row is not spelled out in full in the translation, which names only "the nine Rasis from Makar to Mithun"; the app reads it as the exact reverse of Mrigashira's pada 3 row, which gives Sl. 89's 85 for a Vrishabh Navamsa. The app computes the Kala Chakra Dasha from these rows, with its balance and dates; the text's span-of-life use of the totals is not repeated.

Ashtottari can also be worked by hand from the slokas, and the engine now does the same. Sl. 21-22 say each nakshatra of a malefic carries a quarter of its dasha and that the balance is then found as for Vimshottari. The Sun's Ashtottari dasha is 6 years, so each of its four stars carries 1.5 years; Punarvasu is the second, after Ardra. For a Moon 5 degrees into Punarvasu, Ardra's 1.5 years and 0.375 of Punarvasu's 1.5 (about 0.56) have expired, leaving about 3.94 years of the Sun's Ashtottari dasha at birth. That is a literal reading of the slokas, offered as arithmetic; the engine computes the balance from the exact longitude and dates every period.

Read by hand, Ashtottari (Sl. 17-20) puts Punarvasu second in the Sun's group of four that begins at Ardra, a 6-year dasha in that system, with each of the four carrying a quarter of it (Sl. 21-22, the Sun being a malefic). Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41) lists Punarvasu under Guru, 10 years; published tables (Sanjay Rath) give the Sun instead, and the app keeps BPHS's reading. The engine builds both: Ashtottari in full, with Abhijit read from the Moon's longitude per Sl. 21-22, and Shastihayani 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).

They and the six other systems it builds appear in the alternate dashas calculator. For a Punarvasu Moon: Shodshottari (from Pushya) Jupiter, 13 years; Dwadashottari (birth star to Revati) Rahu, 15; Panchottari (from Anuradha) Mars, 15; Shatabdik (from Revati) Sun, 5; Chaturashiti-sama (from Swati) Venus, 12; Dwisaptati-sama (from Mula) Rahu, 9. BPHS ties each to a particular kind of chart, and the calculator shows which apply.

Punarvasu in Ashtakoot matching

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

Punarvasu and Ashlesha share the Cat yoni and Pushya sits between them, so a Punarvasu-Ashlesha pair scores the full 4 on Yoni; but Ashlesha is Rakshasa and Punarvasu Deva, which the engine scores 0 of 6 on Gana. The full-Tara set always has the same shape: the star itself, its two neighbours, and the three stars nine and eighteen places further on. The engine's comment calls these the conventional tables, kept because no book in the corpus prints the Ashtakoot rules. Its Tara rule never scores 0, since the two inclusive counts between different stars total 29 and cannot both leave 3, 5 or 7 after dividing by 9. For Nadi, Advanced Predictive Astrology's Vata column (Vol. II, p. 225) is exactly the engine's Aadi group. 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 Ashwini for Punarvasu; the app does not use that rule.

Punarvasu in muhurat

In the engine's muhurat finder, Punarvasu is on one of six activity lists: Travel. A Travel window with the Moon in Punarvasu gains 16 points on the nakshatra factor; for the other five activities it loses 6. Tithi, paksha, the Moon's house from your chart, the weekday, Rahu Kaal and your numerology day are added on top. The lists cite no source, and since Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara gives Punarvasu no nature label, there is not even an indirect classical hint to compare them with.

The Travel list as a whole can be set beside the book's labels. It holds nine stars: Ashwini, Mrigashira, Punarvasu, Pushya, Hasta, Anuradha, Shravana, Dhanishta and Revati. Of these, Ashwini, Pushya and Hasta are the book's light stars and Shravana, Dhanishta and Hasta are among its movable ones, which fits travel; but Mrigashira, Anuradha and Revati are its soft stars, and two movable stars, Swati and Shatabhisha, are not on the list. So the engine's list is not derived from those labels, and the comparison neither supports nor undermines Punarvasu's place on it.

From the engine's Moon positions, sampled every ten minutes, the next passes through Punarvasu are 31 October 2026 07:20 to 1 November 05:50 IST, 27 November 15:20 to 28 November 13:00 IST, and 25 December 01:50 to 23:00 IST. The muhurat finder samples three windows a day, at 06:40, 09:15 and 15:30 IST. The Panchang shows the day's nakshatra.

Checking Punarvasu in your own chart

The Moon's nakshatra needs the date and a time; the place is needed only for the Ascendant and houses. The Moon crosses a pada in about six hours, and its longitude in this app is good to about 0.1-0.3 degrees, as the methodology page explains. For Punarvasu the sensitive line is Cancer 0 degrees: a Moon within a few tenths of it may be a Gemini Moon in pada 3 or a Cancer Moon in pada 4, which changes the Moon sign but, unusually, leaves it Vargottama either way. The ayanamsa moves every boundary together; see why apps disagree on your nakshatra. The Moon sign calculator shows sign and nakshatra together.

Punarvasu between Ardra and Pushya

Before Punarvasu is Ardra, Rahu's star, where the Ashtottari count begins; after it is Pushya, Saturn's star, wholly in Cancer, which holds Jupiter's deepest exaltation point and shares Punarvasu's Deva gana and Eastern direction. Punarvasu opens the Punarvasu-Pushya-Aaslesha triad as its Sristi member. In the Kala Chakra, Punarvasu is reckoned with Ashwini, Pushya with Bharani and Ashlesha with Ashwini again.

Which planet rules Punarvasu nakshatra?

Jupiter, with a 16-year Mahadasha, in the Vimshottari scheme of BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15. The sign lord is Mercury for padas 1-3 (Gemini) and the Moon for pada 4 (Cancer).

Who is the deity of Punarvasu?

Aditi. BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 lists "Adhiti" seventh among the nakshatra deities, and Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. IV, p. 96) names Aditi.

What is the symbol of Punarvasu?

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara describes five stars in the form of a bow. The engine's Yoni animal for Punarvasu is the Cat, shared with Ashlesha.

Which padas of Punarvasu are Vargottama?

Padas 3 and 4: pada 3 (Gemini 26 degrees 40 minutes to 30 degrees) has Navamsa Gemini, and pada 4 (Cancer 0 to 3 degrees 20 minutes) has Navamsa Cancer.

Is Jupiter exalted in Punarvasu?

Only in pada 4, which is in Cancer, Jupiter's exaltation sign by BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50. Its deepest exaltation, Cancer 5 degrees, lies just past Punarvasu in Pushya. In padas 1-3, in Gemini, the engine labels Jupiter as in an enemy's sign.

What is the gana, yoni and nadi of Punarvasu?

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

Is Punarvasu good for travel?

In this app's muhurat engine it is on the Travel list only, worth 16 points on the nakshatra factor for a travel window. It is one factor among several.

What is the nature (fixed, movable, light) of Punarvasu?

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's nature lists (Ch. IV, pp. 90-91) leave Punarvasu out entirely; every other nakshatra is in at least one list. This page does not supply a label the book does not give.

Which Kala Chakra group is Punarvasu in?

The Savya group reckoned like Ashwini (BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 58), so its padas take Ashwini's Deha and Jiva signs. The app computes the Kala Chakra Dasha on the alternate dashas calculator and the Kundali screen.

When is the Sun in Punarvasu?

Once a year, for about two weeks. The engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters Punarvasu on 6 July and Pushya on 20 July.

How long is the Jupiter dasha at birth for a Punarvasu Moon?

Up to 16 years: 16 times the share of Punarvasu still ahead of the Moon. 5 degrees in leaves 10 years.