Purva Ashadha nakshatra: Venus's star in Sagittarius, what the texts say and how to check yours

Purva Ashadha is the twentieth nakshatra, the middle third of Sagittarius, and Venus rules it in the Vimshottari scheme. Because Venus has the longest period in that scheme, 20 years, a Moon in Purva Ashadha starts life in the longest Mahadasha there is, and the balance at birth can run well into adulthood. This page sets out what the classical books in this app's library say about the star, with chapter and page, and every number on it comes from running the engine.

It is part of a 27-page series with one layout, so it can be read beside Mula before it and Uttara Ashadha, its "later" partner, after it. The sign is described on the Sagittarius (Dhanu) page. The engine's method is on the methodology page and the books on the sources page.

Where Purva Ashadha sits: the arc, the padas and the engine's facts

Purva Ashadha is the 20th of the 27 nakshatras. Each nakshatra is 13°20' of the sidereal zodiac, 360 degrees divided by 27, and this app measures them from 0° Aries in the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) frame. So Purva Ashadha runs from Sagittarius 13°20' to Sagittarius 26°40', wholly inside Sagittarius. A planet is "in Purva Ashadha" when its sidereal longitude falls inside that arc. When someone says "my nakshatra is Purva Ashadha", they mean the Moon was there at birth: the Janma Nakshatra. The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, so it crosses a nakshatra boundary inside most birth dates, and the nakshatra calculator reports the star at both ends of the birth date when no time is given. The difference between a rashi and a nakshatra is set out separately, as is why two apps can name two different stars for the same birth.

Purva Ashadha lies wholly inside Sagittarius, away from both edges, so a Moon there is always a Sagittarius Moon, with Jupiter as sign lord and Venus as star lord. Neither of BPHS's Gandanta junctions is near it, and no planet's deep exaltation or fall degree in BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 falls inside its arc, so the star is free of the boundary questions that dominate its neighbours on either side.

Its name pairs it with the next star. "Purva" and "Uttara" are the earlier and later Ashadha, as with the two Phalgunis and the two Bhadrapadas; the books here treat the pair as two separate stars with different lords, Venus and the Sun, different deities and different forms, although Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara gives both an elephant's tusk as one possible form.

Inside the star the engine draws nine unequal sub-divisions, one for each Vimshottari lord, each as wide as that lord's share of the 120-year cycle, and the first belongs to Purva Ashadha's own lord, Venus. These sub-lords matter most for points that move fast through the sky, above all the Ascendant, which is why the sub-lord needs a birth time to the minute. The sub-lord calculator prints this same table for your own Moon:

What the classical texts say about Purva Ashadha

Three books in this app's library speak about Purva Ashadha directly. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (Rama R. Rao, 1994) gives every nakshatra a description in Ch. IV; the corpus copy is a scan with no text layer, so the pages cited below were read as images. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) uses Purva Ashadha as a counting point and a member of groups rather than describing it. Saravali does not name it in the text read for this page, and Advanced Predictive Astrology mentions it only in its humour groups. The readings are reported as the texts give them, with the same omissions the engine makes: the caste label each nakshatra carries in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara is not repeated, nor are its predictions about appearance and marriage.

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, Ch. IV (pp. 87-115)

Entry 20, spelt Poorvaashaada, describes the star as "in the form of a winnow-basket or an elephant's tusk, consisting of four stars", with Varuna as presiding deity and the Banni tree as its plant. The people associated with it "are gentle, truthful, wealthy, clean and are associated with water in various ways; sea-farers, boat-men, fruits and flowers growing in water, rivers, wet fields, wells and so on." The water theme runs through the whole entry, although the star's tattva on p. 89 is Vayu (air), not Jala (water).

Two details in the entry recur elsewhere in the chapter. The Banni tree is also given to Dhanishta (p. 109), and the elephant's tusk is one of the two forms given to Uttaraashaada (p. 107), the next star; the book does not comment on either repetition. Its list of directions (p. 90) groups Poorvaashaada with Jyeshta and Moola in the Western regions, and the same page says "the effects of planets at birth and in transit will occur in the regions or areas indicated by the nakshatras in which they are situated", when the nakshatra is the strongest of the three factors it names. That is a rule about where events fall, used in mundane and horary work; the app does not apply it.

The prose reading has three clauses, of which the app keeps none directly: the person "will have an agreeable wife, will be proud and attached to friends". The spouse clause is the kind of marriage prediction the engine drops. The sloka and its translation: "likes people who praise him repeatedly. He is devoted to God, honoured among relatives and he is very efficient. He is a terror to his enemies." The engine renders this as "appreciative of recognition, devoted and efficient, formidable when opposed".

Poorvaashaada is in the chapter's "ferocious" class, with Bharani, Pubba, Makha and Poorvaabhaadra (p. 90), and p. 91 makes that class a timing rule: "During the period of a planet situated in a particular star, effects will be felt according to the above characteristics." The book does not spell out what ferocious effects are; it gives the class and the rule together and moves on.

In the chapter's short lists, Poorvaashaada is the Sthithi member of the Moola triad (p. 88), so no durithamsa caution applies; it is one of the nine downward-looking Adhomukha stars (p. 88); and on p. 115 it appears in the list of birth-star cautions with conditions about a boy born by day or at sunrise, sunset or midnight. The app does not use or repeat that list. The book introduces it by saying birth in a star "cannot be the sole factor" and that Guru in or aspecting the lagna cancels the ill-effects.

BPHS: Purva Ashadha as a deity, a count and a group

BPHS lists Purvashadh twentieth, and Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the twentieth deity Varuna. The two books agree. BPHS then names Varuna a second time, for the twenty-fourth star, Shatabhisha, and Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara does the same; both books give one deity to two stars four places apart.

Ch. 46 places the star in three groups. Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41), for charts with the Sun in the Lagna, gives "Jyeshtha, Mul, P.Ashadha" to Śukr, 6 years. Kalachakra writes "Mul, Purvashadha and Uttarashadha in the Savya" (Sl. 56-58), and Sl. 65 says that "in the four Padas of the 5 Nakshatras, Bharani, Pushya, Chitra, Purvashadha and Uttarabhadrapad, Deha and Jiva are the same, as for Bharani"; the pada table takes its Deha and Jiva from the Bharani padas in Sl. 66-69. And Ashtottari (Sl. 17-20) opens Saturn's run of four with it, as described in the dasha section below.

Purva Ashadha is not a counting point for any of the dasha systems in Ch. 46, and it is not at a Gandanta junction (Ch. 92 Sl. 3). BPHS has no descriptive entry for it.

For Venus as a graha, see the Venus page; for the Moon, the Moon in Vedic astrology page.

Advanced Predictive Astrology

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 225) puts Purvasadha in its Pitta group of humour-producing asterisms, alongside Bharani, Mrigasira, Pushyami, P. Phalguni, Chitra, Anuradha, Dhanishta and Uttara Bhadrapada. The book uses the grouping in a chapter on health; that use is the author's and is not medical advice. Nothing else in the book singles out this star.

Where the sources disagree

The books agree on the deity, Varuna, and on the star's place in the sequence. Inside Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara the descriptive paragraph stresses gentleness, truthfulness and water, while the sloka stresses a liking for praise, efficiency and being "a terror to his enemies"; the class on p. 90 is "ferocious". These are different angles rather than contradictions, and the engine carries only the sloka.

The engine's Manushya gana and Monkey yoni for Purva Ashadha have no source in this library, as its header says; the Madhya nadi has the partial anchor in the humour table. The engine also leaves Purva Ashadha off all six muhurat lists while putting its partner, Uttara Ashadha, on five; nothing in the books read explains or contradicts that difference.

The four padas of Purva Ashadha

Each nakshatra splits into four padas of 3°20', and each pada is one navamsa, so the 108 padas of the zodiac walk through the twelve signs nine times. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 gives the rule as arithmetic: take the number of nakshatras already passed, divide by 3, multiply the remainder by 4, add the pada, and count that many signs from Aries. For Purva Ashadha's first pada: 19 nakshatras have passed, 19 divided by 3 leaves 1, times 4 is 4, plus 1 is 5, and the 5th sign from Aries is Leo. The engine's computeNavamsa, which uses the sign-based rule from Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. II, returns Leo too. The Navamsa calculator shows the whole D9 chart, and the Navamsa article explains why it needs an accurate birth time.

Purva Ashadha is the middle star of its group of three, so its navamsas run Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio. None is vargottama: the Sagittarius navamsa of this sign falls in the first pada of Uttara Ashadha, the next star. The D9 dispositors of a Purva Ashadha Moon are, pada by pada, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars.

The Kalachakra columns follow the Bharani pattern: Scorpio and Pisces as Deha and Jiva in the first pada, Aquarius and Virgo in the second, Libra and Virgo in the third, Cancer and Aquarius in the fourth (BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 66-69). The pairs are given as the text has them, and the app computes Kalachakra from the same rows.

The star's first sub-lord is Venus's own and the widest of the nine, 133.33 arc-minutes, so a Moon early in Purva Ashadha sits in Venus's star and Venus's sub for more than four hours of an average day. Its last sub, Ketu's, is 46.67 arc-minutes, the strip just before Uttara Ashadha begins.

Purva Ashadha and the dasha sequence

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-14 finds the first Vimshottari dasha by counting from Krittika to the birth star and dividing by nine; the remainder picks a lord from the sequence Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu, Venus. Counting Krittika as 1, Purva Ashadha is 18; 18 divided by 9 leaves 0, which counts as the ninth, and that is Venus. The engine reaches the same lord from its own table. Sl. 15 gives Venus 20 years. A Moon in Purva Ashadha therefore starts life in a Venus Mahadasha, and Sl. 16 says how much of it remains: the part of the nakshatra the Moon has still to cross, as a share of the whole, times 20 years.

Run on a sample birth of 1 January 2000 with the Moon a quarter of the way into Purva Ashadha, the engine leaves three quarters of the Venus period, 15 years, and dates the next periods from there:

What a Venus period is classically held to bring is on the Venus Mahadasha page and the Venus in Vedic astrology page; the Vimshottari dasha calculator gives your own dates, and the sub-periods article explains why those dates move when the birth time moves. A Venus balance at birth can be anything up to 20 years, so the second period, the Sun's, may begin in infancy or in the early twenties; in the sample above it begins at the end of 2014.

Ashtottari is the 108-year system BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 17-20 offers as an alternative "when Rahu is not in Lagn, in any other Kendr, or Trikon to the Lord of the Lagn". It assigns stars in alternating runs of four and three from Ardra. Purva Ashadha opens Saturn's run of four, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha, Abhijit and Shravana, so a Purva Ashadha Moon starts in a Saturn period of 10 years. Under Sl. 21-22 a malefic's period is shared a quarter per star, so at the very start of Purva Ashadha none of Saturn's period has elapsed and by its end a quarter, two and a half years, has. Abhijit, which Ashtottari counts and Vimshottari does not, sits two places later. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. V (p. 120) prints the same grouping as a table. The engine computes Ashtottari in full, with Abhijit read from the Moon's longitude as Sl. 21-22 direct, so the app shows the Saturn balance and dates every Ashtottari period.

The engine does compute six other nakshatra-based systems from the same chapter, each with its own starting star and condition. For a Moon in Purva Ashadha (sampled at the middle of the star) the alternate dashas calculator returns:

Shatabdik, counted from Revati, gives Purva Ashadha the last lord in its sequence, Saturn, with the longest of its periods, 30 years. Dwadashottari, which counts the other way, from the birth star to Revati, gives it the Moon, 21 years. Each system applies only under its own BPHS condition, which the alternate dashas calculator prints beside it.

Shastihayani, which the engine now builds with a balance and dated periods by a rule taken from outside BPHS (Sanjay Rath), makes a useful contrast. Its rule (Sl. 40-41) also gives Purva Ashadha to Venus, so in a chart with the Sun in the Lagna the star's lord would be the same as in Vimshottari, but Shastihayani allots Venus 6 years rather than 20. The same lord, reached by a different table, carries a very different length of period, which is why a dasha date is meaningless without the system named beside it.

Purva Ashadha in compatibility and muhurat

Ashtakoot matching, the 36-point Guna Milan the match tool runs, reads four of its eight kootas from the two Moon nakshatras: Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi. The engine places Purva Ashadha in the Manushya gana, the Madhya nadi and the Monkey yoni. Its own header is candid that none of the classical books it works from contains the Ashtakoot rules, no nakshatra gana list and no koota point scale, so these tables are carried as they are rather than cited. One partial anchor exists: Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 225) prints "Humour Producing Asterisms" in three groups of nine, Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and that grouping coincides star for star with the engine's Aadi, Madhya and Antya nadis. Purva Ashadha sits in its Pitta group. The book does not call this Nadi koota, and this page does not claim it does.

Two people with the Moon in Purva Ashadha score 28 of 36 in the engine: full marks on seven kootas and 0 of 8 on Nadi, because the same star always means the same nadi. The other stars sharing Purva Ashadha's Madhya nadi, and so also scoring 0 on Nadi against it, are Bharani, Mrigashira, Pushya, Purva Phalguni, Chitra, Anuradha, Dhanishta, Uttara Bhadrapada. On Yoni, Shravana shares the Monkey and scores the full 4; the engine treats the Sheep as the Monkey's enemy, so Krittika and Pushya score 0; every other pairing scores 2.

Tara counts from each partner's star to the other's. The engine marks a count as unfavourable when it leaves 3, 5 or 7 after division by 9, and BPHS Ch. 44 Sl. 15-21 does name the 3rd, 5th and 7th stars from the birth star Vipat, Pratyak and Vadh, though in a chapter on longevity this page does not reproduce. Counted forward from Purva Ashadha, the unfavourable stars are Rohini (12), Ardra (14), Pushya (16), Hasta (21), Swati (23), Anuradha (25), Shravana (3), Shatabhisha (5), Uttara Bhadrapada (7). The score is 3 when both directions are clear, 1.5 when one is, and 0 when neither is. The compatibility feature shows every koota with its points, so a low total can be traced to the factor behind it.

For choosing a time, the muhurat feature and the muhurat calculator add 16 points to a window when the transiting Moon is in a star on the activity's list and take 6 away when it is not. Purva Ashadha is on none of the six lists, so a window with the Moon there always takes the 6-point deduction. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's "ferocious" class is not tied to any activity list in the pages read, so there is no source to compare with the engine leaving Purva Ashadha off every list. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (p. 89) also calls the 22nd star from one's birth star the vainasika nakshatra, "to be avoided for auspicious events"; for a Purva Ashadha native that is Chitra. The engine does not apply that rule.

Checking Purva Ashadha in your own chart

1. 1.Open the nakshatra calculator with your birth date and, if you have it, time and place. It returns the Moon's star, its pada and its lord. Without a time it also shows the star at 00:00 and 23:59, so you can see whether Purva Ashadha held all day.
2. 2.Check the pada against the table above. The pada fixes the Moon's navamsa, which the Navamsa calculator shows in full.
3. 3.If your Moon is within a few arc-minutes of a sub-lord boundary, the sub-lord calculator prints the distance to the next one. An error of a few minutes in the birth time can move it.
4. 4.Open the Vimshottari dasha calculator to see the Venus balance at birth and every period after it.
5. 5.Look at the whole chart in the birth chart calculator. A star describes the Moon's placement; the houses, the Ascendant and the other planets are read from the full chart.
6. 6.For matching, enter both birth details in the match tool; it computes both stars itself, so nothing has to be typed in by name.

Purva Ashadha is one of the easier stars to confirm: it is wholly inside one sign and touches no junction. The kundali feature shows it with the full chart, and the unknown birth time article explains why the pada and sub-lord can still depend on the time.

Common misreadings of Purva Ashadha

• "Purva Ashadha is a water star." Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara associates it with water, seafarers, rivers and wet fields, and gives it Varuna as deity, but files its tattva as Vayu, air. The book keeps significations and element separate, and so should a reader.
• "Purva and Uttara Ashadha are one star in two halves." The books treat them as two nakshatras with different lords (Venus and the Sun), different deities and different classes; only the name is shared.
• A Venus Mahadasha at birth is not a forecast of 20 years of anything. The balance depends on how far into the star the Moon was, and every period is read through the chart's own placement of its lord.
• The p. 115 caution list in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara is about particular birth times and relatives. The app does not use it, and the book itself says birth star alone "cannot be the sole factor".
• Being on no muhurat list does not make Purva Ashadha days unusable in the app; the nakshatra factor is one deduction of 6 points among several factors.

Questions about Purva Ashadha

Which sign is Purva Ashadha nakshatra in?

Sagittarius, entirely: from Sagittarius 13°20' to 26°40'.

Who is the lord of Purva Ashadha?

Venus, with the longest Vimshottari period, 20 years. The deity, Varuna in both BPHS and Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, is a separate matter. See the Venus Mahadasha page for what the period is held to bring.

What are the navamsas of the padas?

Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio. None is vargottama.

What gana, nadi and yoni does the app give Purva Ashadha?

Manushya gana, Madhya nadi and the Monkey yoni, shared with Shravana. The engine's header says no classical book in this library contains these tables.

How do Purva Ashadha and Uttara Ashadha differ?

Lord (Venus against the Sun), deity (Varuna against Viswa), Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara class (ferocious against fixed), and in the app's muhurat lists (none against five). Purva Ashadha is all Sagittarius; Uttara Ashadha crosses into Capricorn.

Does Purva Ashadha share a deity with another star?

Yes. Both BPHS and Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara give Varuna to Purva Ashadha and to Shatabhisha.

What does a Purva Ashadha pair score in the match tool?

Two Purva Ashadha Moons score 28 of 36: full on seven kootas, 0 on Nadi. The match tool shows every koota.

Why does a Purva Ashadha Moon start with such a long dasha?

Because its lord, Venus, has the longest period in BPHS's Vimshottari table, 20 years (Ch. 46 Sl. 15). How much of it remains at birth depends on how far into the star the Moon was: born at the very start, nearly all 20 years; born near the end, very little.

What does "ferocious" mean in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's class for this star?

The book does not define it beyond the list. It names five ferocious stars, Bharani, Pubba, Poorvashada, Makha and Poorvaabhaadra, and says a planet placed in a star gives effects "according to the above characteristics" during its period. The app does not use the classes.

Which star should a Purva Ashadha native avoid for auspicious events, according to the texts?

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (p. 89) calls the 22nd star from one's birth star the vainasika nakshatra, to be avoided for auspicious events. Counted from Purva Ashadha that is Chitra. The app's muhurat engine does not apply the rule, so it will not mark Chitra days down for you.

Is Purva Ashadha a Gandanta star?

No. BPHS Ch. 92 Sl. 3 places the three Gandanta junctions at the ends of Revati, Ashlesha and Jyeshtha; Purva Ashadha is in the middle of Sagittarius, away from all of them.