Purva Phalguni Nakshatra: Bhaga's star in Leo, its Vargottama pada, Venus dasha and the texts

Purva Phalguni, often shortened to Pubba in Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, is the eleventh nakshatra: Leo 13 degrees 20 minutes to Leo 26 degrees 40 minutes, wholly inside the Sun's sign. Its Vimshottari lord is Venus, as for Bharani, and its deity is Bhaga. The boundary of the Sun's Mooltrikona at Leo 20 degrees falls in its middle. If your Moon was in Purva Phalguni at birth, it sets the 20-year Venus Mahadasha your life began in, gives you the Rat yoni, Manushya gana and Madhya nadi in matching, and places your Moon under a sub-lord. The nakshatra calculator shows yours.

This page sets out what the corpus books say about Purva Phalguni, by chapter, sloka or page, beside what the engine computes: 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 sign, Leo, Simha Rashi.

Where Purva Phalguni sits, and the Sun's Mooltrikona line

Ten nakshatras of 13 degrees 20 minutes reach Leo 13 degrees 20 minutes, and Purva Phalguni runs from there to Leo 26 degrees 40 minutes (Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara, Ch. II, pp. 22-23, for the arithmetic). All four padas are in Leo. BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54 makes the first 20 degrees of Leo the Sun's Mooltrikona and the rest its own sign, so by the text padas 1 and 2 (to Leo 20 degrees) are Mooltrikona for the Sun and padas 3 and 4 are its own sign.

Leo is fixed, so the engine counts its navamsas from Aries, and Purva Phalguni's padas are Leo's 5th to 8th navamsas, Leo to Scorpio. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 agrees: ten nakshatras have passed, 10 divided by 3 leaves 1, times 4 is 4, plus the pada gives the 5th to 8th signs from Mesh. Pada 1's Navamsa is Leo itself, so a graha there is Vargottama, in the same sign in the birth chart and the Navamsa (D9). See Navamsa, the second chart for why that is weighed.

Bhaga, the cot and the jackfruit tree

BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the eleventh nakshatra deity Bhag. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. IV, p. 99) agrees on Bhaga and describes Purvaphalguni as two stars in the form of a cot. The Saptavimshamsa (D27) calculator uses the BPHS list.

The entry gives the sex as female, the tatthwa as Jala (water), the region as the South-east, the body part as the right hand and the emblem as the jackfruit tree; the direction table (p. 90) and body-part table (p. 91) agree. It names a caste, not carried over here. Its associations include dance, music, painting and sculpture, enjoyment of the pleasures of youth, and trade in cotton, salt, honey and oil; one occupation in the list is left out here as a moral label.

How Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara classifies Purva Phalguni

The book links nature to timing in one sentence (p. 91): during the period of a planet situated in a particular star, effects will be felt according to its characteristics, so in its terms the dasha of any graha in Purva Phalguni takes a ferocious quality. The body-part table, it says, helps locate disease when read with the 6th lord; here the right hand. Both are the book's claims, not medical advice; the app uses neither. In its calendar (p. 24) the month Phalguna is named after Uttara Phalguni, not Purva. Its yoga list (pp. 28-29) says the fourth yoga, Sowbhagya, begins at Pubba, a statement about the yoga's place on the zodiac, not about people.

What the texts say about a person born in Purva Phalguni

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's two descriptions overlap. The prose (p. 99) says the people born in Pubba will be of sweet speech, liberal in their gifts, of fine appearance and wandering habits, and will serve under kings. The translated sloka says the person is brave, generous, adventurous and wealthy, short-tempered, with a harsher pair of words, but efficient, and adds that the person suffers from excessive wind (vaata). That last clause is the book's, reported here and not as medical advice. As for every entry, the effects come fully only if the Moon is powerful (p. 91).

The engine's NAKSHATRA_TRAITS line keeps the sloka's shape and softens it: you tend to be "bold and generous, quick-tempered and shrewd, but highly effective when focused". The table's comment gives the standing rule for all 27 entries: caste dropped, appearance and spouse lines dropped, harsh verdicts softened to a tendency. For Purva Phalguni, "cruel and crafty" became "shrewd", and the health clause is not used.

Saravali names Purva Phalguni once, in its Raja Yoga chapter: Ch. 35 Sl. 147 says the Sun in Revati, Poorva Phalguni, Uttara Phalguni or Moola, identical with the Ascendant, makes one the head of a country, though only of a hundred yojanas. A Sun in Purva Phalguni is in its own sign, and with the Sun in the rising sign the birth is within about two hours either side of sunrise (BPHS Ch. 3, translator's addition: about two hours for a sign to rise). Putting the two together with the engine's 2026 Sun dates, the clause describes a birth between about 31 August and 13 September, around sunrise, with Leo rising. The app's yoga calculator does not test this clause. A Purva Phalguni Moon is a Leo Moon, so Saravali's sign chapter (Ch. 23) applies; that is covered on the Leo page. Advanced Predictive Astrology mentions the star only in its humour table, in the Pitta column (Vol. II, p. 225). The same book makes a general remark (p. 83) 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 aspecting graha. A Purva Phalguni Moon is in the Sun's Navamsa in pada 1 (Leo, Sl. 13-15), Mercury's in pada 2 (Virgo, Sl. 7-9), Venus's in pada 3 (Libra, Sl. 4-6) and Mars's in pada 4 (Scorpio, Sl. 1-3). Among the milder lines: Leo Navamsa aspected by the Sun, a short temper with fame and wealth; aspected by Mercury, an interest in astrology and heroic history, and affluence; Mercury's Navamsa aspected by the Sun, success in contests and fame; Venus's aspected by Mercury, music and dance; Mars's aspected by Mars, valour and victory over enemies. Others are harsh and not repeated.

Venus, the lord of Purva Phalguni, and the 20-year Mahadasha

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15 assigns the Vimshottari lords in cycles of nine from Krittika; the ninth lord, Venus, with 20 years, takes Bharani, Purva Phalguni and Purva Ashadha. The engine's nakshatraSubdivision() agrees, and Purva Phalguni's sub-lord arcs repeat Bharani's, moved to Leo. For Venus as a graha, see Venus in Vedic astrology.

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 16 gives the balance rule. Your dates are in the Vimshottari Dasha calculator; the period is described on the Venus Mahadasha page. BPHS Ch. 48 Sl. 1-8 makes a dasha's content depend on the lord's lordship and placement in your chart, not on the nakshatra.

The sub-periods inside the Venus Mahadasha

In the worked example 0.375 of 20 years, 7.5 years, had passed at birth: through the Venus, Sun, Moon and Mars sub-periods (7.17 years together) and into Rahu's. The engine's sub-lord table puts Leo 18 degrees 20 minutes in the Rahu sub (18 degrees 07 minutes to 20 degrees 07 minutes), the same answer, because both are cut in the same proportions.

Venus and the Sun, Purva Phalguni's star lord and sign lord, are mutual enemies in every source here. The engine's NATURAL_RELATIONS lists the Sun among Venus's enemies and Venus among the Sun's; Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's table (Ch. III, p. 85) agrees; and working BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 55 from their Mooltrikona signs gives the same. So Venus, the nakshatra's own lord, is in an enemy's sign anywhere in Purva Phalguni.

Purva Phalguni as a dignity for every graha

Running the engine's dignityOf() at each pada midpoint, with natural relationships only, gives: Sun, Moolatrikona in padas 1-2 and own sign in padas 3-4 (as BPHS has it, above); Moon, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter, friendly sign; Venus and Saturn, enemy sign.

On Saravali's ray scale (Ch. 36 Sl. 3-6, the formula the engine's planetaryRays() uses), worked by hand: the Sun has only about 2.20 rays at the start of Purva Phalguni and 1.69 at the end, rays measuring distance from deep debilitation rather than sign rulership; Venus, nearing its deep fall at Virgo 27 degrees, about 1.70 falling to 1.18; Mercury, nearing its exaltation in Virgo, about 5.77 rising to 6.29; Jupiter about 5.51 to 4.99; Saturn about 4.41 to 4.93. The engine computes this base figure only and, by its own comment, does not apply Saravali's corrections in Sl. 7-9.

Venus's falling rays have a classical name. BPHS Ch. 50 Sl. 78-83 calls the dasha of a graha between deep exaltation and deep debilitation, moving towards debilitation, Avrohini (descending), and Saravali Ch. 36 Sl. 5 calls such rays Paranmukha, facing downwards. Venus's deep exaltation is Pisces 27 degrees and its deep fall Virgo 27 degrees, so a Venus in Purva Phalguni, its own nakshatra, is on the descending side, between about 30 and 44 degrees short of its lowest point. Neither text attaches more to the label than its name, and the engine computes only the ray count.

The Sun's label has a number attached, as on the Magha page. dignityOf() returns a position-strength value used in the Shad Bala calculator: 10 for exaltation or Mooltrikona, 7.5 for own sign. In Purva Phalguni the engine therefore gives a Sun in padas 1-2 the Mooltrikona 10 and a Sun in padas 3-4 the own-sign 7.5, as BPHS does. Before the October 2026 correction the two were swapped, so a Shad Bala figure saved earlier for a Sun here can differ by 2.5 on this component.

The Sun crosses Purva Phalguni once a year: the engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters on 31 August and leaves for Uttara Phalguni on 13 September. With Purva Phalguni rising the Ascendant is Leo; BPHS Ch. 34 Sl. 29-30 names Mercury, Venus and Saturn as malefics for Leo, Mars, Jupiter and the Sun as auspicious, and adds that a Jupiter-Venus conjunction will not produce good results even though the two rule a trine and a kendra. The engine's YOGA_KARAKA_BY_LAGNA row for Leo matches. So for a Leo Ascendant the lord of Purva Phalguni is classed a malefic. The Lagna calculator needs a birth time and place.

The nine sub-lords inside Purva Phalguni

The engine divides Purva Phalguni in proportion to the Vimshottari years, starting with Venus's own arc, the widest. The Sun's Mooltrikona line at Leo 20 degrees falls inside the Rahu sub. The sub-lord calculator reports these for every graha.

For why sub-lords need an accurate birth time, see the sub-lord and birth time.

Purva Phalguni in the Kala Chakra and the other dasha systems

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 77 names Purvaphalguni among the eight Apsavya nakshatras reckoned like Mrigashira, so it takes Mrigashira's Deha, Jiva and dasha rows (Sl. 78-81). Sl. 60 explains the two terms with Ashwini's first pada: one sign "is indicative of Deha (body)" and the other "of Jiva (life)", and the nine dasha lords then run through the signs in the order the text lists. Adding the Kala Chakra years of Sl. 84 along those rows gives 86, 83, 85 and 100. Purva Phalguni's Navamsas, Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, are the same as Mrigashira's, and Sl. 89 assigns them 100, 85, 83 and 86; so the row totals are those figures in reverse pada order, all four matching, as they do for Mrigashira. 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 (Sl. 17-20) gives Purva Phalguni to the Moon, second of its three stars after Magha, in a 15-year dasha; three stars share it, 5 years each. For a Moon 5 degrees into Purva Phalguni, Magha's 5 years and 0.375 x 5 (about 1.9) have expired, leaving about 8.1 years of the Moon's Ashtottari dasha. Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41) also lists P.Phalguni under the Moon, 6 years there. The engine builds both: Ashtottari in full, with Abhijit read from the Moon's longitude per Sl. 21-22 and every period dated, 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 Purva Phalguni Moon: Shodshottari (from Pushya) Saturn, 14 years; Dwadashottari (birth star to Revati) Sun, 7; Panchottari (from Anuradha) Sun, 12; Shatabdik (from Revati) Jupiter, 20; Chaturashiti-sama (from Swati) Mars, 12; Dwisaptati-sama (from Mula) Mercury, 9. These are where Purva Phalguni stops looking like Bharani, whose Vimshottari timing it repeats exactly: Bharani starts Shodshottari with the Moon and Panchottari with the Moon too.

Purva Phalguni in Ashtakoot matching

Running the engine's ashtakoot() with a Purva Phalguni Moon gives the values below. The Kundli matching calculator applies them to two charts.

The two Phalgunis make an instructive pair in these four kootas. Running the engine for a Purva Phalguni Moon against an Uttara Phalguni Moon gives the same Manushya gana (6 of 6), full Tara because they are neighbours (3 of 3), different nadis, Madhya against Aadi (8 of 8), and unrelated yonis, Rat against Cow (2 of 4): 19 of the 21 nakshatra-based points. The other four kootas, read from the Moon signs, decide the rest of the 36. The full-Tara set always has the same shape: the star itself, its two neighbours, and the three stars nine and eighteen places on.

The engine's comment calls these conventional tables, kept because no corpus book 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. Advanced Predictive Astrology's Pitta column (Vol. II, p. 225) is exactly the engine's Madhya group, a modern grouping for health tendencies, reported as such. 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 Mrigashira for Purva Phalguni; the app uses neither.

Purva Phalguni in muhurat

Purva Phalguni is on none of the six lists in the engine's muhurat finder, so a window with the Moon there loses 6 points on the nakshatra factor and must be carried by tithi, paksha, the Moon's house from your chart, the weekday, Rahu Kaal and your numerology day. The lists cite no source; Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's labels for Pubba (ferocious, downward-looking) are consistent with its absence, though Magha, with the same labels, is on the Marriage list, so the labels are not what the lists were built from.

It helps to see the whole score the engine builds, because the nakshatra is only one line of it. scoreMoment() in muhuratEngine.js starts every window at 34. The Moon's nakshatra adds 16 if it is on the activity's list and subtracts 6 if not. The Moon's house, counted from your Ascendant (or from your Moon sign if there is no birth time), adds 14 if it is one the activity favours and subtracts 20 if it is the 6th, 8th or 12th. An avoided tithi subtracts 15, any other adds 5; the bright fortnight adds 7, the dark one subtracts 4; a favoured weekday adds 7; overlapping Rahu Kaal subtracts 25; your numerology personal day adds or subtracts 5 or 4. The total is capped between 0 and 100. So a Purva Phalguni window that does well on everything else can still outscore a listed-nakshatra window that falls in Rahu Kaal.

From the engine's Moon positions, sampled every ten minutes, the next passes through Purva Phalguni are 4 November 2026 03:30 to 5 November 03:40 IST, 1 December 09:10 to 2 December 09:00 IST, and 28 December 16:40 to 29 December 15:50 IST, each about 24 hours. The Panchang shows the current nakshatra.

Checking Purva Phalguni in your own chart

The Moon's nakshatra needs the date and a time, not the place. The app's Moon longitude 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 Leo 13 degrees 20 minutes or 26 degrees 40 minutes could honestly fall in Magha or Uttara Phalguni, changing the first Mahadasha from Venus to Ketu or the Sun. A Moon near Leo 16 degrees 40 minutes may or may not be Vargottama. The ayanamsa moves every boundary together; see why apps disagree on your nakshatra. The Moon sign calculator shows sign and nakshatra together.

Purva Phalguni between Magha and Uttara Phalguni

Before Purva Phalguni is Magha, Ketu's star, which shares its Rat yoni and ferocious label; after it is Uttara Phalguni, the Sun's star, which crosses from Leo into Virgo. The two Phalgunis are the right and left hands in Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara's body-part table, both are drawn as a cot, and both share the Manushya gana in the engine. Purva Phalguni is the Sthithi member of the Makha-Pubba-Uttara triad.

Which planet rules Purva Phalguni nakshatra?

Venus, with a 20-year Mahadasha, in the Vimshottari scheme of BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-15. The sign lord is the Sun, because all of Purva Phalguni is in Leo; the two are natural enemies.

Who is the deity of Purva Phalguni?

Bhaga: BPHS Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names Bhag, and Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara (Ch. IV, p. 99) names Bhaga.

What is the symbol of Purva Phalguni?

Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara describes two stars in the form of a cot, represented by the jackfruit tree. The engine's Yoni animal is the Rat, shared with Magha.

Which pada of Purva Phalguni is Vargottama?

Pada 1, Leo 13 degrees 20 minutes to 16 degrees 40 minutes, whose Navamsa is Leo. Saravali Ch. 24 Sl. 22-24 gives a Moon there its Navamsa reading in full.

Is the Sun in Mooltrikona in Purva Phalguni?

By BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 51-54, in padas 1 and 2 (Leo to 20 degrees) yes, and in padas 3 and 4 it is in its own sign. The engine labels it the same way: its Mooltrikona table sets Leo 0-20 (until October 2026 it set Leo 20-30 and labelled the two halves the other way round).

What is the gana, yoni and nadi of Purva Phalguni?

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

Is Purva Phalguni good for a muhurat?

It is on none of this app's six activity lists, so it costs a window 6 points on the nakshatra factor. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara classes it as ferocious and downward-looking.

Is Pubba the same as Purva Phalguni?

Yes. Jyotisha Siddhanta Sara uses Pubba in its lists and Purvaphalguni in its entry heading; BPHS writes Purvaphalguni or P.Phalguni. The engine uses Purva Phalguni.

Which Kala Chakra group is Purva Phalguni in?

The Apsavya group reckoned like Mrigashira (BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 77). Its four rows total 86, 83, 85 and 100 years, which are Sl. 89's figures for its Navamsas in reverse pada order. The app computes the Kala Chakra Dasha on the alternate dashas calculator and the Kundali screen.

When is the Sun in Purva Phalguni?

Once a year for about two weeks: the engine's sidereal Sun for 2026 enters on 31 August and leaves on 13 September.

How long is the Venus dasha at birth for a Purva Phalguni Moon?

Up to 20 years: 20 times the share of Purva Phalguni still ahead of the Moon. 5 degrees in leaves 12.5 years.