Uttara Ashadha nakshatra: the Sun's star across Sagittarius and Capricorn, Abhijit, and how to check yours

Uttara Ashadha is the twenty-first nakshatra. It begins in the last 3°20' of Sagittarius and runs through the first ten degrees of Capricorn, and the Sun rules it in the Vimshottari scheme. Two things set it apart from its neighbours: two of its four padas are vargottama, and its last pada is the star from which the classical texts carve Abhijit, the "28th nakshatra" used in some dasha and muhurat traditions. This page sets out what the books in this app's library say, 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. Read it beside Purva Ashadha, its "earlier" partner, and Shravana, which follows. The two signs it occupies are described on the Sagittarius (Dhanu) and Capricorn (Makara) pages. The engine's method is on the methodology page and the books on the sources page.

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

Uttara Ashadha is the 21st 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 Uttara Ashadha runs from Sagittarius 26°40' to Capricorn 10°00', crossing from Sagittarius into Capricorn at the sign boundary. A planet is "in Uttara Ashadha" when its sidereal longitude falls inside that arc. When someone says "my nakshatra is Uttara 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.

Only the first pada of Uttara Ashadha lies in Sagittarius; the other three lie in Capricorn. So a Moon in Uttara Ashadha is a Sagittarius Moon, with Jupiter as sign lord, in the first quarter of the star, and a Capricorn Moon, with Saturn as sign lord, in the other three. The star lord, the Sun, is the same throughout. The sign change happens inside the star, not at its edge, so this is not a Gandanta junction.

BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 puts Jupiter's fall in Capricorn, deepest at 5 degrees. Capricorn 5° is inside Uttara Ashadha's third pada, so a Jupiter in that pada is within a degree and two-thirds of its deepest fall. That concerns Jupiter placed in the star, not the Moon; the Moon has no dignity change across either sign.

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 Uttara Ashadha's own lord, Sun. 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 Uttara Ashadha

Three books in this app's library speak about Uttara 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 Uttara Ashadha as a counting point and a member of groups rather than describing it. Saravali speaks of Abhijit, the star the texts carve out of Uttara Ashadha's last pada, and Advanced Predictive Astrology places the star in one of 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. 87-108)

Entry 21, spelt Uttaraashaada, gives two forms: "in the form of a serpent, consisting of four stars or in the form of an elephant's tusk composed of eight stars", with Viswa as presiding deity and the jack-fruit tree as its plant. The people associated with it "are bright in appearance, happy, principled, religious; They are: chief minister, wrestler, soldier or one who possesses elephants and horses."

The prose reading: the person "will be obedient, will be learned in the rules of virtue, will possess many friends, will be grateful and return favours received and will be generally liked". The sloka and its translation: "generous, compassionate, successful, and humble. He is inclined towards doing good deeds. He is bestowed with all good things in life. He is happy with his wife and children." Both readings are among the warmest in the chapter, and they agree with each other. The engine's line, "generous, compassionate and humble, inclined toward good deeds and content in family life", follows the sloka and turns its spouse clause into family contentment.

Uttaraashaada is one of the four fixed stars, with Rohini, Uttara and Uttaraabhaadra (p. 90), and p. 91 makes the class a timing rule: during the period of a planet in the star, effects follow its characteristics. It is the Laya member of the Moola triad (p. 88), so the chapter's durithamsa caution covers its third and fourth padas, Capricorn 3°20' to 10°00'. It is not in the downward-looking list and not among the Gandanta stars.

Chapter V comes back to the star when it introduces Ashtottari (p. 121): "One more nakshatra called Abhijit has been added to the list after Uttarashada and before Sravana." Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara gives no description of Abhijit in Ch. IV, which keeps to the 27.

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

BPHS lists Uttarashadh twenty-first, and Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the twenty-first deity Vishwadeva; Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's Viswa is the same name shortened. The two books agree.

Ch. 46 Sl. 21-22 is where Abhijit is made. In explaining the Ashtottari balance it says: "If Uttarashadha happens to be the Janm Nakshatr, the duration of its first three Padas is taken, as Bhabhog and the Dasha calculations should be done accordingly. The Dasha and calculations for Abhijit Nakshatr are done by taking the 4th Pad of Uttarashadha plus the 15th part of the beginning of Shravan." So for Ashtottari only, the fourth pada of Uttara Ashadha, Capricorn 6°40' to 10°00', belongs to Abhijit, with a fifteenth of Shravana added. Vimshottari has no Abhijit: there the whole of Uttara Ashadha is the Sun's, and the engine follows that in Vimshottari, while its Ashtottari applies the Abhijit carve-out.

The chapter places the star in two more groups. Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41), for charts with the Sun in the Lagna, gives "Rohini, Mrigashira, Ardra, U.Ashadha" to Sūrya, 10 years, and puts Abhijit under Śani. Published tables outside BPHS (Sanjay Rath) give Uttara Ashadha to Venus instead; the app keeps BPHS's Sūrya. Kalachakra writes "Mul, Purvashadha and Uttarashadha in the Savya" (Sl. 56-58) and lists Uttarashadha among the stars whose padas are read "as the Padas of Ashvini".

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

Saravali on Abhijit, and Advanced Predictive Astrology

Saravali Ch. 35 Sl. 86, among its Raja Yogas, says that one born in the Abhijit star will become a valorous king, whatever his origins. It does not say how Abhijit is measured. If it is taken as BPHS measures it for Ashtottari, it begins in Uttara Ashadha's fourth pada, but Saravali does not make that link and this page does not assume it for you.

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 225) puts Uttarasada in its Kapha humour group; the book's health readings are the author's and are not medical advice.

Where the sources disagree

The deity agrees across the books. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara gives two forms for the star, a serpent of four stars or an elephant's tusk of eight, and does not choose between them; it also gives an elephant's tusk as one form of Purva Ashadha. The prose and sloka agree with each other.

The real divergence is Abhijit. BPHS uses it in Ashtottari and Shastihayani and defines its arc; Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara adds it to the Ashtottari list without an arc; Saravali names it as a birth star; Vimshottari, which the app computes, ignores it, while the app's Ashtottari uses BPHS's arc. A page or app that "puts the Moon in Abhijit" is using one of those other schemes, and should say which. The engine's Manushya gana and Mongoose yoni for this star have no source in this library, as its header says.

The four padas of Uttara 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 Uttara Ashadha's first pada: 20 nakshatras have passed, 20 divided by 3 leaves 2, times 4 is 8, plus 1 is 9, and the 9th sign from Aries is Sagittarius. The engine's computeNavamsa, which uses the sign-based rule from Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. II, returns Sagittarius too. The Navamsa calculator shows the whole D9 chart, and the Navamsa article explains why it needs an accurate birth time.

Uttara Ashadha is the last star of its group of three, so its padas take the last four navamsa signs, and the engine returns Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. The first two are both vargottama: the first pada is Sagittarius in the birth chart and in the navamsa, and the second is Capricorn in both. Running the engine over all 108 padas finds only three stars with two vargottama padas, Punarvasu, Chitra and Uttara Ashadha, and in each case the pair straddles the boundary between a dual sign and the movable sign after it: a dual sign's last navamsa is itself, and a movable sign's first navamsa is itself.

The Kalachakra columns are the Ashvini pattern of BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 60-64, the same as for Mula and Swati: Aries and Sagittarius as Deha and Jiva in the first pada, Capricorn and Gemini in the second, Taurus and Gemini in the third, Cancer and Pisces in the fourth. The app computes Kalachakra from these rows.

The third and fourth padas carry two classical labels. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara calls them durithamsa, the unfavourable quarters of a Laya star, and BPHS takes the fourth for Abhijit in Ashtottari. The third also holds Jupiter's deepest fall at Capricorn 5°. None of these labels is computed by the app; they are reported so that a reader can see where each one falls.

Uttara 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, Uttara Ashadha is 19; 19 divided by 9 leaves 1, and that is Sun. The engine reaches the same lord from its own table. Sl. 15 gives Sun 6 years. A Moon in Uttara Ashadha therefore starts life in a Sun 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 6 years.

Run on a sample birth of 1 January 2000 with the Moon a quarter of the way into Uttara Ashadha, the engine leaves three quarters of the Sun period, 4.5 years, and dates the next periods from there:

What a Sun period is classically held to bring is on the Sun Mahadasha page and the Sun 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. The Sun's period is the shortest in Vimshottari, 6 years, so an Uttara Ashadha Moon reaches the Moon's 10-year period within six years of birth; in the sample above it begins in mid-2004.

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. Uttara Ashadha is the second of Saturn's run of four, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha, Abhijit and Shravana, so an Uttara Ashadha Moon starts in a Saturn period of 10 years. Under Sl. 21-22 a malefic's period is shared a quarter per star, and for this star the Bhabhog, the full span the Moon's progress is measured against, is the first three padas only, since the fourth belongs to Abhijit. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. V (p. 120) prints the same grouping as a table. The app computes Ashtottari this way, reading a fourth-pada Moon as Abhijit and dating every period, on the Alternate Dashas calculator and the Kundali screen.

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 Uttara Ashadha (sampled at the middle of the star) the alternate dashas calculator returns:

In the engine's six systems, Shatabdik gives Uttara Ashadha the Sun for 5 years, and Dwadashottari gives it Saturn for 19. None of the six counts from Uttara Ashadha; the nearest reference stars are Mula (Dwisaptati-sama, where Uttara Ashadha is third and gets Mars) and Shravana for Shat-trimshat-sama, which the app also computes and which gives Uttara Ashadha Jupiter for 3 years.

Uttara 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 Uttara Ashadha in the Manushya gana, the Antya nadi and the Mongoose 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. Uttara Ashadha sits in its Kapha group. The book does not call this Nadi koota, and this page does not claim it does.

Two people with the Moon in Uttara Ashadha and in the same sign 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 Uttara Ashadha's Antya nadi, and so also scoring 0 on Nadi against it, are Krittika, Rohini, Ashlesha, Magha, Swati, Vishakha, Shravana, Revati. Because Uttara Ashadha straddles Sagittarius and Capricorn, a pair with one Moon on each side of the boundary scores 14.5: Vashya 0.5/2, Graha Maitri 1/5, Bhakoot 0/7, Nadi 0/8, plus 0 of 1 on Varna, a koota the engine scores by which partner is entered first. On Yoni, no other star shares the Mongoose; the engine treats the Serpent as the Mongoose's enemy, so Rohini and Mrigashira 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 Uttara Ashadha, the unfavourable stars are Mrigashira (12), Punarvasu (14), Ashlesha (16), Chitra (21), Vishakha (23), Jyeshtha (25), Dhanishta (3), Purva Bhadrapada (5), Revati (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. Uttara Ashadha is on the Marriage, Business launch, Property purchase, New job, Investment lists. Uttara Ashadha is on five of the six lists, everything except Travel. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara puts it in the fixed class with Rohini, Uttara (Uttara Phalguni) and Uttara Bhadrapada; the engine puts Rohini, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha on five lists each but Uttara Bhadrapada on only one, so the engine does not treat the book's fixed class as a single group. 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 Uttara Ashadha native that is Swati. The engine does not apply that rule.

Checking Uttara 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 Uttara 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 Sun 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.

For Uttara Ashadha the two checks are the pada and the sign. The first pada is a Sagittarius Moon, the rest Capricorn; the Moon sign calculator gives the sign directly, and the Navamsa article explains why a vargottama Moon is read as a doubled emphasis.

Common misreadings of Uttara Ashadha

• "Uttara Ashadha is a Capricorn star." Three padas are; the first is Sagittarius. A Moon in that first pada is a Sagittarius Moon.
• "My Moon is in Abhijit." Only in the app's Ashtottari: Vimshottari, the engine's main dasha, has 27 stars and no Abhijit. Abhijit belongs to BPHS's Ashtottari and Shastihayani schemes, and to Saravali's Sl. 86.
• The durithamsa label and the Abhijit carve-out both touch the fourth pada, but they come from different books for different purposes. Neither is a verdict on a person born there.
• Two vargottama padas do not make the whole star "strong". Vargottama is a property of a planet's exact position: padas 1 and 2 qualify, padas 3 and 4 do not.
• Jupiter's fall at Capricorn 5° concerns Jupiter. A Moon in the same degree is not debilitated.
• The shared name with Purva Ashadha does not mean a shared lord or a shared muhurat standing. The engine puts Uttara Ashadha on five activity lists and Purva Ashadha on none, and their Vimshottari lords, the Sun and Venus, have the shortest and the longest periods in the scheme.

Questions about Uttara Ashadha

Which sign is Uttara Ashadha nakshatra in?

Two: Sagittarius 26°40' to 30°00' (pada 1) and Capricorn 0°00' to 10°00' (padas 2-4).

Who is the lord of Uttara Ashadha?

The Sun, with the shortest Vimshottari period, 6 years. The deity is Vishwadeva (BPHS), Viswa in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara. See the Sun Mahadasha page for what the period is held to bring.

Which padas of Uttara Ashadha are vargottama?

The first (Sagittarius in both charts) and the second (Capricorn in both). The third and fourth have Aquarius and Pisces navamsas.

What is Abhijit, and is it part of Uttara Ashadha?

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 21-22 defines Abhijit, for Ashtottari, as the fourth pada of Uttara Ashadha plus the first fifteenth of Shravana. In Vimshottari, the app's main dasha, there is no Abhijit and that arc belongs to Uttara Ashadha; the app's Ashtottari follows BPHS.

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

Manushya gana, Antya nadi and the Mongoose yoni, which no other star shares. The engine's header says these tables have no source in this library.

Is Uttara Ashadha good for a muhurat in the app?

It is on five of six lists, all except Travel. A window with the Moon there gains 16 points on the nakshatra factor; the muhurat feature shows the other factors.

What happens to a match if one Moon is in the Sagittarius pada and the other in Capricorn?

The star is the same, so Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi are scored as for any same-star pair. The sign-based kootas change: run with Moons at Sagittarius 27° and Capricorn 9°, the engine gives 14.5 of 36, with Bhakoot 0 of 7 because the signs are second and twelfth from each other, Graha Maitri 1 of 5 and Vashya 0.5 of 2, on top of the Nadi loss.

What does durithamsa mean for this star?

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (p. 88) says the third and fourth quarters of the Laya stars "are known as durithamsa and are believed to be unfavourable". Uttara Ashadha is a Laya star, so its padas 3 and 4, Capricorn 3°20' to 10°00', carry the label. The book gives no further rule, and the app does not use it.

Why does the dasha change so early for an Uttara Ashadha Moon?

The Sun's Vimshottari period is only 6 years, so whatever balance is left at birth runs out within six years.