Uttara Bhadrapada nakshatra: Saturn's star in Pisces, what the texts say and how to check yours

Uttara Bhadrapada is the twenty-sixth nakshatra, Pisces 3°20' to 16°40', and Saturn rules it in the Vimshottari scheme. A Moon there begins life in a Saturn Mahadasha of 19 years. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara counts it among its four "fixed" stars, and the comparison with the other three in this app's muhurat engine turns out to be one of the clearer places where the engine's tables and the book's classes part company. 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 belongs to a 27-page series laid out the same way, so it can be read beside Purva Bhadrapada, its "earlier" partner, and Revati, the last of the 27. The sign is described on the Pisces (Meena) page. The engine's method is on the methodology page and the books on the sources page.

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

Uttara Bhadrapada is the 26th 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 Bhadrapada runs from Pisces 3°20' to Pisces 16°40', wholly inside Pisces. A planet is "in Uttara Bhadrapada" when its sidereal longitude falls inside that arc. When someone says "my nakshatra is Uttara Bhadrapada", 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.

Uttara Bhadrapada lies wholly inside Pisces, touching neither edge, so a Moon there is always a Pisces Moon, with Jupiter as sign lord and Saturn as star lord. It is not at a Gandanta junction; that comes at the end of the next star, Revati.

BPHS Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50 puts Mercury's fall in Pisces, deepest at 15 degrees, the same degree as its exaltation in Virgo. Pisces 15° lies inside Uttara Bhadrapada's fourth pada (Pisces 13°20' to 16°40'), so a Mercury there is close to its deepest fall. That is about Mercury placed in the star; the Moon has no dignity change in Pisces.

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 Bhadrapada's own lord, Saturn. 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 Bhadrapada

Three books in this app's library speak about Uttara Bhadrapada 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 Bhadrapada as a counting point and a member of groups rather than describing it. Advanced Predictive Astrology places it in one of its humour groups; Saravali does not name it in the text read for this page. 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. 87-112)

Entry 26, headed Uttaraabhaadra (pada), says the star "is also called Praushthapada" and describes it as "in the form of a bedstead (paryanka) composed of eight stars", with Ahirbudhnya as presiding deity. The people associated with it "are dancers, travellers, rulers, dealers in rice, fruits and roots, gold; they are rich, generous, devout and follow the rules of the holy scriptures." Its body part is the shins.

The prose reading: the person "will be an able speaker, will be happy, will possess children and grandchildren, will conquer his enemies and will be virtuous". The sloka and its translation: "wealthy, well-born, skilled in performance. He is honoured by kings; he is strong and full of lustre. He likes to do good deeds and is attached to his family." The two readings agree, and both are among the most favourable in the chapter. The engine's line, "wealthy and well-regarded, skilled, strong, and deeply attached to family", condenses the sloka.

Uttaraabhaadra is one of the four fixed stars on p. 90, "Rohini, Uttara, Uttaraashaada, Uttaraabhaadra are fixed", and p. 91 makes the class a timing rule: during the period of a planet placed in the star, effects follow its characteristics. It is the Sthithi member of its triad (p. 88), between Poorvaabhaadra and Revathi, so no durithamsa caution applies, and it is neither downward-looking nor Gandanta.

Unlike Poorvaabhaadra and Shathabhisha, whose entries contradict the direction list, Uttaraabhaadra is "northern" both in its entry and on p. 90, where it is the only star listed for the northern regions.

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

BPHS lists Uttarabhadra twenty-sixth, and Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the twenty-sixth deity Ahirbuddhnya. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's Ahirbudhnya is the same name, so the books agree.

Ch. 46 places the star in three groups. Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41), for charts with the Sun in the Lagna, gives "Shatabhisha, P.Bhadra, U.Bhadra" to Rahu, 6 years. Kalachakra puts "Purvabhadrapad, Uttarabhadrapad and Revati" in the Savya chakra (Sl. 56-58), and Sl. 65 lists Uttarabhadrapad among the five stars whose padas are "the same, as for Bharani"; the pada table uses the Bharani padas of Sl. 66-69. And Ashtottari (Sl. 17-20) opens Rahu's run of four with it, as the dasha section explains. No system counts from it, and it is not at a Gandanta junction.

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

Advanced Predictive Astrology

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 225) puts Uttara Bhadrapada in its Pitta humour group, with Bharani, Mrigasira, Pushyami, P. Phalguni, Chitra, Anuradha, Purvasadha and Dhanishta. The book's health readings are the author's and are not medical advice; nothing else in it singles this star out.

Where the sources disagree

The books agree on the deity and the descriptions agree with each other. The clearest divergence is between Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's classes and the engine's muhurat lists. The book names four fixed stars together. The engine puts three of them, Rohini, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha, on five of its six activity lists each, and the fourth, Uttara Bhadrapada, on one, Marriage. The book gives no activity lists in the pages read, so this is not a contradiction of a stated rule; but a reader who assumes the engine follows the book's fixed class will be surprised.

The engine's Manushya gana and Cow yoni for Uttara Bhadrapada have no source in this library, as its header says; the Madhya nadi has the partial anchor in the humour table, where it is Pitta.

The four fixed stars in the book and in the engine

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's fixed class is short enough to lay out in full, and putting the engine's output beside it shows exactly where the two agree. The book itself attaches only the timing rule of p. 91 to the class; any further use, for example in choosing a time, is the engine's and not the book's. The other two "Uttara" stars in the class are covered on the Uttara Ashadha and Uttara Phalguni pages, and Rohini on the Rohini page.

Two patterns stand out. The engine's lists for the first three are identical, every activity except Travel, which is consistent with treating fixed stars as good for lasting undertakings and less so for movement; the book does not state such a rule, but the engine's lists behave as if it did. Uttara Bhadrapada alone breaks the pattern, kept for Marriage and dropped from Business launch, Property purchase, New job and Investment. Nothing in the engine's code comments explains the exception, so this page reports it rather than guessing a reason.

The four padas of Uttara Bhadrapada

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 Bhadrapada's first pada: 25 nakshatras have passed, 25 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.

Uttara Bhadrapada is the middle star of its group of three, so its navamsas run Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio. None is vargottama; Pisces's own navamsa is the last of the sign, in Revati's fourth pada. The navamsa dispositors of an Uttara Bhadrapada Moon are, pada by pada, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars.

The fourth pada holds Mercury's deepest fall, Pisces 15°, and a Mercury there also has a Scorpio navamsa. The Kalachakra columns are 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 app computes Kalachakra from these rows.

The sub-lord table runs from Saturn's own sub, 126.67 arc-minutes, at the start of the star, to Jupiter's at its end, Pisces 14°53' to 16°40'. Jupiter is also the sign lord, so a Moon in that last slice has Jupiter as sign lord and sub-lord and Saturn as star lord.

Uttara Bhadrapada 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 Bhadrapada is 24; 24 divided by 9 leaves 6, and that is Saturn. The engine reaches the same lord from its own table. Sl. 15 gives Saturn 19 years. A Moon in Uttara Bhadrapada therefore starts life in a Saturn 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 19 years.

Run on a sample birth of 1 January 2000 with the Moon a quarter of the way into Uttara Bhadrapada, the engine leaves three quarters of the Saturn period, 14.25 years, and dates the next periods from there:

What a Saturn period is classically held to bring is on the Saturn Mahadasha page and the Saturn 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 Saturn balance can be anything up to 19 years; the Mercury period follows, then Ketu's 7 and Venus's 20. In the sample run the Saturn balance ends in April 2014, Mercury runs to April 2031 and Ketu to April 2038, so the first three periods carry the native past the age of thirty-eight before Venus begins.

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 Bhadrapada opens Rahu's run of four, Uttara Bhadrapada, Revati, Ashwini and Bharani, so an Uttara Bhadrapada Moon starts in a Rahu period of 12 years. Under Sl. 21-22 a malefic's period is shared a quarter per star, three years each, so at the very start of the star none of Rahu's period has elapsed. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's table (p. 120) lists the same four stars under Rahu, 12 years. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. V (p. 120) prints the same grouping as a table. The app computes Ashtottari this way, with the balance and every period dated, 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 Bhadrapada (sampled at the middle of the star) the alternate dashas calculator returns:

Of the engine's six systems, Shatabdik gives Uttara Bhadrapada Mars for 20 years and Dwisaptati-sama Rahu for 9. The first lord therefore differs in every system: Saturn in Vimshottari, Rahu in Ashtottari and Shastihayani, and the six in the table. A dasha date means nothing without its system named.

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's timing rule (p. 91) says that a planet placed in a fixed star gives effects of that nature during its period. The book does not elaborate, and the app does not apply the rule.

Uttara Bhadrapada 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 Bhadrapada in the Manushya gana, the Madhya nadi and the Cow 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 Bhadrapada 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 Uttara Bhadrapada 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 Bhadrapada's Madhya nadi, and so also scoring 0 on Nadi against it, are Bharani, Mrigashira, Pushya, Purva Phalguni, Chitra, Anuradha, Purva Ashadha, Dhanishta. On Yoni, Uttara Phalguni shares the Cow and scores the full 4; the engine treats the Tiger as the Cow's enemy, so Chitra and Vishakha 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 Bhadrapada, the unfavourable stars are Ashwini (3), Krittika (5), Mrigashira (7), Magha (12), Uttara Phalguni (14), Chitra (16), Mula (21), Uttara Ashadha (23), Dhanishta (25). 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 Bhadrapada is on the Marriage list. Uttara Bhadrapada is on the Marriage list only. Compare Rohini, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha, which Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara classes with it as fixed, and which the engine puts on five lists each. 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 Bhadrapada native that is Purva Ashadha. The engine does not apply that rule.

Checking Uttara Bhadrapada 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 Bhadrapada 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 Saturn 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.

Uttara Bhadrapada is wholly inside Pisces and away from junctions, so the star itself is rarely in doubt; the pada and sub-lord can be. The kundali feature shows the star with the full chart, and the unknown birth time article explains what can be settled without a time.

Common misreadings of Uttara Bhadrapada

• "Uttara Bhadrapada is a fixed star, so the app treats it like Rohini." The book classes them together; the engine's muhurat table does not, listing Rohini for five activities and Uttara Bhadrapada for one.
• "Mercury is debilitated in Uttara Bhadrapada." Mercury is in its fall sign anywhere in Pisces; the deepest point, Pisces 15°, happens to fall in this star's fourth pada.
• Saturn as star lord does not make the star harsh. Both of Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's readings for it are among the most favourable in the chapter.
• The shared name Praushthapada does not make the two Bhadrapadas one star: different lords, deities, classes and engine tables.
• A Saturn Mahadasha at birth is not Sade Sati. One is a period fixed by the Moon's star; the other a transit of Saturn around the Moon sign.

Questions about Uttara Bhadrapada

Which sign is Uttara Bhadrapada nakshatra in?

Pisces, entirely: Pisces 3°20' to 16°40'.

Who is the lord of Uttara Bhadrapada?

Saturn, with a Vimshottari period of 19 years. The deity, Ahirbuddhnya in BPHS and Ahirbudhnya in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, is a separate matter. See the Saturn 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 Uttara Bhadrapada?

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

Is Uttara Bhadrapada good for a wedding muhurat in the app?

It is on the Marriage list, so a marriage window with the Moon there gains 16 points on the nakshatra factor. It is on no other list. The muhurat feature shows the other factors.

When is Sade Sati for an Uttara Bhadrapada Moon?

The engine defines Sade Sati as Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from the natal Moon, so for a Pisces Moon the band is Aquarius, Pisces and Aries. The Sade Sati calculator gives the dates.

Which star is the vainasika star for an Uttara Bhadrapada native?

By Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's 22nd-star rule (p. 89), Purva Ashadha. The app's muhurat engine does not use the rule.

Does a Mercury in Uttara Bhadrapada count as debilitated in the app?

The app's dignity reading treats Mercury as debilitated anywhere in Pisces, its fall sign. BPHS puts the deepest point at Pisces 15°, in this star's fourth pada, so a Mercury there is not only in its fall sign but close to its deepest fall.

Why is the Ashtottari lord Rahu when the Vimshottari lord is Saturn?

The two systems group stars differently. Vimshottari, which the app uses, cycles nine lords through the 27 stars from Krittika; Ashtottari runs eight lords in alternating blocks of four and three from Ardra, and its Rahu block begins at Uttara Bhadrapada. Neither grouping is a correction of the other.

What does an Uttara Bhadrapada pair score in the match tool?

28 of 36: full on seven kootas and 0 on Nadi. The match tool prints every koota.