ONE QUESTION · A WORKED CHART
What is a nakshatra pada?
Comparing birth stars with a friend can reveal the same name but a different quarter. A nakshatra, or birth-star division, has four quarters called padas, each 3°20′ wide. Your quarter locates the Moon more precisely and connects it to Navamsa, the ninth-part chart also called D9; it comes from the Moon's degree, not from how well a personality description seems to fit.
The boundaries matter. Purva Phalguni begins at Leo 13°20′. Its first pada ends just before Leo 16°40′; its second runs from 16°40′ to just before 20°. A position exactly at a quarter's end belongs to the next quarter. Phaladipika 22.1 describes the four quarters, and chapter 3 covers sign divisions.
See it in a chart
Example birth: 15 January 1990, 08:30 IST · New Delhi
The fictional chart's Moon is at 139.074608° measured from the start of Aries, or Leo 19.074608°. That is 5.741275° into Purva Phalguni, placing it in pada 2. This quarter maps to Virgo in D9, whose ruler is Mercury. In the main birth chart, Mercury is in Sagittarius in the twelfth house with Saturn. That is one connection to follow; Mercury's placement in D9 needs a separate look. The Moon stays in Leo in the main chart.
- Moon longitude
- 139.074608°
- Distance into Purva Phalguni
- 5.741275°
- Pada width
- 3°20′
- Result
- Pada 2
For your own chart
For this example, keep the three labels together: Purva Phalguni, pada 2, Virgo Navamsa. If an app and a family record give different quarters, compare the birth time and Moon's exact degree first. A boundary difference is a calculation question before it is an interpretation question.
Near a quarter's edge, an uncertain birth time may leave the pada unresolved. No quarter is inherently better than another.
For astrologers: calculation details
Fictional Demo Chart A · 15 January 1990, 08:30 IST (UTC+05:30)
New Delhi, India; 28.6139° N, 77.2090° E
Lahiri sidereal zodiac; mean nodes; whole-sign houses; geocentric geometric positions; Vimshottari with a 365.25636-day year. UTC birth instant: 1990-01-15T03:00:00Z. Reference instant: 2026-09-28T06:30:00Z.
Angles are rounded to six decimal places; arithmetic uses the saved full values. Period boundaries are displayed to the nearest second in IST. These settings describe the calculation, not the precision of a birth record.
Follow the calculation
- Purva Phalguni starts at Leo 13°20′. Its first quarter runs from 13°20′ up to, but not including, 16°40′ Leo.
- The second quarter runs from 16°40′ to just before 20° Leo. The demo Moon at Leo 19.074608° sits between those boundaries.
- Counting 3°20′ segments from the nakshatra's start therefore gives quarter 2. The end of each quarter belongs to the next quarter, not both.