Free Nakshatra Calculator by Date of Birth

Enter your birth details above and this free nakshatra calculator finds your birth star: the nakshatra and pada your Moon was in when you were born. With it you get the nakshatra’s ruling planet, deity, gana, yoni and nadi, your Moon sign, and the traditional first sound for a name given from your birth pada. A nakshatra is one of the twenty-seven lunar mansions of Vedic astrology, and the one your Moon occupied at birth is called your birth star.

How this calculator works

Positions are computed in your own browser by our ephemeris, using the Lahiri ayanamsa and the mean lunar node for Rahu and Ketu, read from tables calculated from NASA JPL DE440, which agree with it to within a few seconds of arc for births from 1899 to 2075 (outside those years a compact series is used, good to about a minute of arc for the Moon, and the result says so). The time zone in force at your birth place on your birth date, including daylight saving, is applied automatically. The working is done in your browser. Once your email is confirmed, the birth details you enter and the headline of the result are kept with it, so that our emails can fit your chart (see the privacy policy).

The twenty-seven nakshatras divide the zodiac into equal spans, and each divides again into four padas. The calculator locates your Moon’s exact sidereal position within this scheme and reads off the nakshatra, the pada, and everything the tradition attaches to it: its ruling planet, its presiding deity, its gana (deva, manushya or rakshasa), its yoni, the animal symbol used in chart matching, its nadi, and your Moon sign. It also reads off the pada’s naming syllable from the Avakahada chakra, the traditional table used to choose the first sound of a name, for example Chu, Che, Cho or La for the four padas of Ashwini. Boy and girl names for every syllable, with their meanings, are in the baby names by nakshatra guide.

Without a birth time, the calculator uses midday. If the Moon changed nakshatra on your date of birth, which happens because the Moon moves through roughly one nakshatra a day, it shows both possibilities along with the time the change occurred, rather than guessing which one applies to you.

Reading your result

Your nakshatra and pada are shown first, since everything else follows from them. The lord tells you which planet’s dasha begins your Vimshottari sequence. The gana, yoni and nadi are three of the eight classical factors used in matching two charts for marriage (the deity is the presiding god of the star, not a matching factor), and the naming syllable is the traditional starting sound rather than a complete name; families have always chosen the rest freely.

Where traditions differ

The nakshatra boundaries and lords are agreed on everywhere in the sidereal tradition, since they follow directly from the twenty-seven equal divisions of the zodiac. Where sources genuinely vary is the naming syllables: a few panchang publishers list a slightly different sound for one or two padas, and regional traditions, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and others, sometimes use their own naming conventions rather than the Sanskrit Avakahada chakra this calculator follows. If a family astrologer or a regional panchang gives you a different first sound, that is a real variation between traditions, not a mistake.

What it cannot tell you

This calculator identifies your nakshatra and its traditional associations. It is not a compatibility check on its own: matching two charts for marriage traditionally weighs eight separate factors together, of which gana, yoni and nadi are only three, and it makes no personality or character claim beyond what the classical categories themselves state. For the full chart your nakshatra sits inside, including your dasha sequence and the rest of your planets, see the free kundali tool.

Frequently asked questions

For your full dasha sequence and the rest of your chart built from the same Moon position, use the free kundali tool.