What tarabala is
Tarabala means the strength of the star. When a muhurta is chosen for a person, the astrologer looks at the Moon on the day in two ways: the sign it is in, counted from your Moon sign (that is chandrabala), and the nakshatra it is in, counted from your birth nakshatra. The second check is tarabala. It is a personal check, so the same day can be good for one person and less so for another, even when the tithi and the weekday suit everyone.
The tradition uses it before a new beginning: a journey, a purchase, a first day at work, a ceremony. It is not used to judge how an ordinary day will go.
The nine taras
Count from your birth nakshatra as the first, up to the nakshatra of the day, and divide by nine. The remainder gives the tara. The 27 nakshatras therefore fall into nine groups of three, which repeat three times around the sky:
- Janma, your birth star itself
- Sampat, wealth
- Vipat, obstacles
- Kshema, well-being
- Pratyak, opposition
- Sadhana, accomplishment
- Naidhana, the most avoided
- Mitra, a friend
- Parama Mitra, a close friend
Sampat, Kshema, Sadhana, Mitra and Parama Mitra are counted favourable. Vipat, Pratyak and Naidhana are the three the texts advise against for a new start. Janma is mixed: it is not usually chosen for something major, but it is not feared for daily life. Some texts also treat the 10th and the 19th nakshatra from your own, called Anujanma and Trijanma, in the same way as the birth star, and the tool lists all three nakshatras of each tara so that you can see this.
How the tool works
You give your birth nakshatra, or your birth date, time and place and the tool works it out from the Moon’s position at that moment. You then give the place where you are and a starting date. The Moon’s position is read from the Swiss Ephemeris tables on this site, in the sidereal zodiac with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and the tool finds the exact moment the Moon passes from one nakshatra to the next, to the second. Those moments are cut into local calendar days at your place, so a day that holds two nakshatras shows both, each with its tara.
The result has three parts: an answer for the day you chose, a table for that day and the following thirty, and your nine taras with the three nakshatras that belong to each.
Reading the table
The Moon spends about a day in each nakshatra, so most dates show two, and the change can come at any hour. A date marked favourable all day has only favourable taras. One marked mixed has a favourable and an avoided stretch, and the times tell you which part of the day to use. If you are choosing a time for something important, the tarabala is only one of the checks. The tithi, the weekday, Rahu kaal, chandrabala and the rising sign are all looked at together, and the muhurat finder and the panchang for any place cover the others.
Where traditions differ
The count of nine is common to all the muhurta texts, but the fine points are not. Some authorities treat Janma as favourable for rest and avoid it only for beginnings; others avoid it more strictly. Some give extra weight to the pada of the birth nakshatra. The nakshatra at birth also depends on the exact time, and if you were born close to a change you may have a different birth star in another almanac. The tool keeps to the plain count above and says what it has done.
None of this is a forecast. A day marked as avoided is not a bad day to live through, and a day marked favourable does not guarantee an outcome. If you would like the Moon’s sign checked as well, open the Chandrabala and Tarabala calculator, and to find your birth star first use the nakshatra calculator or the Moon sign calculator.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is tarabala in Vedic astrology?
It is the strength of the day's Moon nakshatra for you, found by counting from your birth nakshatra to the day's nakshatra and taking the remainder after dividing by nine. It is used with other checks when a date is chosen for a new beginning.
↳ Which taras are good and which are avoided?
Sampat, Kshema, Sadhana, Mitra and Parama Mitra are counted favourable. Vipat, Pratyak and Naidhana are traditionally avoided for new beginnings, and Janma, the birth star itself, is mixed.
↳ Why does my tara change in the middle of a day?
The Moon changes nakshatra about once a day, at a different hour each time. When it moves to the next nakshatra the tara moves on with it, so the table shows the time of each change.
↳ What if I do not know my birth nakshatra?
Choose the option to work it out from your birth details and give the date, the time as exactly as you know it, and the place. The Moon moves about thirteen degrees a day, so an hour or two of error is usually fine, unless you were born close to a change of nakshatra.
↳ Is tarabala the same as chandrabala?
No. Tarabala counts nakshatras from your birth star, and chandrabala counts signs from your Moon sign. Both come from the same Moon, and the traditional advice is to look at both, along with the tithi and weekday, before a new start.