Nakshatra 5 of 27
Mrigashiraमृगशिरा
23°20' Taurus – 6°40' Gemini sidereal
The deer's head — searching. Associated with curiosity, restlessness, and a quality of never quite settling, which the texts link to both scholarship and dissatisfaction.
Classical attributes
Used directly in compatibility scoring
- Ruling planet
- Mars
- Deity
- Soma
- Symbol
- Deer's head
- Gana
- DevaTemperament group
- Yoni
- Serpent (female)
- Nadi
- MadhyaConstitutional humour
- Varna
- Shudra
- Element
- Earth
- Nature
- Soft
The four padas
Each quarter falls in a different navamsha sign
- Pada 1
- Taurus23°20' Taurus – 26°40' Taurus
- Pada 2
- Taurus26°40' Taurus – 0°00' Gemini
- Pada 3
- Gemini0°00' Gemini – 3°20' Gemini
- Pada 4
- Gemini3°20' Gemini – 6°40' Gemini
What this nakshatra decides in a chart
If the Moon sits here at birth, Mrigashira is the birth nakshatra — and it fixes the entire Vimshottari dasha sequence. The first mahadasha is Mars's, and how far the Moon had travelled into these 13.33° decides how much of it had already elapsed before birth. Every dasha date in the chart follows from that one number.
The gana, yoni and nadi above are not decorative. They are read directly in Ashtakoota matching, where nadi alone carries eight of the thirty-six points.