Chitra Pada 2 (Virgo Navamsa)

Chitra Pada 2 at a Glance

Pada

2nd of 4 — navamsa 54 of the zodiac's 108

Sidereal span

Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′ — 176°40′ – 180°00′ sidereal

Rashi (Moon sign)

Virgo — Chitra straddles Virgo and Libra, and the pada decides which

Navamsa (D-9)

Virgo, ruled by Mercury — vargottama

Navamsa from the rashi

1st from Virgo — the rashi itself

Mars in Virgo

in an enemy’s sign — working against the grain

Name syllable

Po

Mars dasha balance

3 years 6 months to 5 years 3 months of the 7-year period

What Pada 2 Settles About a Chitra Birth

This is the pada that matters most on Chitra, because Chitra crosses a sign boundary and pada 2 lands in Virgo. The rest of the nakshatra divides differently — padas 3 and 4 are in Libra — so two people who both read Chitra as their birth star can have different rashis, different rashi lords and different monthly readings. Pada 2 shares Virgo with pada 1 of Chitra.

The pada is fixed by the Moon’s exact longitude, so it needs the birth time and place rather than the date: a Chitra Moon anywhere in Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′ is pada 2, and the Moon crosses 3°20′ in roughly five to seven hours depending on how fast it is moving. A free kundli will say pada 2 rather than just Chitra, and with it the Virgo navamsa and how much of the Mars mahadasha was left.

Virgo Navamsa: What the D-9 Adds

The second pada of Chitra is the Virgo navamsa, lorded by Mercury — the 1st sign from Virgo, the rashi itself. Virgo in the rashi chart and Virgo in the navamsa are the same sign, which makes Chitra pada 2 vargottama — 12 of the 108 padas are, exactly one per sign, and this is the one that belongs to Virgo. A graha anywhere in Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′ is read as delivering what Virgo promises in the rashi chart rather than qualifying it.

Two grahas carry this pada: Mars, which lords Chitra, and Mercury, which lords the Virgo navamsa. Between Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′ and the Virgo D-9 that arc points to, Mars counts Mercury a natural enemy, so pada 2 asks for two things at once. Reading Chitra pada 2 in a particular chart means reading both Mars and Mercury.

Where Mars Stands in This Pada

Mars lords Chitra, and in the Virgo navamsa Mars is in an enemy’s sign — working against the grain. That is a statement about pada 2 specifically: the lord of a nakshatra sits in a different navamsa sign in each of its four quarters, and across Chitra the grade runs from Mars in its own sign in Scorpio at pada 4 down to Mars in an enemy’s sign in Virgo at pada 2 — pada 2 is the weakest of the four on this test.

Chitra pada 2 is one of 27 padas that put the lord in hostile ground. The Moon matters separately, since a pada is a Moon position: in Virgo the Moon is in a friend’s sign, which is about the mind a Chitra pada 2 birth starts with rather than about what Mars can deliver.

Vimshottari: The Mars Balance a Pada 2 Birth Starts With

A Moon in Chitra means life begins inside a Mars mahadasha, 7 years long. The pada fixes how much of it is left: pada 2 of Chitra runs from 3 years 6 months to 5 years 3 months remaining — 50% to 75% of the 7 years — where knowing only that the Moon was somewhere in Chitra leaves the whole 7 years open. Inside Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′ it takes the exact longitude to place a birth within that range, and the pada is as far as a nakshatra reading gets.

Mars rules three of the 27 nakshatras, so Chitra shares that 7-year opening with Mrigashira and Dhanishta — and pada 2 of Chitra shares the range above with pada 2 of those two, because the balance turns on the quarter rather than on which Mars nakshatra it is. Pada 3 of Chitra carries a different one. The dasha calculator takes the Mars balance a Chitra pada 2 birth starts with and lays out what follows it: Rahu for 18 years, then Jupiter.

The Syllable Po

A child born with the Moon in Chitra pada 2 is traditionally named from Po. The other three quarters of Chitra give Pe for pada 1, Ra for pada 3 and Ree for pada 4, which is why a naming list keyed to the nakshatra alone gets it wrong three times out of four — the syllable follows the pada, and the pada follows the longitude.

The Other Three Padas of Chitra

Chitra is Virgo 23°20′ – Libra 6°40′, ruled by Mars, Rakshasa gana, tiger yoni, Madhya nadi, and pada 2 shares every one of those with the other three. What belongs to pada 2 alone is the arc, the navamsa and the syllable — Virgo 26°40′ – 30°00′, Virgo, Po:

The rashi column is the one to read first on Chitra: it changes inside the nakshatra, which is true of only nine of the 27. The · in the navamsa column marks pada 2 itself: Virgo twice over.

Frequently Asked Questions